From: Greg Burch (gregburch@gregburch.net)
Date: Thu Feb 06 2003 - 06:56:16 MST
[two topics that will get me out of my lurk -- space and cars ...]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Russell Blackford
> Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 11:01 PM
>
> Honda makes cars that are
> really sweet to
> drive. So exactly why are cars like this so unpopular in the
> US? Is it the
> felt need to chauffeur around a stack of kids in something that feels
> "protective"?
As my rant about SUVs
http://www.gregburch.net/cars/suvs.html
I referred to points out, I think your suggestion is a big part of it.
I think manufacturers who can provide the same feeling of "security"
that an SUV provides in a vehicle with better weight and aerodynamic
characteristics will be able to succeed in tapping into this urge. Many
of the "SUVish" class of so-called "cross-over" vehicles do this: They
are really large cars, since they have monocoque structure, independent
rear suspensions and don't weigh as much as the pickup-based kind of
SUVs. I toy with designs that could do this even better in my
drive-time mental wanderings. Since the vast majority of car-buyer's
decisions are made on the purely superficial visual characteristics of a
car, I think this could be done.
Another thing to think about is that, even though America's roads *are*
being increasingly blighted by the gigantism of SUVs, there are still
*plenty* of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars on America's roads. I'm
sure (couldn't lay my hands on good figures in a minute of googling,
though) that the U.S. fleet of fuel-efficient cars is larger than any
other country's total fleet. I see *lots* of small, efficient cars on
Houston's freeways, and this is the absolute heart of "truck country".
Greg Burch
Vice-President, Extropy Institute
http://www.gregburch.net
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