$8k Suzuki from India received a 5-star crash test rating
jalopnik.com
jalopnik.com
Many of Dacia's newer models get 1/5, some 2/5, and only the Sandero gets 4/5, their highest score (in this market).
In the UK, a Duster starts at £20k for the base model , while something equivalent with a 5 star rating like a Nissan Qashqai or Kia Sportage starts at £30k.
Lada Niva is essentially ancient car from 1977 which changed very little since then. It's awesome cheap car with extreme offroad capabilities, -1 star safety and poor reliability. Interesting and unique combination of properties in modern world.
There's also Lada Niva Travel which was developed in 1998 with a bit different market orientation.
Lada Vesta is most modern Lada development and it's not directly based on Renault tech. Lada Granta is a bit older Lada which is in-house development as well. Those are not 4x4, though.
I have no idea whether those cars are sold in Europe. Probably not.
Better than the likes of Suzuki Swift, Ford Turneo etc.
For the sake of £10k I'd take a 5* safety rated car, likely with a better finish and quality overall, over a 3*, and as much as I'd like to be understanding about budgets, there's plenty of reliable, high-quality, safe cars on the used market for much less than their new-price.
Is there any _good_ reason to buy a mediocre car new for £20k, over a £40k+ car with a few years on it for £20k? I'm asking genuinely because I don't know, I'd buy the used car every time.
EDIT: Typos
But don't forget to put the children in child seats appropiate for their age. Else the 5* will become 0*.
[0] https://www.sgcarmart.com/new_cars/newcars_listing.php?MOD=S...
A modern crossover with ~200-300hp and whatever stupid low first gear they gave it in it's 8-10spd transmission typically has the same 0mph torque as whatever 90s meme-mobile the fanboys are all drooling over at any given minute. Modern unibody chassis are rigid enough ladder frame doesn't really matter. Suspensions mostly get mounted to thicker subframes anyway. Modern clutched center diffs are typically capable of transmitting more power and torque than you have traction to make use of (even with real tires and sometimes chains, trust me I've tried).
The biggest hurdle is that any given model may or may not be neutered in software. Unless the particular vehicle in question has some mode you can put it in to tell it that a little tire spin is fine all the electronic nannies are gonna flip the F out because what works well in sloppy off road conditions is pretty much the exact opposite of what's ideal for preventing some Karen who's got her Gingerbread (gotta pick a winter seasonal flavor for this comparison) latte in one hand and the steering wheel in another from getting ever so slightly sideways in the snow dusted parking lot. This has the hilarious side effect of resulting in "off road" and "sporty rally car" trim AWD subcompact SUVs and small cars running circles around the "soccer mom trim" versions of "proper" SUVs (in real situations, not sand on the beach or parking in a muddy field stuff) because while the latter has a more impressive hardware stack it's software stack won't let it actually use it.
Anyone know what these are?
Suzuki has a very small fleet without any real low-emission cars, thus struggles to get below this new average. Combine this with the EU Jimny's four-cyclinder 1.5 l engine terrible gas mileage and it is easy to see why Suzuki is pulling this car (and many others) from the EU market.
That's why critics say that the fleet-wide CO2 average regulation favors manufacturer with large fleets. Since actual sales number do not factor into the equation low or no emission vehicles average out the wasteful SUVs and other big cars on a fleet average on paper only.
I'm not completely against fleet-wide averages, but I would like to see a competition. The fleet with the lowest average CO2 emission per kg sets the lower bound for a given year and all others are fined. This would cause a very fast scramble (just to catch up with Tesla, Jaguar, and Honda) and level the playing field for smaller manufacturers.
But only in the sense that manufacturers are pooled together to reach a certain volume and very small manufacturers are basically excluded from the regulation.
This averaging doesn't make any sense, they allow a G600 (13l/100km) while disallowing the 7l/100km Jimny.
Who do you think lobbies the EU ? /s
The crux, however, is that nobody is allowing or disallowing anything. Suzuki has made the choice to withdraw the Jimny in light of the fines, while Mercedes-Benz made the choice to keep the G600 available despite the fines.
Consider, Mercedes-Benz has many cars, esp. Smarts and EVs, in their fleet that significantly lower the fleet average to around 110 g CO2/km. Suzuki, with a small portfolio of ICE cars, in comparison, hovers somewhere 115 g CO2/km (all from the link above). MB is a higher-margin shop, its cars, esp. the G600, are much more expensive then Suzuki's, so MB opts to shoulder the (lower) fine, while Suzuki does not.
I can't really blame Suzuki on this and I'm looking forward to the Toyota-Suzuki co-op on EVs.
The electric model seems to be confirmed for the future, and there are rumors of a hybrid model.
0: https://motorillustrated.com/suzuki-jimny-no-longer-sold-europe/42315/They seem absurdly silly. Just put a tax for each car of $$$ per g of CO2 per km. Then you're properly targetting the thing you care about rather than a lossy proxy. Or even better, increase tax on fossil fuels!
I hope I wasn't being unfair, and I certainly didn't mean to criticise.
Kilometers (km) is how we measure distance. 1000 km = 1k km, not 1Mm (nobody ever uses that), so it follows that 50000 km = 50k km.
Until the arrival of the rumored hybrid or electric versions, there isn't anything like that :(
I saw a classic Willys MB -- an original Jeep -- the other day, and it really brought home to me how far modern "SUV"s have strayed from their roots. It was shockingly small, and open, and, yes, dangerous for modern roads, but also fun-looking. It would be at home next to a tuk-tuk.
Makes sense in a sort of perverse way when you think about who buys what and who votes for what.
It is for sale and also available for private leasing in Denmark. So not dropped in all of Europe.
The current link is an ad-infested repost.
https://www.globalncap.org/news/new-dzire-from-maruti-suzuki...
Which links to the original test report: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5fb4ea8933ae6c208c3da...
Ask your agent to convert the URL to markdown, and read it in VS Code or whereever.
In fact, if there was a head-on crash between this car and Mercedes E-Class, and you're planning to be in one of the cars, I would advise you to chose the Mercedes.
For an extreme case think of a low speed collision between a bowling ball and a ping pong ball.
In a mismatched collision, the smaller vehicle needs to withstand a higher delta-V than the larger vehicle.
Also, in many cases the bumper heights are mismatched so the larger vehicle's strong structure runs into higher, weaker parts of the small vehicle, further exacerbating the problem.
> victim blaming
It's an exercise in reducing risk, not assigning blame.
> the law says I can cycle on those roads
The law can't bring you back to life, but if you want to take the risk that's your decision.
Since it's your car that does the killing in an accident, not the cyclist. Right?
"You" is plural for motorists. A single motorist deciding to own and operate a soft-and-safe-mobile will not affect your (singular or plural are interchangeable here) risk appreciably.
It doesn't mean you're wrong, and you (singular) can pick your battles, but I think I'd prefer to be alive than correct.
Where does this number come from?
I knew I would get responses about "why don't cars just..." e.g. why should I change, they're the ones who suck. I'm not suggesting or opposing public policy changes here. I'm giving practical advice which makes cycling much safer than the statistical average.
If you do all of what I say, it's a reasonably safe and healthy pastime.
Please, try to get some high-visibility clothing. The difference in visibility is between hundreds of meters with high-visibility clothing and meters without.
> It doesn’t seem to me that the sentence for that should be death.
Maybe not death but severe injuries. Being visiblevin the night is a game changer.
You just changed the problem.
If you had to change the problem, it shows you were avoiding the uncomfortable truth.
Also, just to clarify, how did I change the problem? The problem with car crashes is rapid deceleration which injures you, and lighter cars are worse in that aspect compared to heavier cars.
Imagine sitting in a large truck vs a kei car and driving into a brick wall. One has the chance to deform the wall which decreases the speed comparatively slowly. The other one abruptly stops when hitting the wall.
Unless the collision target doesn't deform at all, the higher momentum is better. And if the target is completely solid, a larger typically has a larger crumple zone which is better, too.
I cant come up with any reason to prefer the smaller car/momentum, except in very constructed scenarios (driving over a cliff with a weak fence for example).
The problem is that a “fixed” solid object has effectively infinite mass. This applies when the collision displacement of the obstacle can be measured in fractions of a millimeter. In these cases, the ratio of the lightweight vehicle to the effective mass of the obstacle is effectively the same as with the heavier vehicle vs the obstacle. Here, mass pays no dividends. Only the distance / time covered during the sudden deceleration, and the integrity of the passenger compartment. Of course, the efficiency and extent of restraint systems will also play a major role. But it’s not an automatic win for heavier vehicles in this case.
Notably, most collisions are not with immovable objects, but with other vehicles. In that case, mass is going to win almost every time, since the acceleration experienced by a subcompact vs a full sized SUV is about 2x, which means the forces imparted on the passengers in terms of static loads on their bodies and bones will be 4x.
For passenger survivability in most accidents, the incentives fall heavily towards using the heaviest well constructed vehicle that you can afford.
If the object is completely fixed and effectively inelastic, the main determinant in survival is the distance over which the deceleration of the occupant occurs, assuming a lack of cabin intrusion.
So the mass of the vehicle is ideally fixed in relation to its rigidity, and it’s not better to have less, or more, mass except as the ideal ratio to the rigidity of the vehicle.
What you want is a vehicle that decelerates as slowly as possible over the greatest possible time/distance.
A light vehicle that is very rigid is equally terrible as a heavy vehicle that is very rigid. What matters is how many millimeters it takes for each vehicle to come to a complete stop after colliding with the immovable object.
There are a lot of combinations of vehicle mass and rigidity that meet the ideal here, and it is not sensible to assert that a massive or a lightweight vehicle will be ideal in this case.
What you want is a vehicle that, at the speed of the collision, deforms the most completely and to the longest distance possible without incursions into the passenger compartment.
Ideally, the vehicle would have a very long and well engineered crumple zone in front of the occupants. Here, assuming similar material engineering of the impact absorbing structure, length is king. All things being equal, a car with a stubby front profile will expose its occupants to twice the acceleration as one with a 2x longer hood.
Still, the vehicle must have enough mass that the crumple zone is fully compressed at the speed of the collision. If it’s too light, it will decelerate before the impact absorbing distance if fully used.
If it’s to heavy, it will still be moving when the crumple zone is fully exhausted, and either a sudden peak of acceleration or a cabin intrusion will occur when the passenger cage becomes involved in the deformation zone.
I’m going to guess that on average, you’re still better off in a full sized SUV than In a more sensibly sized vehicle, hitting an unmovable object at speed.
You say you have a background in vehicle safety, so maybe you know something I don’t. Please explain where I’m going wrong here?
I still haven't seen a single argument why a smaller car would be better in a collision.
Being a skeptical Socrates doesnt change that the momentum is significantly higher, and you arent moving that pole any significant distance.
I'm not sure why there is such a strong denial of reality here. Is it ego?
Momentum doesn't matter. It matters in a vehicle on vehicle collision, but since the pole is essentially infinite I'm not sure why you're bringing it up. Acceleration is what impacts the human body, and it's determined by speed and distance. For the same speed, a larger car will have a longer distance to stop, therefore lower acceleration, and less force on the body.
Ford F-150 Raptor length 232.6" width 118" height 80.7" curb weight 5,540 lbs.
Sherman Tank length 247" width 103" height 108" mass ("curb weight") 66,800 lbs.
So in terms of size, sure, they're kind of comparable, although in a head-on collision I think I'll still take my chances with the F-150.
For safety, we should be limiting the size discrepancy of vehicles where we can.
The personal moral dilemma here is crazy. Are you willing to risk your own life and the lives of anyone else in your car over the lives of the people in the other car? It's so terrible but you also can't fault anyone individually for choosing a larger car for safety reasons. (Those reasons being, I would prefer to kill someone else than kill myself or others in my car.)
recently it has become a selling point to have a 5 star safety rating for cars in the market, which has finally made basic aspects like airbags part of the cheaper trims.
In basically any other market in the world, the Nissan Versa is definitelly beyond the entry level and not the cheapest and smallest car.
For example there is a good inexpensive Reanult Clio with 1l 3-cylinder 90hp engine. I doubt any meaningful number of US customers want to buy such car, even if it is less than 20k USD.
They will spend all day griping about how hard it is to park in the city, and how much they hate the city.
While there are a fair number of cars we could park, like the VW ID.4, we couldn't get out of them while parked.
And I don't have a big car, it's basically the same size as a Kia Niro EV or Hyundai Kona.
Safety ratings are nice and all, but when faced with the very real possibility that a vehicle 3 times the mass of yours will someday hit you at 80+ miles per hour, you just have to accept the fact that Newton's second law is something that is hard to win against.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9823577/Road-warrio...
Consumers don’t want tiny cheap cars. In the past few years, people have financed progressively more expensive cars over much longer periods, suggesting they don’t want the cheapest options.
Americans view cars as status symbols, not just transport. Hence, car companies sell cars as status symbols, not just utilitarian commodities.
SWEs view laptops as status symbols, not just tools. Hence, tech companies, like Apple, sell laptops as status symbols, not just utilitarian commodities."
You probably are thinking about a different group of people.
The tragedy of commons is that if everyone bought a lighter car, everyone would be safer, not just the drivers but pedestrians and cyclists as well. Especially if "crash compatibility" was regulated and enforced.
That's, at least, how it seems to me while not actually living in the US - feel free to let me know if I'm completely off.
The great irony of that arms race is that the bus or tram will almost always win.
That _cannot_ be the singular or even primary driver of a movement. Car manufacturers don't just make a car in a vacuum. They make what the market is asking for, and _then_ marketing steps in. Very few companies, like apple and Tesla, can foist weird stuff on consumers and have them like it. And even in those cases, they are really just building something they believe to be the faster horse.
There's a reason Tesla wanted to build and SUV and a model 3. There's a key target price point in the US for a car. No amount of marketing can make people buy a car they simply cannot afford.
And yet here we are and marketing has convinced people in the US to borrow $1.6 trillion to buy cars they cant afford.
Nobody forced these people to take our loans. The auto industry bends to trends, it doesn't create them.
The fact is, with or without marketing, people want nice things. And people have historically been willing to buy them on credit/loans. At least for our current capitalist society, that seems to be ab inherent feature.
I believe there is an ad guy from the 1960's (an old pro copywriter, a Greek, named Teddy) who managed to convince the world of just that.
But after owning it for 2 years I realised totally organically that what I really wanted was almost the same car but for £12,500, with some extra unnecessary features.
I'm so glad VW stepped in and delivered what I had been secretly desiring. A heavier, more complex car at a higher price. Thank you, VW!
Suggesting that they have no financial education... The average loan duration is something like 70 months right now, with a mind boggling 7%-10% interest rate.
People make dumb decisions if they don't have the knowledge/education, by the time they're done paying their 40k car loan they paid 60k and the car is worth 20k.
While BYD is quietly taking over in every country that doesn't have a domestic auto industry.
When BYD starts selling their $10,000 car Seagull car [1] in the US, even with a 100% tariff, it will be cheaper than anything Detroit makes.
[1] https://electrek.co/2024/05/22/byds-10000-seagull-ev-worryin...
You're making it sounds like 100% is the highest possible ceiling for a tariff, when it's a number arbitrarily set to fulfill a specific agenda and can be infinitely adjusted.
Of course if you protect your domestic car industry too much it will slowly become uncompetitive and irelevant on the international free market.
Yep, the tariffs Boeing got on Bombardier's C-Series that were the final nail in the coffin of that program and Bombardier as a serious player, and gifted a great new jet to Airbus, were 300%.
So the Chinese government is subsidizing BYD in order for them to destroy every other Chinese car manufacturer? I think the Chinese government has far less convoluted and costly schemes to control which businesses live and which die.
If I understand it correctly, your theory is like saying the US set such high tariffs and sanctions so Chinese companies adapt and get so strong they can eventually outcompete any US company and break free of any dependency.
But many of those competitors would be completely unable to operate without subsidies. Take Zhidou, which went bankrupt in 2019 after sales of EVs with range under 250 km were no longer subsidized. https://web.archive.org/web/20240926235216/https://carnewsch... They relaunched in 2024 with some help from the Lanzhou city government, offering the Zhidou Rainbow at a subsidized sales price of $3,800 to $5,500. https://web.archive.org/web/20240512094644/https://k.sina.cn...
Note that there's two different kinds of Chinese government involved here: the central government primarily wants to build up the EV industry and is mostly agnostic between manufacturers, hence the sales subsidy. Regional governments want to build up their own economy, so they give preferential treatment to companies that manufacture in their region.
So it's not, as you thought, that the central government is specifically subsidizing BYD in order for them to destroy every other Chinese car manufacturer, but that regional governments are subsidizing local competitors in order to protect them from being destroyed by BYD.
But those subsidies won't last forever, and once they run out, many manufacturers will go bankrupt (see original 2019 Zhidou bankruptcy). Once that happens, BYD will most likely be able to cement their market dominance and raise prices to finally be able to make a decent profit even on domestic sales.
Just to add some perspective. It is still cheaper than anything Detroit makes, but 10.000 USD is a bit misleading if you ignore currency policies, subsides, incentives and regulatory differentials.
Smaller attack surface. There have been lots of issues with keyless.
Are you talking about "keyless ignition" or even for opening the doors?
If it's the former, why did you miss that? My dad's car and most recent rentals I've had were of the keyless go variety, and I don't really see how it's more practical. The one use where I can see it being better is with motorbikes, if you live in a location both with cold enough winters that you gain a lot by putting your thick gloves on while still inside and safe enough that you don't need to bother with a physical anti-theft device.
I've actually had a terrible scare with one such car rental, where the attendant brought up the car, left it running, and forgot to give me the key. My personal vehicles all have keyed ignitions, so to my mind, engine running = key in the ignition. 10 minutes later, the agency called me up, telling me not to turn off the engine because I didn't have the key. Bonus points for being in a foreign, dense city I didn't know during rush hour. Fortunately, it was pretty hot outside, so I didn't turn off the engine to keep the AC running.
My car will also not let you lock it, and beep at you like crazy if you leave your keys anywhere inside, so you can't lock yourself out. You also can't lock it from the outside while the engine is running, but I believe that's a safety feature.
I can throw my keys in my backpack, dump it in the boot and drive off, grab my backpack when I reach my destination and walk away.
A keyless entry is no better than a regular 'push to send unlock signal' fob in this regard. You have to go much further back for cars that require the key to be inserted into the door.
You say you've only ever owned cars that don't have key-turn ignition, but doesn't that mean the advantages you listed are just assumptions? Having used both, I can personally say I have never considered key-turn ignition a problem or disadvantage. I've never lost a car key the same way I've never lost a phone which I also take out of my pocket to use.
I know people who (for insurance compliance) must store their key inside a faraday box. So to use their keyless entry car they still have to "get the key out" anyway. Push button unlock and key-turn ignition are not vulnerable to those kind of attacks/thefts.
Apologies, this is what I meant by "keyless", perhaps I have my terminology mixed up. I can either walk up to my car and open the door by pulling on the handle (keyless?), or get the fob out of my bag/pocket/whatever and press the button, but there's really hardly ever a need to do the latter, unless I want to allow someone else to enter the car while I'm at a distance. I can then start it just by being in the car with the fob somewhere also in the car, but without having to have or touch or insert the key (fob), thus keyless(?).
> You say you've only ever owned cars that don't have key-turn ignition, but doesn't that mean the advantages you listed are just assumptions?
Not an assumption, I've driven plenty of key-lock and ignition cars, just not owned them. Again, my earlier terminology mix-up may have been the issue. The advantage I'm trying to address is the ability to unlock the car and start/stop and then lock it again, without having to have anything in my hands (but having something on my person).
> I've never lost a car key the same way I've never lost a phone which I also take out of my pocket to use.
I can't argue with that; I too have never lost a car key, but I'd argue that by never having to take it out of my pocket is perhaps somewhat contributing to that.
> ... must store their key inside a faraday box. So to use their keyless entry car they still have to "get the key out" anyway. Push button unlock and key-turn ignition are not vulnerable to those kind of attacks/thefts
I have to agree with you here, this is certainly one disadvantage, and is absolutely a concern of mine.
At home you throw the fob in a faraday box rather than a drawer or on the side, so it's not a great amount of effort; while you're out and about it's a risk unless you're going to carry a faraday bag on your person (which I do not), so there is a chance someone could steal your car this way while you're sat/otherwise distracted but still fairly near your car.
I'm not sure what the correct term is for this type of entry, but that's what I'm suggesting I prefer over a key I'd have to insert into the door and then into the ignition and turn, it's just more convenient.
Conversely, if you lose one, it'll cost a few hundred £££s to replace rather than a cheap key, and there's the risks of high-tech theft, so it's not without its downsides.
I will also keep power windows, steering, and seat adjustment.
I can't believe the modern style is to have the walls of the car so far away from the seats. I assume it fulfills some kind of crash safety mandate? It clearly isn't worth it.
We've gone from "pull up to the machine and take a ticket" to "pull up to the machine, park, get out of the car, take a ticket, get back in the car..."
They absolutely do. The cheapest Nissan in the UK is a Juke at $29,775 ( per xe.com conversion rate ). A US-market Nissan Versa starts at $17,995.
Even removing taxes the Juke costs around $24,800.
It’s a caricature of a toy 4x4 with all of the compromises that implies. Ecck.
(I don't know why Nissan isn't selling small cars in the UK any more - the Micra was very popular up until about a decade ago)
The Chevy Spark is dead.
The Mitsubishi Mirage is dead.
etc.
Euro NCAP is a very crude tool.
On the other hand, in India any car is probably unusable after 10-15 years, and here in Germany people buy a car for life.
From https://www.topgear.com/long-term-car-reviews/dacia/jogger/r...
> The Jogger returned the equivalent of a four-star rating for adult occupant crash protection, and three stars for child occupants. Plenty respectable scores. The Jogger lost marks, however, for its lack of active safety equipment: it doesn’t offer lane-keep assist, pedestrian detection, or seatbelt warnings for the rearmost row. [0]
> The overall NCAP rating is dictated by the lowest score in any individual category, hence that headline one-star result for the Jogger.
Many people actively disable gimmicks like "lane-keep assist", so YMMV on such damning "1 star Euro NCAP rating".
Not in every Country.
Most of the extra price goes into emissions reduction.
If pollution is caused by "crop burning", why is it that the worst pollution is in cities?
> The phenomenon is made possible by a dramatic improvement in air quality in recent weeks, after industries shut down, cars came off the road and airlines canceled flights in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
> Delhi saw up to a 44% reduction in PM10 air pollution levels on the first day of its restrictions, India’s Central Pollution Control Board found. The PM10 standard measures airborne particulates 10 micrometers or smaller in diameter.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/himalayas-visible-loc...
The worst pollution is not in any cities. It's a problem specific to North Indian cities and regions in Pakistan.
No city in South India is even remotely as polluted as the NCR.
Moreover, we are really really mileage conscious so our cars are very fuel efficient, leading to lower emissions.
The average age of a car in Germany is 10 years so I guess this was sarcasm?
In Germany, people may upgrade from their own will, but even from my window I can see a dozens cars parked which are more than 10 years old. Not to mention a new Merc or VW can probably be stil working well in 20 years (for example see autoscout24 for Mercs from 2014 still selling for 15K).
The 15 year car rule is only applicable for New Delhi NCR Region. You still need to obtain fitness certificate for vehicles every 5 years after the 15th year, but they need not be dumped as long as it passes the evaluation.
Here's[1] an example for a car costing a million INR, taxes are more than 300K. That's not the final landing price. Final price adds up extra road tax component that is anywhere from 13 to 17%(or even more) which is calculated on top of the 1 Million.
In case you missed it, that's tax on tax i.e. double taxation! Some courts have ruled it illegal but majority of state governments act ignorant and just continue the practice.
1. https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/235811-query...
I hear in USA the Toyotas hold much longer... I'm not sure why, if it is true, and what are the conditions.
No salt on my roads and little to no rust on either.
Every car I've owned has gone well over 150,000 km without anything but regular maintenance. It's really hard to kill a modern engine.
Yes, things wear out and need to be replaced.
When? The 1940s?
We know this isn't true, based on the existence of older cars, today.
I'd put money on a barebones car of today outlasting nearly anything of the past.
When he has stopped using the car, that has been more because the driver was worn off, not the car.
Obviously, during all those years the car has been repaired many times, but in almost all cases by himself and only a few times at a car workshop.
Similar lifetimes have been typical for many other things bought during the seventies, like washing machines, TV sets and other such household appliances.
The products designed for short lifetimes have become widespread mostly after 1990 and especially after 2000.
(Data from Summary of Travel Trends: 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey, and 2024 IHS Markit Co., Average Age of Light Cars and Trucks in U.S)
That was easier to do with 70s cars than with modern cars of course.
I agree that consumer products in most categories have become throwaway crap in recent decades. But quite a few cars, at least in my experience, are still built to last.
In which Germany are you living? People change car pretty regularly, especially because of the maintenance cost for passing the TÜV. All small cars sold have distribution belt soaked in oil, so you have to change before 10 years, and by that time the cost of changing the belt is more than the car value.
I’ve seen tear downs on YouTube and the Duramax people are livid about a belt.
First owner is usually a lease customer (company car), second owner will keep it for much longer, third or fourth owner will run the car into the ground, and it'll almost always be crushed in Eastern Europe. Guessing grandparent is seeing a lot of second and third owner cars.
>>in Germany I cannot get a decent second hand car for less than 20K.
You cannot compare Indian Citroen with German Mercedes.
Then you're doing something very wrong. There are literally thousands of cars for sale that are reliable and well maintained for half that.
Hell, these days even a sub 1K eur can get you by in a pinch, if you choose carefully enough.
What are you talking about?
I bought my used Opel Corsa with 50k km for 2200€. Driven it for 60k km since, without problem. So it was definitely “decent”.
The mechanical part (rapid inflation) is more interesting, but for a long time, they did it the "obvious" way: a precisely-calibrated explosive charge, just enough to fill the bag without tearing it apart. Now, I think they're moving toward compressed air, which probably requires some clever engineering to build a sufficiently responsive electronically-controlled valve.
False-positive airbag deployments are not viewed very positively by the affected user (even if its strictly better than a single false negative)
So a false positive seems strictly worse than a false negative to me.
that's the standard for all airbags
I do wonder about the manufacturing and supply chain, and how environmentally (and worker) friendly it is given the extremely low price.
The parts quality, worker treatment and environmental considerations are excellent (especially compared to what I came in expecting).
These are well-paying stable jobs for low-skilled labor. The plants were clean and significant precautions were taken before operating risky machines. Unionized plants tend to be more worker friendly but also worse run.
The thing about making $8k cars is they only make sense at scale. And effective operation at scale needs a well oiled workforce with little leeway for the kind of inefficiencies that come with haphazard work.
Now, 3rd party supplier conditions are more suspect. They can range from being at parity to looking like a proper sweat shop. But the mines where Apple's silicon is mined isn't that different either.
There was once they frontally test crashed the safest mini car against the safest SUV and the mini car kind of evaporated while the SUV had a broken bumper/headlight but still could drive.
This is not an argument against this car or others like it, mind you, this is if anything an argument for them and against bloated American status symbols and the less skilled and less empathetic drivers who find them so appealing.
I'm not sure how a Ranger would fair getting t-boned by a lifted F-350...
I think the bigger problem for these smaller cars are the (much more numerous) mid-sized SUVs.
I kind of think if more people in the U.S. knew what the rest of the world were paying for cars they might take up arms.
Fucks sake shitty Australian governments on both sides. How long have Holden and Ford been gone now? Seven years!
However, the luxury car tax still applies to cars over the following values (retail cost inclusive of GST, customs, delivery):
- $91,387 for fuel-efficient vehicles
- $80,567 for others
And the 33% tax applies to the value of the car above the threshold.
I have much less of a problem with that arrangement.
I was careless in my reading and writing.
Source: https://www.goauto.com.au/news/general-news/regulation/77-pe...
It's just another tax on the working class. ~40% income tax, then on what's left you pay another ~20% VAT, then some luxury tax on top of that because how dare you afford more than bread and water you filthy feudal lord?
Billionaires who buy actual luxuries have a plethora of avenues of avoiding any kind of luxury taxes. Why do you think Monaco exists? Or Dubai?
The reason costs are low is because of scale and automation. Suzuki exports it's India manufactured cars and components across Asia and Africa which helps drive costs down drastically, and leadership make a strategic decision to pivot towards automation.
Maruti Suzuki has been heavily automated for almost 2 decades now, especially after the union killed a plant manager and burnt down the Manesar factory in 2012 [2]
Already in 2017 Maruti Suzuki had 2000 installed units for 10000 employees [0], but the US still had around 1300 installed units for 10000 employees in 2021 [1].
Also, salaries in Maruti Suzuki Manesar and Gurgaon (the flagship factories in suburbs of Delhi) are similar to Dacia's in Romania and the CoL in Delhi NCR is comparable to Eastern Europe in general, yet similar cars in Europe will cost around $10-15k.
[0] - https://www.livemint.com/Companies/0qexlea1C0MelXiAXcveOJ/Ro...
[1] - https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/us-robot-density-in-...
[2] - https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/verdict-today-for-maruti-wor...
Car companies have tried selling cheaper cars in the US. The Suzuki Dzire is 152" long. A Nissan Versa is 177" long - more than 2 feet longer. Toyota pulled the Yaris from the US market because of poor sales (despite being a well regarded car as a rebadged Mazda2; 171" long).
The Suzuki Dzire is the same length as the smallest Mini Cooper - but without the sports-car appeal. It'll do 0-60 in 12 seconds (14 seconds if you want an automatic). Americans want cars that can do 0-60 in half that time.
Companies have attempted to bring cheaper and smaller vehicles to the US, but Americans won't buy them. Even today, Americans will spend an extra $5,000-10,000 to get an SUV. Americans complain non-stop about gas prices, but proceed to buy vehicles that guzzle gas. The average new car price in the US is over $47,000 - way above what you'd pay for a loaded Toyota Camry. Americans don't want a Suzuki Dzire. They want a pickup truck with all the luxury trimmings.
Part of the cost of US cars is regulatory compliance. As the article notes, this was tested by Global NCAP which tests cars from markets with weak or non-existent regulations. Part of it is going to be the cost of labor or import tariffs. Mexico has lower wages than the US, but part of USMCA/NAFTA trade agreement means that their auto industry wages are a lot closer to US/Canada wages. You aren't going to be able to build them in India and import them to the US without facing tariffs. Part of it is that Americans simply don't want a cheap car.
I totally get where you're coming from because I don't want to spend a lot on a car. I also want an iPhone mini. People continually say that a small phone would be a big hit. Companies have tried and failed. There are so many cheaper options for cars in the US and Americans are spending nearly fifty grand instead. And when you start talking about bringing a Suzuki Dzire up to US regulations, import taxes, distribution costs (and the American wages you need to pay to everyone importing, transporting, and selling your cars here), equipment you want, etc. does that $8,000 vehicle look more like $14,000? And then at that price, do you want something that's 80hp and 0-60 in 14 seconds or would you rather spend up for a Toyota Corolla and get a much larger car with a lot more power and an amazing track record?
Toyota sold the Yaris for $16,000, but people didn't want it. We're talking about a car that Car and Driver gave 9.5/10. It was a really good car at a great price and Americans wouldn't buy it. It's easy to think "I'd love an $8,000 car" when you aren't/can't seriously consider buying it. But maybe we're similar and we'd like more affordable cars and are willing to go with something basic.
But most Americans wouldn't be up in arms for this $8,000 car. They're spending double what many great cars cost and they'd rather moan about the cost of gas than drive something efficient. Hell, hybrids today like the Civic or Prius get better 0-60 times than the sports sedans from my youth - but that doesn't matter. Americans will moan about paying for stuff, but the second that you suggest they buy something efficient or affordable or make any compromise and they'll find any reason not to.
Pretty much.
They lack too many features that the price just isn't worth it.
I just went to the Toyota site and used their build configuration tool to come up with a $46,466 Camry:
https://www.toyota.com/configurator/build/step/summary/year/...
...That was the XSE trim with the Premium Plus package, Supersonic Red with Midnight Black Metallic roof, and the upgraded wheels. Not saying that this is what most people are paying for a Camry, but there is a reason the average new car price is so high.
Are magically impossible here.
Also there are a lot of import tariffs on a car not assembled in a NAFTA zone.
I'm loathed to even get a Prius with this being true.
As a long suffering Ford stockholder, I'd like to understand what you mean by "shareholder greed." Go look at a 30 year chart of their stock price. It's barely changed. They do have a nice dividend. The company's PE ratio is appropriate for a very very mature industrial stock. Its market cap is $43 billion. That's about 20% of Toyota and 4% of Tesla.
Who are these greedy shareholders and why are they managing to extract so little value out of the company despite being so greedy?
You don't say. And maybe it would look a little less greedy if that dividend were slightly smaller, but you guys make them sell the Ford Fiesta in the US instead?
Hell, maybe the dividend wouldn't even be smaller! But nobody knows, since Ford doesn't sell cars for poor people anymore, not even the cars it makes in large numbers anyway.
What do you mean "you guys make them." Individual tiny shareholders have 0 ability to change what a company sells.
Also, why pick on Ford? It is one of the smallest of the "large" car manufacturers. As I mentioned in my original comment it's a fraction of the size of Toyota and Tesla in market cap. It has deliberately chosen a niche—trucks and SUVs—to survive. In my opinion, it does not have the brand, marketing, or research and development muscle to compete with Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, or Honda in the small sedan market and rightly exited it. Few in the USA thought Ford was making good small sedans in the late 2010s compared to their rivals, hence why consumers stopped choosing them and Ford stopped selling them.
> But nobody knows, since Ford doesn't sell cars for poor people anymore, not even the cars it makes in large numbers anyway.
As is stated in this thread, across all manufacturers, the cheapest car sold today in the US is about $20K (Nissan Versa). Ford sells the Maverick pickup for $24K and the Escape SUV for $30K. It chooses not to compete at the very lowest tier of the US market and no longer manufactures any small cars like the Fiesta in the US.
Is it Ford's responsibility to compete at every segment of the market? Or is it okay that they are specializing in trucks and SUVs where they have some competitive advantage and letting other manufacturers like Nissan have the small car market?
This isn't an attack on you personally. OP wrote about greedy shareholders, you said they aren't greedy. But shareholders can collectively direct a company to do something. Wanting an all-American company serve all Americans is understandable.
> It is one of the smallest of the "large" car manufacturers. As I mentioned in my original comment it's a fraction of the size of Toyota and Tesla in market cap.
Using market cap here is disingenuous. Ford sold 2M cars in the US alone last year. More than Tesla, only slightly fewer than Toyota.
> and no longer manufactures any small cars like the Fiesta in the US.
They're still making (and selling) them in Mexico. It would be a very short supply chain to get them to the US. Not great for local jobs, but Ford factories in Mexico shipping parts to the US are nothing new.
> It chooses not to compete at the very lowest tier of the US market
No doubt, the correct decision from a financial point of view. But we're arguing against being greedy here.
They all killed their small cars. All of them.
No more Honda Fit, no more Mazda 2 / Yaris, Kia Rios, Chevy Spark, Chevy Sonic, Nissan Micra, Mitsu Mirage. In Canada at least, the Fiat 500 only exists as an overpriced BEV model with such a small range it's unusable except as a pure city car.
The whole frame became a crumple zone in a low-speed collision with a Lexus. Fortunately, he escaped injuries in the way only the young can.
The Swift is quite popular in many countries outside the USA, being a common choice for both first time car owners and seniors in Australia and New Zealand (and no doubt a number of other countries).
You see a lot of articles on HN lately about relay attacs, but they forget to say that those are mostly old cars in US.
When Japanese automotive FDI in India began in the 1980s, Japanese companies would essentially create a JV with an existing Indian manufacturer and ToT much of the technology and operations.
For example, Maruti Suzuki (Maruti Udyog and Suzuki), Toyota Kriloskar (Kriloskar Group and Toyota), and Hero Honda (Hero Group and Honda, though both ended up splitting in the 2000s).
Korean manufacturers in India do the same, hence why Hyundai Motors India IPOed a couple weeks ago despite technically being a part of Hyundai Motors.
A equal score on both means very different safety levels!
> There aren’t any new models available under $20,000 in the for American car buyers anymore
> America’s cheapest car, the Nissan Versa, starts at $18,330, more than double the price of a base Dzire.