by The_Toecutter » Sat 19 Jan 2013, 23:35:18
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', 'T')here's really no mass market for hyper-efficient cars in the United States, no matter how bad some people might want them. A mass-marketed vehicle that's getting 75MPG or better and has a range of at least a couple of hundred miles is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $50k.
WHY would it cost at least $50k? Seriously, why? All that is needed is for a mass produced platform that is rear wheel drive and sturdy to be used as a basis. Do a little wind tunnel work without giving the stylists any input until a basic, aerodynamic shape is achieved to meet the car's function. THEN let the stylists have at it, not the other way around. Over a production run of 5 figures or more, per car, extensive wind tunnel testing to yield a fleshed out car with a sub 0.2 drag coefficient would cost much less than $100 per car sold. Use an inexpensive manual transmission, say, some nice beefy parts out of a cheap entry-level truck, a RWD platform with similar truck parts, and keep the car extremely simple and no-frills to keep the costs as low as possible.
I can't think of any reason it should cost more than an ordinary, cheap entry level car like a Nissan Versa or Hyundai Accent. Conventional materials could be used to build the car and still keep it very light, well under 2,000 lbs. Look at the Scion IQ, for instance, at 1,896 lbs. The problem with the Scion is that the layout is the wrong type for competition purposes(front wheel drive instead of the desirable rear wheel drive) and its proportions and aerodynamics are not conducive to either performance or fuel economy, much like the Smart Car, hindering its true potential greatly. People in the U.S. don't often buy a Smart or a Scion IQ because it looks good(because it doesn't, at least to most Americans), they buy them because they are easy to park, simple, maneuverable, safe, cheap, have a lot of usable storage space, and are relatively fuel efficient.
A low drag shape with plenty of storage space along with having good downforce at highspeeds could easily be put together. Look at the Lotus Europa from the 1960s and 70s, for example, but imagine it with a front engined, rear drive layout, and with a hatchback configuration with an appearance not unlike some weird mix of a Triumph GT6, Honda CRX, or Smart Roadster in overall shape. Its practicality, even if only a 2 seater, would be significant, along with the potential for a slightly elongated variant of the chassis to be turned into a fuel-efficient four-seater.
There is such a huge pent-up demand for a light, fast vehicle with rear wheel drive that overweight vehicles initially ill-suited for racing are still selling like mad in the U.S. because the enthusiasts have little other choice than to use a kit, re-engineer an old car to meet their purposes, or build their own. Many "supercars" initially weigh in at close to 4,000 lbs, only to have any and all resale value ruined by turning it into a 2,500 lb race car by gutting out all of its luxuries, and this happens over, and over, and over again. In fact, there are people willing to pay a few ten thousand extra dollars for having that "privilege" right from the factory instead of having to gut it themselves.
A fuel-efficient sports car platform, designed to later accommodate a 4-door subcompact layout, could literally save Detroit, as musclecar performance can be provided with very little horsepower, and a hatchback variant could be made to seat 4 people, easily showing up inferior and currently existing front wheel drive imports with regard to fuel economy
and fun factor. People are clamoring on autotrader sites for old Miatas, VW-based kit cars, lightweight RWD or 4WD pickups(Subaru Brat, Dodge Rampage, Chevy Luv, Mitsubishi Mighty Max), and other light, RWD/4WD vehicles, because there just aren't any vehicles like that on the new car market at all, let alone at an affordable price. These kinds of cars always command a huge premium if in good shape, even though they are 2nd, 3rd, or 10th hand sales.
If a hypothetical new Miata competitor lacked power anything, was built to 3/4 scale, weighed only 1800 lbs, had its body designed with function in mind instead of looks, maybe only had basic creature comforts such as air conditioning, a minimalist interior, cost under $20,000 due to use of conventional materials and much less of them than an ordinary car, and accelerated like crazy due to its light weight in spite of being an "underpowered" 4-cylinder with only around 150 horsepower, a *lot* of people would buy that, and it would lend itself well to increased fuel economy over the norm, with its platform and a variant of its body style usable on other vehicles to keep costs down.
Enthusiasts are spending far more money to put kits together because of a lack of cars like this on the market. People will pay far more money for overweight, overpowered cars that deliver the desired performance after being gutted of all of their luxuries, because the enthusiasts are seeking that kind of performance, damned be anything else, but there aren't any cheap alternatives available.
Could you imagine if they had a choice in the marketplace that was cheap by virtue of the product using so little parts and resources relative to everything else on the lot being fully loaded? Most new cars are expensive precisely because they come from the factory fully loaded with everything. The consumer doesn't want all of those features by default; it's just that the car companies are appealing to the lowest common denominator to boost prices for the pleasure of the dealerships, and during the late 2000s, manufacturers like Kia and Hyundai were obliterating the U.S. industry because they had cheap, lightweight, fuel-efficient, relatively low-frills, and reliable cars available. The sales figures don't lie.
Less is more.
Now imagine if such a car as I have described was built to not only appease the serious performance enthusiasts(people who begrudgingly buy Corvettes, Ferraris, Porsches, and Lamborghinis only to spend laborious hours and cash to gut them for racing), but at the same time, a driver who wants a light-weight, simple, fuel efficient daily runabout for commuting(people who buy a Smart Car, a Hyundai Accent, a Scion xA or IQ, Chevrolet Aveo, or a Toyota Yaris), within the exact same platform?
You wouldn't be able to keep people away. Both markets would have advantages in this new vehicle over the current competition within their isolated markets. It would fuse the two.
The problem is, it will not only cannibalize the sales of high-margin, heavy, overpowered, overpriced "halo" cars like the Corvettes and Porsche 911s, due to performing the same desired function to an enthusiast for much cheaper, it would also cannibalize the sales of existing econoboxes on the market since it would perform the function of being inexpensive to operate and easy to repair much better than the front wheel drive hum-drum barn-door aerodynamics econocrap available today that dealerships pad way too much margin into, and the major players within the auto industry aren't fond of a lower-profit margin item cannibalizing all of their high-margin cash cows.
RWD front-engined cars are easy to work on. No CV axels to worry about, no timing belts, and the front end can be built to hinge in the opposite direction to allow easy access to and repair of anything within the engine bay. Best of all, this kind of layout makes a monocoque body and rollcage structure cheap to implement, maximizing safety during a collision while keeping the cost down to do it.
The only real disadvantage with regard to safety is that you have to know how to drive it; RWD cars capable of accelerating fast do not reward the stupid, even the less powerful ones like the Caterham 7 kit cars.
The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the old growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder. ~Thomas Jefferson
