Thoughts On Smaller Cars, Sustainability, & Technology

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I subscribe to Bloomberg, which every day brings a host of news and new ideas to my computer screen. A few times a week, I get an update from Hyperdrive, which focuses on automobiles. Today’s edition began with this statement: “Smaller cars are an obvious fix for crowded cities, limited resources and a warming planet. Yet they’ve become an endangered species, as tougher regulations made them uneconomical to produce and we gravitated towards muscular SUVs.”

I couldn’t agree more. I have always preferred more efficient smaller cars. I admit I once owned a Ford Country Squire LTD, which had room for an entire basketball team and all their equipment. With the middle seat back folded down, a person could stretch out and sleep in the back while someone else drove, which made long road trips a breeze. But gas mileage was in the low teens most of the time.

Ford once ran an ad claiming its big sedans and wagons could get 18 mpg on a trip from Phoenix to Los Angeles. I actually drove the exact route once and got 18 mpg. It was the only time the car achieved that level of fuel economy in the four years I owned it. I found out later it is slightly downhill from Phoenix to LA. That’s the reason Ford didn’t choose to trumpet about gas mileage between New York and Chicago, apparently.

After the LTD, I mostly drove smaller cars — sometimes much smaller, as was the case of the first generation Honda Civic I bought used. My friends laughed at its diminutive size, but when the first gas crisis hit in the 70s, I was the only one who could drive to Canada — where there were no lines at gas stations — without having to stop for gas. I graduated from that car to a first generation Honda Accord, which would be considered small today but was a midsize car back then. It was the quintessential three-door hatchback and it could do anything — drive to Disney World or the Cabot Trail while serving as my autocross and rally car. It always got 32 mpg or more and I really missed it when I traded it in.

After several years with a Dodge Colt, I “moved up” to four-door sedans — a succession of Saturn SL2s and Honda Civics, all of which were comfortable and reliable but considerably smaller than the “small cars” being sold in America today. The manufacturers always tell us they only build what customers want and maybe they believe that. But every year, their cars get a little bigger and they spend millions on advertising to tell us how the latest Belchfire 5000 has a tad more leg room, a skosh more head room, and a shtickel more hip room than last year’s model.

The first time I visited Europe, I was struck by how the average car there was about 2/3 the size of an average car in the US. The people were slimmer and trimmer, too, which I suppose meant they weren’t as concerned with hip room as Americans were. But in recent years, European cars have gotten progressively larger as SUV-itis has swept across the Continent. Today, sales of smaller cars — once a mainstay of the European car business — have dropped dramatically.

As Hyperdrive explains, safety regulations have a lot to do with why European cars are getting larger. Smaller cars and crumple zones are not close friends. The crumple zones in new cars today are larger than the original Fiat Cinquecento, the diminutive car that put Italian drivers back on the road after WW II.

A Call For New Regulations For Smaller Cars

Bloomberg’s Albertina Torsoli reports that in a joint interview with French newspaper Le Figaro last week, Stellantis Chair John Elkhorn and Renault CEO Luca de Meo said excessive European Union regulation is inflating the cost of making small cars because they favor the manufacturing of larger, heavier premium models. That in turn makes the manufacture of smaller cars unprofitable, which could lead to layoffs and plant closures. Passenger car sales in Europe were down 3 million vehicles in 2024, which puts emphasis on their warnings.

“Between 2015 and 2030, the cost of a Clio will have increased by 40%,” de Meo said. “European rules mean our cars are becoming always more complex, heavier, more expensive.” The Renault Clio has been one of the company’s best selling cars, but it is definitely a small car. As prices go up, the gap between it and larger cars gets smaller, which encourages some buyers to make the switch to a larger vehicles since the difference in the monthly payment is relatively modest.

“There are too many rules designed for larger and more expensive cars, which does not allow us to make small cars under acceptable profitability conditions,” de Meo said. “Is lane departure warning absolutely necessary in cars that spend 95% of their time in the city?” That technology is becoming standard equipment on many new cars, but is primarily intended to help drivers during highway driving. But it requires sensors and onboard cameras that push up the cost of building a car.

Crash testing standards also need to be reviewed with an eye toward making a separate category for small cars. Under the current testing procedures, those smaller cars have to perform the same as larger cars with hoods that are three times longer, de Meo said. Europe already has separate regulations for quadricycles such as the Citroën Ami and Fiat Topolino. Those cars are limited to 45 km/h (28 mph) and cost less than €10,000.

The Kei Car Craze

Japan has its own class for small, low powered vehicles less than 3.4 meters (11 feet) long with small internal combustion engines. Known as kei cars, they typically weigh under 1000 pounds, yet their safety record is quite good. They are also a blast to drive. They account for nearly 40% of all new car sales in a country where urban congestion is a way of life. Kei class trucks can be imported into the US if they are more than 25 years old and they have become quite popular in states where they are legal.

Establishing another regulatory category in Europe would likely be time-consuming, but “there’s no reason why Europe shouldn’t consider similar financial incentives for buyers of small cars, or penalize those who opt for a large SUV, or both,” Bloomberg says. “France has introduced weight-adjusted car taxes and parking charges,” while “changes to existing carbon-pollution targets could take into account the lower life cycle emissions associated with building smaller cars.”

At CleanTechnica, we are staunch advocates for electric vehicles, but if smaller and lighter cars were to become a thing, that would be good too. A new company called Slate, backed by Jeff Bezos, says it will introduce a small electric pickup truck that starts at $25,000 early next year. That’s a gamble, considering most pickup trucks in the US today are closer to 20 feet long and tip the scales at 2½ tons.

If the popularity of kei trucklets is any indication, that gamble could will pay off. Incidentally, the name of the company is supposedly an anagram of “Tesla,” so it’s safe to say the truck from Slate is meant to be the “anti-Cybertruck.” It can’t really sell any worse than that Elon Musk brain fart, can it?