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Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

CAFE is not a particularly good law, but the arms race for crash safety is clearly to blame. The majority of difference between a 1990 Golf and a 2022 Golf is in the size and complexity of the body. And if you need a 30% bigger and more expensive frame to keep up your crash safety rating, you may as well add a few inches of passenger room.

We also cannot flatly ignore consumer preference. Two door car options used to be incredibly popular. But ask a new car buyer today if they are willing to part with rear passenger doors to save $1500 on their car and they will look at you like you are crazy.

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I suspect there’s something a bit like the “small phone” problem: there’s almost certainly a market for smaller sedans and coupes, but for whatever reason companies have decided that it’s not worth their time to make cars for that market. (There’s a similar issue for families with 6+ kids, where there’s just not a lot of good options in the “more seats than a minivan” space)

Ehn, didn't Apple over estimate the small phone market? It seemed like a good idea on paper, and there were many vocal supporters on the internet.. but at the end of the day, it missed expectations.

Adding to that, I think there are tradeoffs you typically make with small phones. E.g. worse battery life or slower phones. Given these tradeoffs, people end up not choosing small phones. If you could have same specs as an ultra or a pro in a smaller body, that is a different story.

Two things about the iPhone situation make the result not generalize. First, the Mini got a worse camera than the larger models. Second, Apple waited years before reintroducing a small phone so apps including theirs had mostly moved on. The small screen user experience is compromised in a way it wouldn't be if there had been continuity.

Mini camera is the same as the “regular” 6 inch iPhone, it’s only worse than the “Pro” iPhones.

Fair, in my case the camera drives my upgrades and the larger size isn't so annoying it's worth sacrificing photo quality.

Apple shot themselves in the foot with pricing. The 13 mini is $699. While the old iPhone 11 which is still sold is $499. The mini is better in every way, but that’s a big price difference. Even the new SE is roughly the same size just with a inferior screen and it’s only $429.

The iPad mini is in the same boat now too. It used to be the most popular iPad for a while because it was also the cheapest. But then they started updating it and moving it up the pricing ladder. It’s basically a smaller version of the Air except that just got updated to a M1.

this

you can have either nice mini for 50% extra over SE or archaic design for reasonable price

and then people are surprised why these are not selling, maybe just maybe how about providing nice design for reasonable price? but of course that world cannibalize sales of other models they wanna push, so let's blame the small phones

for the record Samsung S10e was best selling Samsung model in Czechia the year it was released

people argue that S22 has similar dimensions (4mm longer), but with no SD card, no jack, but most importantly starting price was roughly 10% higher than S10e and with S10e the price dropped after 3.5 months 30%, while with S22 we see less than 10% drop after 2.5 months and I doubt they will catch up the drop in the one month

For both we are talking essentially about "affordable options" - and the problem is twofold: they only make sense with economies of scale, and they can end up cannibalizing sales of existing products more than they generate sales.

I think us as a society may need to accept that there is no safe way to operate 3000+ lb vehicles at the speeds we do now with our current system of roads and infrastructure.

On the contrary, driving has never been safer!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

The only blip came from the introduction of smartphones (distracted driving). But I think people just need to know one of the tradeoffs has been fuel economy.

> But ask a new car buyer today if they are willing to part with rear passenger doors to save $1500 on their car and they will look at you like you are crazy.

Oh man, I would totally do this. I have so many other things I want to spend $1500 on.

(Not saying the average car buyer would do this or trying to dispute your point. Just sayin' I would.)

Same. But then again I have yet to actually buy a new car in my life. If I'm willing to buy a cheap car, I'd just as soon buy used.

I do not understand people who buy new cars.

If I knew I could get a (late model, U.S. market) compact pickup with 2 doors, where the vestigial passenger space most trucks have was converted into an extra foot of bed length instead, I think I would stop typing this comment and go buy one right now.

I came here looking to comment similarly - one of the other effects of the regulations not discussed in the article is the near complete disappearance of two door pickups from the American market. I have a two door, two seat 2008 Ford Ranger with manual transmission. It has a 6 foot bed which conveniently fits so many things, and it’s also compact enough to parallel park easily. I would love to upgrade to a newer model but I fear there will never be another truck that fits those requirements released again. Mine currently has ~150k miles on it and I’ve owned it for a decade and I fully intend to own it for another decade and another 150k miles.

One of the first things that you learn with a fancy marketing degree is that consumer responses to prices are not linear - if you have to raise your price $1 because of some new regulation, you may as well raise it $1.50 and add in a free drink.

Are 2 doors really that uncommon? Of the 4 cars I've owned, 3 have been 2-door. My brother's car is 2-door as well. I bet there's a big split on this re if you normally drive by yourself or with 1 passenger, vs with more than 1 other passenger. Ie, people with families are more likely to not look at 2-doors.

Outside of sports cars and specialist off-road, looking at the current ranges from manufacturers, you can only find 3-door variants in the most extreme budget categories, and often not at all.

A lot of non budget cars from Europe have 3 door versions for their current model years: Golf, BMW 1 series, Audi A3, Mini Cooper

I'm not sure if those are sold in the United States, I think you also aren't big fans of station wagons which are very common in Europe.

Those are what I mean by the most extreme budget categories of those manufacturers. Looking at their websites they don't even seem to advertise them? Maybe you have to special order them.

We have weird things that are like an interpolation between small trucks and big cars that fill the role of station wagons. Stuff like the Ford Edge. They're not quite SUVs, and they're not quite minivans. They're called crossovers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossover_(automobile)

The European and US car markets are really different. In addition to different safety requirements, there are dealership laws and many more import restrictions. The end result is that we have many, many fewer choices for make and model, and that affects the availability of low cost options.

Nowadays in the USA at least, it’s hard to even find a 2-door pickup truck. Forget about a 2-door car unless it’s a sports coupe. Even a tiny cheap car like a Honda Fit or Nissan Versa is 4 doors. And they eliminated mid-range coupes like the Accord Coupe or Camry Solara.

The Fit (Europe: Jazz) too, has been eliminated in the North American market, at least. Sob.

In the US, I can't recall the last time I've seen a 2-door car outside of a smaller 2-door truck, and even those are uncommon.

That seems impossible unless you rule out Mustangs, etc.

BMW 2-doors are popular.

good luck with resale of two door car, while you can ignore extra two doors while using it, nobody who needs them (and that will be vast majority of buyers) will even look at your car

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