7 myths about Detroit automakers

[Corey]

Originally Posted by pauldun170

So basically we like to complain that American cars get poor economny and weigh two tons...but we want every car to be bigger with each generation.

Toss in comments that regs and safety equipment force up weight (difficult to measure because each redisgn adds physical size.."because the market demand bigger cars")

We're a fickle group of consumers that want everything. That's just the way it is. We want a sedan that will fit 5 adults with out their knees touching, 0-60 times in the high 5 second/low 6 second range, horsepower figures that rival or surpass sports cars of 15 years ago, with an interior that's whisper quiet, with 100 airbags, all while making 30 to 40 mpg. That's all well and good, but the performance requires more gas, the sound proofing adds more weight, the larger wheel base to accommodate 5 full sized adults adds even more weight, those fancy 19" or 20" factory rims that people want for style purposes adds even more weight and affects handling and bump absorption, so more shit needs to be added to smooth out the ride. And just when company A puts out the latest sedan that meets most of those criteria, company B announces their next generation sedan that is slightly bigger, has slightly more interior room, makes 15 more horsepower, and accelerates to 60 in 5.8 seconds instead of company A's 5.9.

It's a vicious cycle that continues on this way because those are the things that are most important in deciding our tastes in automobiles. Sure there was a temporary cry of indignation over gas mileage, but that was still aimed more at the cost of gas prices rather than the progress that car companies have made in producing fuel efficient vehicles. The people only started turning their anger towards the auto companies when they started to believe that gas would never drop below $4/gallon and they felt powerless to do anything about it. Since they couldn't change the gas prices, they could point fingers and shift blame to the auto makers for not producing more fuel efficient cars, even though the purchasing history of the American public showed that they were much more interested in trucks and SUV's with higher power outputs and seating for seven.