About a year ago, our 1996 Toyota had a complete brake system failure. Fortunately, nobody was in the car at the time. But we woke up to find the car having essentially driven itself out of the parking area, over the retention wall, and onto our front lawn below. Most urgently we had to figure out how to get the car off the yard and that was quite the adventure, but I will perhaps tell that story at a later time. It took about a week or so to get it out of the yard and to a mechanic. The entire time we had assumed that our days of driving the Camry were done. And so, for the first time in a decade, it was time to go car shopping. In the worst car buying market in modern history. The first step being car-shopping for what?
For the last ten years we’ve had the Camry and a Subaru Forester, a midsize sedan and a crossover SUV. I was thinking about that the other day with this exchange:
This is only true if you count crossovers as SUVs. Many of them are quite small and have similar fuel economy to sedans. Big SUVs and trucks are more like 30%. https://t.co/nCKkPuNhHz
— Nick Wagers (@nawagers) October 17, 2022
The extra context that Wagers adds clarifies things quite a bit. Much of the shift may be a relatively small change in customer preference rather than a tidal wave. The Camry may be a midsize sedan and the Forester an SUV, but in many ways they occupy a very similar consumer space. They can both fit three car seats but only barely or three adults but only uncomfortably. They both are relatively family-friendly for a family of four for a small trip or luggage to go to the airport but potentially a struggle for a real roadtrip once you start throwing pets into the mix. As we were pondering what car to buy, one of the things we had to ask ourselves was “What precisely are the advantages of a sedan?”
Contra Foxtrot’s post, it’s not clearly an issue of mileage. The Camry got better mileage than the Forester but that’s mostly a matter of Toyota vs Subaru1. You can go smaller than a midsize and get better mileage or you can go up to a midsize SUV nd get something with more storage capacity, but at that point you’re dealing with more start tradeoffs and less overlap. The Camry and Forester/RAV4 are often substitutable but the Corolla (compact sedan) and Toyota Highlander (midsize SUV) are less so. It’s the upper mid-size and full-size sedan and crossover SUV that occupy the most similar space.
It’s honestly not hard to see why SUVs are so competitive in this space, though it’s mostly a matter of preference on the margins. Sedans have better maneuverability and are safer in some respects (particularly when it comes to children and animals around them). The crossovers have moderately more cargo space at baseline with the potential to put seats down and create a ton more with roof racks that can allow for even more on top of that. The former is a moderately better suburban commuting vehicle but the latter is a much better family vehicle (though not a great family vehicle, which I will get to).
What we found as we were pondering all of this is that we didn’t especially like the overlapping consumer space, as it provides neither the mileage benefit of smaller cars nor the cargo benefit of the larger SUVs. So we pretty found ourselves looking at compact sedans or midsize SUVs. Our own circumstances made the decision pretty easy. The specifics of our house make the extra lift of an SUV more important than it otherwise would be, and values all-wheel drive. We have also learned from experience from rentals that child safety seats are something of a pain when it comes to anything below a mid-size sedan. With all that in mind, we looked at the midsize SUV class and settled on an old Toyota Highlander.
Even with comparable mileage there are public policy reasons to discourage SUV purchasing because of the externalities (specifically hazard to kids and pets, as well as obscuring vision of people driving sedans) but it would be pretty hard to legislate since it’s not an issue of weight or mileage. If you tax gas enough you might talk us out of a Highlander but not out of owning at least one SUV or decent cargo vehicle. You could regulate height and clearance I suppose. Perhaps the best way to approach it would be to encourage carmakers to offer SUV-like features on sedans. If you have a hatchback or wagon you could mitigate some of the cargo space differential. Roof rails could also help. Ultimately, though, the customers interested in that are probably already in the SUV camp.
In that sense – perhaps the most important one – the products are not substitutable because the audiences have segregated themselves pretty firmly. And unfortunately for the champions of sedans, it seems easier to get used to the higher clearance than it does the more limited cargo space.
Another thing that’s gone mostly. Manual transmissions. You used to save a grand or so getting a manual vs automatic transmissions. No, most vehicles aren’t even offered in a manual. Why? Automatics give slightly higher fuel economy in gov’t tests and it increased the manufacturers fleet average. Notice that this change was NOT consumer driven.Report
Here here. I so miss my stick shifts. I once beat a mid 80’s corvette off the line at a stop light in my dad’s 1967 Volvo Amazon by quietly playing the clutch while we waited for the light to change. He smoked me on the straight of course . . . . .Report
I used to like sticks because fewer people asked to borrow my car.Report
I’m seriously thinking about buying a manual IF ONLY to eliminate the chance my car will ever be stolen. 🙂Report
People are buying far fewer sticks. It is at least in part consumer driven. They barely even make sticks for sports cars. They sure would if lots of people were buying them.Report
The steady march of obsolescence of stick shifts in luxury, sports and other high end cars falsifies your core allegation. Manual transmission isn’t vanishing because the gummint took your stick shifts- it’s vanishing because most people can’t be bothered to learn stick, which makes stick niche, which makes less people bother to learn stick, which makes stick even more niche, and economies of scale take over.
Same as how self driving cars, should they ever be perfected, will swiftly obliterate manual cars from the market with gummint nary lifting a finger.Report
Yes, there is a consumer choice element in this. But there’s also manufacturer decisions. Air condition used to be optional too, and power windows, etc. How many vehicles you see now like that? Why? part being no demand, part being the manufacturer wants to sell cares that “fully loaded”. And a lot of manufacturer “choices” are heavily influenced by various gov’t regulations, i.e. CAFE standards, crash impact, etc. It’s getting hard to buy a car that does NOT have all that new safety crap: lane departure, crash avoidance, etc. Since automatics give a higher average fuel efficiency, especially after you tweak the gears, it incentivizes the manufacture to build fewer manuals.
Ever notice that it’s very hard to get an eight-cylinder car? Even a six cylinder is much rarer today that it was a decade ago. Why? CAFE standards. Hell, BWM doesn’t even offer a 6 cylinder in the 3 series except for the M340i They did when I bought my 330i in @ 2010-it came standard.
You have to go up to the 5 series for one to be found standard, unless you go for the M upgrades. Do you really think that BMWs offerings are SOLEY driven by consumer choice?Report
Also, reducing choices reduces manufacturing costs. 30 or so years ago, Honda decided that the interior color on all their cars would be gray, with cloth seats. Those were the days when Detroit sold a variety of interior colors and both vinyl (cheap) or cloth (expensive) upholstery. I remember reading an industrial engineering piece about Honda’s savings. One part was a million cloth seats, all gray, were cheaper than a million vinyl seats in multiple colors. Another was several little process savings since it was no longer possible to mismatch interior trim components.Report
I would never dream of saying government has no influence over such things but the idea that the departure of stick shift from the market is largely or even majorly government driven strikes me as ludicrous.
My understanding is that power windows are enormously easier for manufacturers to make, install and manage that manual ones though I’m open to being corrected on that. It’s beyond me how a CAFE standard would eliminate manual windows.Report
This is his preferred vehicle and the damn government can pry it from his cold dead hands.
https://youtu.be/Thbg0HoJBJwReport
We entered our marriage with 2 small SUVs (a Ford Escape and a VW Tiguan). After a child and the vehicles becoming essentially family property we realized this made no sense. The VW was far roomier for passengers but the storage was laughable. The Escape had notably better cargo capacity but it was legitimately not comfortable for adults in the backseat. Of the two the Escape got considerably better mileage due to having ecoboost.
Once both were paid off we decided it would be better to have a legit larger SUV with some real capacity, mileage be damned, and a smaller more efficient car for local driving around (work from home of course helped this decision). For the small/efficient we got a hybrid Camry. Which gets me to the point- it is not meaningfully smaller than the Escape. The mileage of course isn’t apples to apples since one is a hybrid but the Camry is actually longer and has a lot more room in the backseat. The trunk is smaller but isn’t small. So all of this is to say I agree- treating these vehicles as different types since one is an ‘SUV’ and one a sedan really makes no sense. They’re competing for the same market space.Report
I really think this is the way to go. It is helpful to have a household to have one good cargo vehicle, but the next one need not be and there are advantages to have a good-mileage commuter car depending on the commute.Report
Is there data on the risk posed by the SUVs to pets/kids?Report
Always. This is for kids in the vehicle, though.
pegasusinsuranceservices.com/2013/10/19/study-shows-suvs-are-not-safer-for-kids/Report
Most of what I see is worked out from the physics. Mostly in the form of reducing visibility of short objects. So you’re more likely to back into or roll over them. Reverse cameras help with the former and I think they have some sensors now to help with both.Report
One factor often cited for the pickups and SUVs with very tall grills is the increased likelihood of striking pedestrians in the head or torso, and damaging more important organs.Report
Oh right, impact point also.Report
I have suburu crosstrek. It’s a car. A bit higher off the ground and more space are good for me but it’s still just a car. Which is fine.Report
My boys have crosstreks… love ’em.Report
I also have had very good experience with suburus’ though that was after over a decade of a Ford fusion running like a clock.Report
I’m a Crosstrek owner as well. It’s the best vehicle I’ve ever owned.Report
At some point, there isn’t really a difference between smaller SUV and hatchbacks. The smaller SUVs really have managed to reduce their gas mileage.
I’ve had a hatchback for years now, although admittedly I don’t have to worry about hauling a lot of things…but the few occassions I have had to, they have fit just fine. I think the main difference is that the hatchback is really maneuverable with a smaller turning radius, and the SUV might have 10% more space and is higher up. (Which is something I really dislike, but that’s just me.)Report
The answer to all is my Honda Ridgeline…
Seats 5, ok milage, trunk *and* pick-up bed *and* roof rack, rides high, menace to children and small animals – but not as much as full-size truck – and drives like a car from 1987.Report
The labeling of all these things has always amused me. We had a Mazda 5 for years – seats 6, great cargo space with the third row folded down, good gas mileage and about as high and long and my wife’s current Subaru Outback. yet in the auto parts world that vehicle is a truck.Report
Trucks are popular because they’re big, and because of that, everything needs to be a truck.
Buying a car is always an adventure because only about one lot out of three has a car that will fit me. So I can assure you, not all cars are large.Report
Sometime in the next few years I’ll be swapping our old Honda Fit (14 years) and older Honda Odyssey (23 years) plus a pile of cash for an electric crossover of some sort and 240V charger in the garage. By 2028 or so the electricity that charges it will be darned close to carbon-free. With any luck the charger and car will be capable of doing time-shifting during the summer so I can use middle-of-the-night 8-cent-per-kWh electricity to run the A/C during the hotter afternoons (when the utility wants 23 cents).Report