Small EVs and efficient people carriers update familiar names for the modern age.
“We a have a free market, so long as you only buy what we allow you to buy.”
These are all concept cars. In other words often just fantasy. Even if they do make a prototype it’s in no way guaranteed that it will see production. Anyone remember the Citroen or Renault where the seat was part of the door. Even featured as a prototype on Top Gear.
Just fantasy
Well, I do remember the Renault R5 e-tech concept car: https://images.carexpert.com.au/resize/1920/-/cms/v1/media/2021-09-renault-5-3.jpg
and here is the R5 production vehicle: https://cdn.motor1.com/images/mgl/BXN7nm/s1/renault-5-e-tech-electric.jpg
Concept cars can be outlandish, or they can be damn close to what is being delivered in the end.
I saw many people saying they wanted that new CV2, but looking at the interior it doesnt even seem to have space for airbags
That interior is fantasy land. The final version will have airbags, seatbelts, air ventilation etc. I doubt it will have an egg holder. It will have lots of scratchy plastic and probably fabric or foam selectively glued in place to distract from the overall cheap feel. If they keep the bench seats they’ll probably still have to put a split so the driver / passenger are independently adjustable.
“Scratchy plastic” … why does everything have to be luxury or else it is trash? When did this trend start? Affordable cars need to be robust, practicable, efficient and well … affordable. They don’t need luxury materials. Hard plastic with selective fabric and foam where it matters is perfectly fine and serviceable. You don’t sit on your door side surface and you don’t hug your dashboard or interior car floor, do you?
That 2CV concept was all over the place but I think it will get manufactured. The production version will need to change a lot of things (the concept is ridiculous in some obvious ways) but it will appear in a year or two with a crappy range, a bench seat, plastic everywhere and a roll up roof of some kind. The original 2CV was a terrible car too that sold itself on its cheap & cheerful mantra so I suppose if they capture that it will sell pretty well.
Plenty of interesting cars in the world and all the new ones are EVs which are unlikely to get to the US.
Yes, but their point is that concept cars are just that, concepts, they’re not designed for production or regs so the version we get is usually way more bland than the concept. There are a few exceptions where the vision of the concept car makes it into production, but 95% of the time the real thing is bland af.
This does not apply to limited production cars that don’t get redesigned to come off an assembly line making 5 other models, such as very expensive cars, loss-making models produced for homogulation, fleet regulations, or flexing purposes
the new CV2 looks like it could make it to production (with a ‘normal’ interior, of course). I keep seeing more and more Renaults 5 in the street. Im sure they want a piece of that.
Think about the poor oil barons.
Looking at these photos, all I can say is god I’m so sick and tired of modern vehicle interiors. I hate these flat, 1980s-style dashboards with nothing on them but vents, a steering wheel, and two giant touchscreens. They’re Spartan as fuck and ugly as hell, yet they have the nerve to charge $60K+ for this crap. Whatever happened to proper interior design? I get that these are concept cars, but their interiors still look llke every modern car on the road.
Vehicle interior design peaked in the late 2010s and it’s only been downhill from there.
Well what else do you want? Other than some buttons for AC on the center console.
Look at any top trim vehicle interior from ~2015-2019 and just give me more of that. Buttons, knobs, an angular dashboard. No critical functions on touchscreens!
I don’t want my instrument panel to be a digital display screen. Guages! Buttons! Knobs and switches! That iPad glued to the dashboard shit is for the birds
I want a full panel with Nixie tube odometer, analogue dials, and a huge, rustic jackknife switch that throws a bunch of sparks when it turns the car on. Any physical buttons should have the loudest mechanical keyboard switches available so that I can hear them clearly with music on.
Even if they could have them, they wouldn’t want them. My family has a small EV and we love it, but 80% of cars sold in the US are SUVs and trucks. The Ford Motor Company does not even make a passenger car anymore (with the small exception of the Mustang, a muscle car they sell in small numbers).
It’s sad.
When the smart car was released in the USA there was a 1 year waiting list because so many people wanted a cheap $7,000 car that they sold out everywhere. Then they stopped making small economy cars and forced the SUV down our throats.
People absolutely would buy a cheap economy car in the USA. There is sky-high demand. It’s just not fulfilled because our auto industry is a racket and they know that if only crazy expensive cars are sold in the USA people will have no choice but to buy them. Transportation is a need, not a luxury. It’s like pricing water at $100 a bottle when everyone lives in the desert and your $100 water is the only water.
That tells you a bit about how fantastically well the “Invisible Hand” is working, isn’t it?
See the problem is the invisible hand isn’t what forced us to buy big cars. Auto regulations determining fuel economy by vehicle footprint is what killed small cars in general, including the smart car which is far too inefficient given it’s footprint to be sold in the USA. Cars as small as the smart car would need 70+ mpg to be sold under current regulations, so instead manufacturers make larger vehicles to fit inside of the regs. There’s a reason EVERY car model in the USA has only gotten larger every passing year, and it’s not just cuz “durrrr merican need big car”, although that is probably a good half of it… Here’s a random chart I found, not sure how accurate but u can search if your interested it’s all public info.
No, the regulations are not too strict for small cars, that is what the car industry wants you to think. The regulations for obese cars are far too weak and there is zero enforcement against commercially used car categories being sold for pure end consumer use.
That is by design due to a breakdown of proper functioning of institutions and massive degradation of regulations by neglect and massive loophole exploitation, even widening those loopholes instead of closing them.
That said, footprint based emission rules without strong safeguards are inherently flawed. There is a strong case against making emission standards relative to size for end consumer vehicles. A combined approach could work though, make footprint based emission a fix reqirement and then add meaningful cost to total emission, indepedendent of footprint. Exception for commercial vehicles are fine but only if commercial use is strictly enforced and not massively abused by actual end consumer use.
CAFE regulations are based on vehclicle footprint as of 2012. That’s why all the small trucks suddenly disappeared from the market that year. They had stricter fuel-economy standards than a sedan. The giant vehicles we’re gettimg today is the result of regulations that make it easier to just keep making vehicles bigger than to make them more efficient.
People will pay good money for a 15yo Ranger because you can’t get an equivalent vehicle new. The marketing to make oversized cars trendy is to prevent competition for the new vehicles coming from the used market.
I respect your optimism. Just because the Smart sold out doesn’t mean it sold a lot, though. It’s amazing in areas where parking is scarce. But outside of that, people love driving their tanks. Unfortunately, many of them buy tanks because they feel like you need a tank to be safe at this point, because of all the other tanks, and there is some evidence they are correct. I live in an area full of Escalades and jacked up Man Trucks.
And it is a sign that fuel is still too cheap in the US, even today, also, that people don’t care about others, not even about the safety and life of others.
The US is a big place with many responsible, caring people in it, so it can’t be characterized all in one stroke. But when this goes wrong, it goes really wrong.
Many are actually allergic to the idea that they are even supposed to care about others. “I’m not my brother’s keeper” is a prominent attitude here.
They see this as an impingement upon their freedom. Like having a deadbeat relative you’re stuck taking care of for the rest of your life. That kind of burden.
They have some notion of family and community but it’s very local, and I mean just the people in their lives. Anything beyond that turns into 1984 for them. Not agreeing with them, mind you, just describing.
I mean egoism of that kind is not limited to the US and to some extend also part if human nature but it is shocking indeed when not needlessly endangering the very life of others, ifte neighbours or schoolgirls and boys in the owwn neighbourhood us considered 1984 style oppression or infringement on freedom. As if if there was a freedom to harm others.
Have they stopped making the Escord, Focus and Fiesta? Those have always been incredibly popular cars in Europe.
But checking their website, I don’t see any of them. Now it’s the Puma, Kuga, Explorer, and apparently the Capri is back! Also an electric Mustang and the current van is called Tourneo. (And the Mustang is listed as an SUV.) (Maybe the Tourneo is an “SUV inspired car”, but there seem to be two completely different cars with that name.)
But Ford sells completely different cars in Europe than in the US. That’s why they’re the one American car company that’s very successful in Europe.
No one in the US makes those budget entry level cars anymore. No Honda Civic or Fit. No Nissan Versa. Certainly no Ford Escort or Fiesta. It’s just not a category any of the companies care about serving anymore. It used to be that companies would lose money on their entry level car to win your brand loyalty. Mose money on a Corolla so that someday you get even more back on a Lexus. But apparently ain’t nobody got time for that anymore.
As far as I know they stopped making the Fiesta a while ago, the Focus is still being offered in Europe. I think they might still sell the Ka in Brazil as a small car but obviously nowhere else.
Yeah, the Capri is back in name only. Updated for the current market by being an electric SUV…
Edit: just looked it up and not only does Ford not sell the Ka in Brazil anymore, they don’t sell the Focus at all anymore. What a shame.
A mustang is not a muscle car, it literally created it’s own group of cars called pony cars
0 Days without Americans making everything about them
I mean… it’s an American website, not surprising to have an American point of view. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Google is telling me that Lemmy was founded in the UK. And it’s a decentralized federated service. How is it an American website?
He’s referring to Ars Technica you box of rocks.
I’m adding this to my unironic obscure insults list.
Happy to contribute!
Oops, my bad. No need to be mean about it. It was an honest question.
lmao I’m sorry. I tend to respond with the energy I’ve been given and this week Lemmy has been giving me lots of rude BS.
No worries. Hopefully next week treats you better!
I don’t think this site will return to normal until the US midterms are over, but I’ll try to be less of a dick until then.
my take on this is that whoever wrote this doesn’t know that there’s ~190 additional countries that don’t have these cars.
deleted by creator
I honestly don’t think most of the cooler looking ones will release at all; the 2cv maybe. I’d be surprised if, apart from the VAG cars, any of them came to Australia
I want the skinny 125 R15 tires and flip up side windows on the new 2CV!
There are more than double the amount of car makers available to choose from in the EU vs the US, gas and electric.
Because were dozens of countries, not just 1.
It has its backsides too ofc.
I’m not sure how the “multiple countries” has anything to do with the regulatory and economic entity that is the EU that also makes carve-outs to protect local manufacturers. The cars available are not just European makers that suddenly became available to everyone because of the EU, there are tons of cars from Korea, China, and the US as well that somone living in Europe has the option to buy.
backsides? There is no perfect system.
Many countries had their own car brands because we’re historically split up.
We do integrate (other countries too) more and more now though, especially with the EU, but history changes slowly.
Made for the civilized streets of Europe, not the kill-or-be-killed Mad Max hellscape of the the automotive United States.
Edit: Are we making an exception for Rome?
civilized streets of Europe
Prolly better than USA but i’d not call any Italian street “civilized”
Tell me you have never been oversea’s (let alone drove there) without telling me you have never been overseas.
Everywhere in the world people drive like ass hats. It part of the human condition.
Twice as many road deaths in the US IIRC.
FYI people drive wildly differently in the EU already.
Per capita yes - but as so often in statistics, per-capita measures are an oversimplification. By deaths/km driven, the US isn’t a particular outlier (Top score is Mexico with 27.5 (!!!) deaths / 1bil km, then #2: Malaysia with 16.2 and #3: South Korea with 8.2. Other countries of interest are Belgium (7.3), New Zealand (7.2), US (6.9), France (5.8), Australia (4.9), Canada (4.3))
(source)
Nah, on average, people in Europe are way better drivers than in the USA. To the point where it’s shocking to me as an American.
Yes, but the problem in the US is we have several generations of cars built to be “safe” for the driver, which means more dangerous for everyone else, meaning drivers of large vehicles drive wrecklessly with absolutely no fear for their own lives and aren’t removed from the gene pool.
I was driving from coast to coast in the US granted, a good while ago when there were still much fewer ass clown oversized trucks on the road (but still more than enough anyhow), in a Sedan. Didn’t feel too stressed to be honest. Where it gets really dangerous real fast is if you dare to walk anywhere outside of the few somewhat pedestrian friendly areas in the country.
I just sorta assumed this was true (in no small part because I accept xkcd as infallible gospel). But I was curious and just dug into it, and it appears that the fatality rate for accidents with injury in the US is among the lowest. And while the accident-with-injury rate is higher in the US than the combined EU + EFTA it’s not so different as to change this relationship. I really didn’t expect that, and I wish I could find more recent data to see how the trend has changed up to today (the best data I could find on this was from 2015 - which is well into the era of the US fixation on suburban combat vehicles, but as they may make up a higher % of all vehicles on the road now, I’m very curious to see what the current data shows)
(Chart in spoiler because I don't want to clutter up the thread:)
The report this is pulled from excludes non-injury MV accidents
This is heavily dependent on incident report rates. Incidents are underreported in countries where insurance doesn’t require police reports and/or litigation risk is much lower.
Deaths are pretty well recorded, and there you see that the US is much higher in vehicle deaths per capita. Deaths per billion vehicle-km is also useful, as you can argue that per capita the US drives a lot more, so you will see more incidents due to the traffic exposure being higher.
Summarizing: The US has well over twice as many traffic deaths per capita at 110+ vs 45 in the EU. The worst EU country is Romania with 78. The US is closer when you compare kms driven: about 7 deaths per billion km, still way higher than northern Europe (2-4) and about on par with Belgium (that’s unfortunately not something to be proud of). Quite a bit safer than the lower scoring countries though on that metric, like 14.4 for the Czech Republic.
Ahh, Romania, truly the driving sucks. Wonderful people who all turn into complete numbnuts the minute they get behind the wheel of a car. Genuinely the worst drivers I have ever known outside of Asia.
The death rate isn’t helped by the “wearing a seatbelt makes me less virile” (with its corollary “wearing a seatbelt as a passenger is insulting the driver”) culture still dominating, either.
(I addressed per-captia deaths vs. distance driven in another comment earlier, I do quite agree)
I think averaging the rates across the EU is a counterproductive, or outright obfuscating, metric. While it is a basis for comparison, the data varies so wildly from country to country it serves only to obscure the realities of the situation. The report I’m sourcing from does make it clear that countries may be underreporting their accident rates:
The comparability of data is also subject to differences in road accident reporting standards. Notably, the number of accidents and the number of injuries may be underreported in some countries due to administrative or practical limitations.
And the cited article from that section is quite interesting. In particular,
For estimations of the real volumes it is not necessary to have all accidents reported by the police. By using other sources, such as cause of death statistics and medical and insurance databases, it is possible to get a more accurate assessment. These additional databases can also provide supplementary information on accidents or the outcome of an accident, including the types and severity of injuries.
which does appear to be how CARE is sourcing their data (although their dashboard is some godawful Qlik thing so I was not able to determine sources for all of their metrics)
Taxi drivers take it to the next level tho. First time I rode a taxi in Tallinn was pretty white knuckle.
Did you know that the highway scene in Tenet was filmed in one take and entirely accidentally? They just built the film around that.
Guangzhou, China takes the cake. I was there for a few weeks. Wrong side of the road, wrong way on one way streets, ON THE FUCKING SIDEWALKS w/ ped traffic. It was insane!
Dominican Republic is a distant second, there was order to the chaos I could see after a few weeks… China it was pure entropy at its finest!
Guangzhou isn’t that bad, have you been there recently?
I learned to ride in Hanoi, I spent a year in various parts of vietnam and was very comfortable in SEA traffic on a bike.
None of that prepared me for the chaos of HCMC. People going the wrong way, people visibly drunk on bikes, randomly finding yourself surrounded by semis on cracked and broken pavement, you and 20 other bikes making offroad detours to get around cars.
Not since Xi showed up, from what I heard China has really cracked down on the shenanigans plus they put up bollards to prevent it.
Probably, but I wouldn’t overstate it, like there aren’t cars driving at speed on sidewalks, but its not like western countries where cars simply don’t drive or park in sidewalks. Bicycles and escooters still drive however they like, which imo is fine, since they’re so much less dangerous than cars, but it is different from further north. Its a but of a transition when you go further north and remember you’re not supposed to walk or ride your bike across moving traffic.
Motorcycles are banned outright, which is bullshit.
Heres a cat I saw last night:
Its wild how many parts of the world outlaw motorcycles. As a rider too I feel for the locals…
And that cat it too dang cure, all tuckered out guarding the store :) Too dang cute!!!
But only in Germany the Hilti Pasat is trying to breake any speed record om existence
Well, they drive better in Germany than in France, Italy, or Bulgaria (from my personal experience).
Rome is easy mode… farther south it starts to look like GTA on a slow day
Further north is an impossible quest if you are a pedestrian
They look cool but it would be nice to see more basic EVs. Most of these concepts will likely have steer and brake by wire, while fun to drive, but meaning repairing is where the money will be.
I’m in the US, you can have any EV you want as long as it is a half baked crossover. What I really want is a maximally efficient low slung aerodynamic wagon.
It’s all fucking junk. Everybody here wants a giant tank, I hate it.
I’m a Chevy Bolt EUV driver. This 100%. I’m in the market for a mini van and want something electric. Nothing except the VW Buzz exists.
Fat people want fat cars.
Let them walk
There are a few electric wagons in the USA, but they are really expensive
Or like Henry Ford had it: you can choose any color you want as long as it is black.
(Wasn’t he a nazi sympathiser BTW?)
It’s freedom! We’re free to not be permitted to buy certain car brands.
Real competition would ruin their share dividends.
There is a criminal lack of electric minivans on the market today,
Yes please, we need more of these, especially with slid8ng passenger doors. I’m embracing my unc status and wanting a family car even before having my own family.
I am convinced of the minivan (mini MPV) supremacy.
Luckily (?) the country I’m living in there’s a few options from Chinese brands but they all emulate the high end fridge on wheels vellfires or alphards.
yes there is, at least there is now the Kia PV5 that is somewhqt rrasonably priced for what you get. I hope the Renault Trafic will be like that as well. The VW Buzz is too expensive.
The Buzz is going to be replaced with a cheaper model, it is 50% overpriced.
The E-T16 has 818 hp and torque vectoring.
That car looks like it was taken from cyberpunk or something
Oh, I like this one!
Makes me remember rally class B.
Another thing americans cannot understand.
i just want to see the hands of the person who designed that steering wheel
6 fingers of slop.
looks more like two on each hand
I imagined this and it frustrated me. Thank you.
Looks more Cyberpunk than the Cybertruck.
The Cybertruck isn’t cyberpunk, it’s tacky and not at all punk.
Cybertruck
Isn’t that the plastic car with some stainless steel glued onto it?
Why does a car need 805hp for public roads.
Guy guess here; with efficient electric motors, huge numbers come basically free. Larger number sounds better so might as well go for it.
Does it need it? No. Do I want it? Yes.
Can you handle it ? No.
How do you know ramenshaman can’t handle that much horsepower? Is it a lot? Yes. Is it ludicrous? Not really.
Most importantly, it’s computer controlled, being completely electric, so unless they really shit the bed on the software, it should be fine. Not like literal explosions and rotating mass controlled by software
Shit that’s cool. Of course america can’t have it. We get f 150s. Fucking yay.
If only they actually produced concept cars :/ It looks sick
If it’s like my experiences with Peugeot, you’ll have a nice car but one window will never work properly.
Can you bullseye womp-rats in this T-16 back home?
Holy shit balls… don’t mind my drool
For a second I thought this was a proper super hatchback but the pic with it next to people makes it look huge.
Those people are in the background though. If you go off the wheel size for scale and estimate it to be around 20", the car is only 2x the height of the wheels, so not that big. Something small like that would be amazing with 800HP.
Yeah it’s hard to tell the scale here. I was guessing these wheels were larger than 20" just based on how crazy the design is, but I certainly hope you’re right and it’s actually compact.
