MotorAuthority

Small cars still too small for U.S.?

Posted Fri Sep 19 2008 10:00 AM by Nelson Ireson

The floor dropped out of the market for SUVs and pickups this year, and Americans were supposedly replacing them with small cars. But what's small in America isn't what's small in the rest of the world, and truly small cars appear to continue to get short shrift. The latest evidence of this fact is the Hyundai i10's exclusion from U.S. sale.

But it's far from the only evidence of the American resistance to very small cars. Cars like the Toyota Yaris and Honda Fit do well, even to the point of selling out of dealer supplies in some areas of the country, but they are the smallest examples of commercial success in the U.S. car market aside from a rather limited-volume sampling of the Smart ForTwo. Toyota is even reportedly considering keeping its Smart-sized iQ away from the U.S. because of its size.

There appears to be no single factor for the reluctance to embrace truly small cars, despite their obvious advantages for the majority of city-dwellers. High exchange rates could drive the price of imported small cars upward enough to make the fuel savings benefits marginal at best. Safety concerns about sharing the highways and byways with the three-ton hulks known as SUVs are equally real. Together, those two plus the apparent American predisposition against anything smaller or cheaper are conspiring to keep such innovative small cars off the roads.

In the i10's case, Hyundai has already realized this and is instead working on bringing a Fit or Yaris competitor such as the i20 or i30 to the U.S., though senior vice president of product planning for Hyundia/Kia says there "is no decision yet," reports Automotive News.

story Tags:

• 2010 iQ
• 2010 Toyota iQ
• America
• Hyundai
• Hyundai i10
• i10
• Small cars
• Toyota
• Toyota iQ
• Trends
• U.S.

Reader Comments

• Fri Sep 19 2008 10:31 AM

  Gus says

  I consider the Malibu to be a "small" car. People from Europe and Japan (who havent' travelled or lived here) will never understand that mentality. Having lived in Europe, I know that a Malibu is a big car for those streets, and my Mustang is huge.
  But in the US there is no need for cars as small as the tiny ones shown here. We don't have the parking shortage (except in San Fancisco and New York) that there is in most of the towns and cities of Europe. We also just don't have the population density.
  That said, another factor is the safety, there are just too many medium and large sized cars here...

• Fri Sep 19 2008 10:52 AM

  Laz says

  I do agree with Gus. I would not go any smaller than my first gen Scion xB/Toyota bB being I won't fit in many compacts due to my height. If the price of gas surpasses the $5 range in the US most folks will either choose mass transit or a sub compact car,gas is still not to bad and don't see people forced to make that decision.

• Fri Sep 19 2008 11:24 AM

  NoNameDenton says

  Also the cost of bringing those into compkiance with US saftey standards is not worth bringing the cars here.