Detroit Auto Show Looks Toward Frugal Future
A little over a year ago, Honda’s luxury Acura brand was criticized for not offering a powerful V8 engine in its flagship sedan. After all, the pundits opined, luxury buyers insist on eight or more cylinders when they’re spending more than $50,000 for a premium chariot. The fact that Acura’s 3.7-liter V6 generated 300 horsepower, a specification that used to be perfectly reasonable for eight-cylinder motors, seemed not to matter. The image was everything.
At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week, I pondered this supposed entrance to the luxury club with some amusement while I witnessed Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Cadillac, Lincoln, Chrysler, and the Fisker Karma all spin around their turntables with four-cylinder engines. If the name Fisker draws a blank, it’s a new start-up that’s building $80,000-and-up, plug-in, extended-range electric luxury cars. Electric luxury was also the theme for the other brands except Lincoln, which will test acceptance of rather petite luxury with turbocharged 1.6-liter power — the luxury equivalent of a pocket pooch.
These guys want to sell plug-in electrics from China and they have some experience over there.
Here’s a Lincoln concept with four cylinders and no electricity.
Depending on your point of view, the sudden emphasis on fuel sipping is either that it’s about time we save the planet and end our reliance on imported oil, or that these guys shouldn’t take the recession so seriously. And for those few who want their reward for all those years of toil to be a voluptuous, 12-cylinder Autobahn cruiser, I’d suggest you get that order in soon.
I’m sorry, but that Fisker looks an awful lot like one of those cheap fiberglass bodies folks used to plunk down on a VW beetle chassis and call a sports car.
I guess there is nothing new under the sun.
I’m also reminded that back in the 1970′s (does anybody remember the Arab/OPEC oil embargo of ’73?) a bunch of engineering students from Ga Tech built a true diesel/electric hybrid using a little Mercury Capri body and rolling chassis, and a high torque 24 volt aircraft starter motor. That little car got a proved 70+ mpg,,, and then faded into automotive history.
Here we are again, reinventing the wheel.
Detroit auto show…it’s a bit ironic no???
http://mylifeiscrap.com
JohnB:
“(does anybody remember the Arab/OPEC oil embargo of ‘73?)”
Sure do…and I remember that the 1974 Big 3 auto models were pure, unadulterated, underpowered CRAP.
The Oil Embargo panicked the Big 3′s engineering departments into such shoddy practices as putting a 4 cylinder all-aluminum engine,(with 1960′s metallurgy, mind you), into a chassis that had been designed for a big V-6 or small V-8…(Vega, anyone?)
” a bunch of engineering students from Ga Tech built a true diesel/electric hybrid using a little Mercury Capri body and rolling chassis, and a high torque 24 volt aircraft starter motor. That little car got a proved 70+ mpg,,, and then faded into automotive history.”
The Capri was a fine looking little sled, and even with a 4 cylinder, had some “scoot”, thanks, IIRC, to the crossflow head on that engine.
If you opted for the V-6 and the manual tranny, you had a sporty little coupe to zip around in.
(Although some schmuck with a Maverick “Grabber”,(302 cid V-8 engine), would still blow your doors off.)
As a car owner since 1957, and a reader of current car sales figures, US car buyers value performance/handling/cosmetics above all else. When no one is buying cars the excess money people buying enviro-vehicles would seem to be the coming market. However, once the speculator oil/gas price leap disappeared, nobody wanted the enviro-vehicles.
Detroit and the rest are now dedicated to building the cars DC bailout funds want, not what the real market wants.
Most would much prefer a BMW 318 to a Toyota Prius Hybrid.
Well there you go- my Karma really can run over your Dogma.
To Bilgeman. The Vega engine wasn’t all aluminum. It had a cast iron head, and aluminum bock.
Our new administration is run by people who wnat to tell us what we need to but and not what we want to buy. Such a philosophy led East Germany to product the Trabant.
The Trabant, if memory seves me correctlym had 24 HP, about the same as the original VW Beetle. The body was made from cotton reinforced plastic which should not be confused with fiberglass reinforced plastic as used in a Corvette.
One thing that our gurus in congress refuse to do much about is getting electric power to run all their dreamed up eleftric cars.
Why is it that nobody is talking about the negative aspects of electric cars? How about no power? And they still have to be charged up, which requires- electricity mostly coal generated. They arent as enviromental friendly as one might think. What happens to the batteries every 3-4 years when they have to be replaced? Landfill anyone? Also, electric cars will NOT save consumers any money. When you add the extra expense of the electric option, coupled with the $2500-$3000 charge every 36 months for new batteries, how does that translate to any savings, even at 70mpg? There are plenty of things automakers can to with their gas-only engines and drivetrains to make them more fuel efficient without bankrupting the automakers as well as our country.
#4 MikeD — “Most would much prefer a BMW 318 to a Toyota Prius Hybrid.”
One BMW model gets 55 mpg using a diesel. I read about it in a UK magazine. What to do? Butt ugly Prius or the BMW that gets far better mpg AND has real power in it? Hmmmm. Choices.
We need the high mpg diesels here. Of course, I imagine Pelosi et al would rather chew broken glass first. Shame, too. Some can build decent vehicles that people really would like to have. Sorry. Can’t have that.
Funny but even Ford has a 55 mpg vehicle overseas. Same thing, a diesel. Of course it ain’t a BMW. But still.
Warning for Lincoln – look up the Cadillac Cimarron, then avoid GM’s mistake.
I was reminded of that, too.
From my own place this morning, where I wrote a comment on Brian’s piece:
And does history repeat itself, here?
I suspect it will.
Hang in there for Series technology hybrid cars. The Chevy Volt and Chrysler 200c are coming. Yes they will be off the hook expensive at first but prices will come down just like they did on HD TV’s and DVD players. Competition is king and drives down prices.
HEY DETROIT–I DON’T WANT AN ELECTRIC CAR!!
#11 — “The left figured they knew more about physics than the car companies and their scientists did, too. They figured all this business about so many miles for so many gallons could be changed by simply passing a law. Of course, such things can’t happen that way…”
Your memory isn’t quite what mine is. Perhaps it’s perspective.
As much as I despise Technology Creationism (the belief that stuff can poof into existence because it’s been mandated by politicians) “the left” in this case was partly correct. America doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Detroit could not continue to create 5 mpg vehicles and not have an impact. Back then we didn’t have PC’s but we could do graphs and projections.
I lived in Europe during the oil shock era. At that time gas was $3/gallon (or more) there. VW made what in the US would be called the Rabbit (it was a Golf) and it got reasonable mileage. BMW and other makes were also selling similar fuel efficient vehicles. The only way a Detroit car could outperform them was in the 1/4 mile ‘stomp the pedal and never turn the wheel’ acceleration competition. Otherwise most of these cars did reasonably well.
Back to projections and graphs. The government knew very well that it was possible to create smaller fuel sipping vehicles that would work. There was no Technology Creationism; they were going by working example. What they were hoping was that if the Europeans (and European divisions of US companies) could make working vehicles that would get better mpg, Detroit should be able to figure out how to make vehicles that would work in the US.
And… as you note we got the Gremlin. Meanwhile the Japanese and German makes were advancing in leaps and bounds such that by the very early 80′s there was no longer any contest. The best Detroit could muster up was ugly and unreliable (remember the K car?) BMW was selling 318i’s at the time. The rout was on. Within 10 years Detroit had pretty much given up on the sedan market and concentrated on pickups and SUV’s.
It wasn’t the government’s demand for better mpg that killed Detroit. Certainly the “foreign” makes figured out how to build these vehicles and sell them.
But again, not in large enough numbers to turn much of a profit. Again, I point to the mater of choice. Even at the hight of the most recent crude price spikes, the biggest selling vehicle in America was the Ford F-150. Even given ample numbers of smaller vehicles, Americans by a wide margin said ‘no’.
Reckon with why, Mr. Alston, and you’ll have something.
#15 Eric Florack
Since you missed the point, I’ll speak slowly this time.
70′s: Detroit was mandated to build cars to a certain standard, one that the government knew was achievable. Detroit failed. Other companies filled that void. Detroit focused on vehicles outside the CAFE standards instead when gas became cheaper in the 80′s, effectively conceding the car market.
Detroit is going to be once again mandated to build and market vehicles that meet a certain standard, and one that again the government reckons to be achievable. If Detroit fails to make vehicles people will buy, then again other companies will fill that void.
Meanwhile.
“Even at the hight of the most recent crude price spikes, the biggest selling vehicle in America was the Ford F-150.”
Ummm… maybe not. Detroit has existed as it has for the last 25 years because gas has been cheap. When energy prices go up, things look more like this Autodata breakdown:
http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2008/07/us-top-20-best-selling-vehicles-in-june.html
…which looks suspiciously like my point.
Hmmm. Apparently, I need to speak more slowly.
They did that for a reason… what Washington wants, doesn’t sell. What Washington wants, the people do not.
Are we to assume you consider what Washington wants more important than what sells?
Are we to assume you consider what Washington wants more important than what the people want?
And while I have this open, let’s add a point;
Isn’t Toyota turning in negative numbers this year, in terms of profit margins?