Hyundai releases WLTP range figures for the Ioniq 6 sedan, a Florida Porsche dealer sues Porsche over separate showroom requirements, Tesla eliminates ultrasonic sensors. All this and more in today’s issue of The Morning Dump.
Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday.
The Hyundai Ioniq 6 Boasts Some Insane Range
Hyundai’s released range figures for the Ioniq 6 on the somewhat optimistic WLTP cycle and man, are they ever impressive. This electric sedan rides on the same E-GMP architecture as the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and features cutting-edge 800-volt DC fast charging capability. More importantly, it’s poised to be one of the few actual electric sedans Americans will be able to buy without joining the Tesla cult or splashing out obscene money on a luxury model. Of equal importance, it just looks cool inside and out, with unique streamliner styling and a posh-looking cabin. Oh, and because sedans typically have better aerodynamic characteristics than crossovers, it’s expected to have properly impressive range.
Let’s start with the big number: 614 km, or 381 miles. That’s the WLTP range of the rear-wheel-drive model with the big battery pack on the small wheels. For context, an Ioniq 5 hatchback/crossover with the 77.4 kWh battery pack on the smaller 19-inch wheels is rated at 507 km or 315 miles on the WLTP cycle. That same configuration is rated at 303 miles on the EPA cycle, so it wouldn’t be unexpected for the Hyundai Ioniq 6 long-range to feature an EPA range of 350 miles or more. I wouldn’t try doing that in one seating without pausing for at least a bathroom break.
Equally impressive is the range touted by the base 53 kWh battery pack, some 429 km or 266 miles on the WLTP cycle. Even if EPA range lands a bit south of 250 miles, that would still be a lot of range from a tiny battery pack. In any case, I’ll be watching EPA range figures closely as the Hyundai Ioniq 6 is set to go on sale in America next year.
Porsche Dealer Sues Manufacturer Over Alleged Separate Showroom Coercion
Automotive News reports that a Florida Porsche dealer is suing Porsche over allegations of choking the franchise. Porsche dealership The Collection says Porsche has stopped allocating “pool cars” that can make up 20 percent of inventory as a way to force The Collection to build a standalone Porsche showroom. For context, pool cars are new vehicles allocated to dealerships under manufacturer discretion rather than on expected sales. Porsche Cars North America, however, apparently thinks The Collection is in the wrong for not building a separate showroom.
The Collection’s decision not to build a standalone Porsche store demonstrates its “unwillingness to meaningfully engage in best business practices and promote the Porsche brand,” [Porsche Cars North America COO Joe] Lawrence said. “As a result, it should come as no surprise that we continue to withhold discretionary assignment of pool cars to The Collection.”
However, The Collection alleges that Porsche previously approved its multi-brand showroom, that requiring a separate showroom is illegal under Florida law, and that stopping allocation of pool cars will lead to a sales “death spiral.”
The Collection may have a valid point here. Effectively having to create a separate retail space is ridiculous if a shared space works. Instead of a dedicated Porsche dealership, commercial-zoned land could be developed to house businesses that serve a wider section of the community, like restaurants and shops. Plus, Florida statute 320.64(10)(b) exists.
“Notwithstanding any provision of a franchise, a licensee may not require a motor dealer, by agreement, program, policy, standard, or otherwise, to make substantial changes, alterations, or remodeling to, or replace a motor vehicle dealer’s sales or service facilities unless the licensee’s requirements are reasonable and justifiable in light of the current and reasonably foreseeable projections of economic conditions, financial expectations, and the motor vehicle dealer’s market for the licensee’s vehicles.”
In plain English, this means that it’s now up to Porsche to prove that its strategy of pool car allocation is a franchise provision, isn’t a policy that requires a dealer to build a separate showroom in order to survive, and that building a separate showroom is reasonable and justifiable. Should The Collection win, it could embolden other dealerships to push back against manufacturer-ordered facility expansions.
Tesla To Eliminate Ultrasonic Sensors
In the midst of heavy scrutiny over Tesla’s advanced driver assistance systems, Reuters reports that Tesla is removing ultrasonic sensors from its cars in pursuit of running driver assistance systems exclusively using input from vehicle cameras.
Tesla vehicles now have 12 ultrasonic sensors on the front and rear bumpers, and short-range sound sensors are mainly used in parking applications and to detect close objects.
“It’ll save them a few dollars. I mean those things are pretty cheap,” Guidehouse Insights analyst Sam Abuelsamid said, referring to ultrasonic sensors. “It’ll also save them some chips.”
While saving chips is good for production, removing ultrasonic sensors is likely to play havoc on functions like Summon. Then again, it’s not like Summon is necessarily a great idea in the first place. Also, the convenience of ultrasonic parking sensors is well worth a few dollars per car.
Don’t Expect More GR Toyota Models Soon
Just as we’re welcoming the Toyota GR Corolla into the automotive world, Australian motoring outlet Drive reports that this might be all we’re going to see from Toyota’s GR sub-brand.
When asked if there are any more high-performance models planned under the Toyota GR brand after the current quartet, Toyota GR86 chief engineer Yasunori Suezawa told Drive through a translator: “There is none left actually, so this [the GR86] is the last.”
“For the GR [performance brand], basically this [the GR86] is the last. But we have a GR Sport [brand] that we will be [widening] with models like the Corolla, Yaris Cross and C-HR,” Suezawa-san said.
If it turns out that the GR Supra, GR Yaris, GR Corolla, and GR86 are the last full-on GR cars Toyota will produce, four firecrackers isn’t a bad way of going out. While we all crave more fun-focused cars, impending emissions legislation and shareholders desiring green vehicles will likely change the automotive landscape forever. We’re already seeing it with performance vehicles like the immensely heavy plug-in hybrid Mercedes-AMG C63 S E Performance and the capable yet clinical Polestar 2.
The Flush
Whelp, time to drop the lid on today’s edition of The Morning Dump. It’s Wednesday which means that we’re officially halfway through the week. Speaking of the middle, what’s your favorite middle child of the automotive kingdom? A car that isn’t quite the top trim in its range but is secretly the one to have. I’m going with the current-generation Mini Clubman Cooper S for this one. Sure, it doesn’t have the firepower of the JCW model, but it still offers decent shove and doesn’t seem absurdly expensive. What’s your middle-of-the-range pick?
Lead photo credit: Hyundai
Bladder busting?
Why is it that all the range has to be used in one go? The “you have to stop and pee sometimes” argument is completely bogus.
Sometimes you have to stop in a place where you can’t charge. Some times you _want_ to stop someplace where you can’t charge because it’s better than the place where you can. Sometimes you want to use your car for two things in a row. Like… commuting to work, and then leaving Friday evening for a weekend getaway.
Totally reasonable for Porsche to want a separate showroom for their vehicles. Genesis is starting to put pressure on Hyundai dealers to have a separate Genesis showroom if they sell both brands. Even if it was previously accepted, brand standards change. That Florida law may add a wrinkle, though.
Man, if manufacturers want control over how their cars are displayed and sold, maybe they should consider direct-to-consumer sales [thinking_emoji]
Ford might need to check their short on that Hyundai release info. Fake mustangs cannot compete it appears.
Best Middle of the Road car for me is the 4 cylinder Turbo Camaro with 1LE suspension package. if it were available in AWD for winter grip, I would daily one.
The drive.com.au question is almost specifically but indirectly about the prospect of a GR Hilux into Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Which has long been mooted as a Hilux with a Land Cruiser engine…which is not exactly unlikely given that Toyota have already prepared, engineered and announced for sale, a wide track Hilux which would be a perfect chassis set for a GR Hilux…
Good research on the porsche showroom thing Thomas.
My opinion FWIW- i dont think the legal situation put porsche under pressure at all. They’ll just say it’s up to the dealer to work that out.
It would be interesting to see how other florida dealers dealt with this
Middle child: I came to say Mustang GT. The Z06 isn’t wrong either.
I watched the ioniq 6 launch video… well, up until there was some person trying to raise awareness by throwing a ‘trashion’ show, claiming how difficult it was to collect materials while in a recycling dump that looked cleaner than many offices I’ve been in.
I suspect I am not their target audience…. although I still think the funkiness of the ioniq 5 is well worth losing some range.
That Ioniq 6 looks like a Lucid but from a real car company.
If Porsche doesn’t like it, maybe they should stop franchising dealers and just use company stores. Do any of The Collection’s customers complain about a shared showroom?
Toyota needs to not limit the number of GR models. Build every one it can sell. Too bad we never got the GR Yaris over here, or even the new Yaris at all. We needs more small cars that are affordable. Toyota already understands that EV tech and infrastructure aren’t mature yet.
We could use a GR Camry All-Trac, GR Sienna, GR Rav4, GR Tacoma, GR Tundra, maybe even a GR Sequoia to compete with the Durango Hellcat and Tahoe SS/Escalade V.
Let’s start with the big number: 614 km, or 381 miles. That’s the WLTP range of the rear-wheel-drive model with the big battery pack on the small wheels.
Oh great now I gotta listen to all these goalposts being moved. Thanks a lot Hyundai.
“Porsche dealership The Collection says Porsche has stopped allocating “pool cars” that can make up 20 percent of inventory as a way to force The Collection to build a standalone Porsche showroom.”
And Porsche is in the right here, period. The Collection wants cars for free (these pool cars aren’t floor plan cars. They’re getting them basically for free on contingency.) The Collection wants to sell literally every luxury brand but cram them all into one showroom, and quite frankly, is not a high quality dealership.
They literally park lease-special middle-class suburbia Audi SUVs right next to $150k+ 911’s next to Ferrari GTC4’s. Same showroom. This doesn’t benefit anyone but the dealership; it diminishes and tarnishes the various brands. Why would Ferrari want their half million dollar supercar parked next to a “pre-owned” $37,000 Audi A4?
So Porsche is absolutely in the right. If The Collection wants preferential treatment from them in the form of basically free cars, then the dealership needs to offer something of reasonable value in exchange.
“In the midst of heavy scrutiny over Tesla’s advanced driver assistance systems, Reuters reports that Tesla is removing ultrasonic sensors from its cars in pursuit of running driver assistance systems exclusively using input from vehicle cameras.”
GM, Ford, basically every manufacturer has already tested eliminating ultrasonic sensors with the mandated backup camera. They had to install a camera, surely they could use that to solve backup sensors. So they enlisted companies with decades of expertise in this like Bosch, Delphi, etcetera to develop systems to test this. Because it could save them a lot of money.
Guess what? Every single manufacturer still includes ultrasonic sensors as well as the backup camera, often with guide lines. Because guess what? The cameras couldn’t do the job.
This straight up does not work. It cannot work. Full stop.
“When asked if there are any more high-performance models planned under the Toyota GR brand after the current quartet, Toyota GR86 chief engineer Yasunori Suezawa told Drive through a translator: “There is none left actually, so this [the GR86] is the last.””
While this is disappointing, this is also extremely expected.
I mean seriously people, what the fuck else do they have to GR? They’ve done the GR86. They’ve done the GR Supra. They’ve done the GR Corolla. They’ve done the GR Yaris.
What else are they going to GR? The Camry? They’d be justifiably laughed the hell out of the show. The Land Cruiser? The Hilux? The Taco? Did all of those as offroad packages. The C-HR? They did it – it was just a body kit. It was a joke. A GR Camry? It’d be the same deal, diluting and damaging the brand, and turning it into a joke.
Toyota knows what they have with GR. And they know anything with the GR badge has to be genuine. That’s what has brought it success. Slapping that badge on a Camry with a body kit will go over like a lead balloon.
So I am okay with this. I agree with this. This is the right call. Maybe when they have a new platform worthy of the GR badge, we’ll get another.
Just put the damn turbo 3 cylinder in an 86 already
I’d be OK with an Audi fighting turbo 3.5 six AWD GR Camry. I wouldn’t want to see the bill, but the car sounds right.
For a middle child, I’m going with the Honda Civic Si. Not as much power as the Type R but I won’t get challenged to a stoplight grand prix every time I drive the car.
Civic Si owner here, can confirm. Solidly under the radar, but still tons of fun.
Middle child as I am, I think I am well qualified to assert that the Lexus ES 300h hybrid takes the award. It is not as far down as the ES 250, nor as grand as the ES 350, power wise. But it is quieter than both, has sufficient horsepower, and gets 45mpg on the highway, in my years of experience. Plus, you can get a great stereo, and quiet wheels, and it does most of the driving for you (while I continue to pay attention to cars around me.) Also, it’s a Toyota, which means it will last. What do I win?
In my view, electric cars have a long way to go in terms of range before I’ll be happy with the options.
I think I’ve been spoiled by my 03 JettaTDI but any driving range that is less than 900km to me is an inconvenience. On many occasions I’ve driven properly long distances without refuelling or stopping along the way, like Toronto to Detroit return in a day 820km (553 miles) or Toronto, to Ottawa and back 790km (490 miles). A few times I’ve driven Toronto to York Maine 1000km (621 miles) all without refuelling. I really like the freedom this long range affords me. On my trips to Main I usually only need to stop once for food.
Day to day this range means that I can regularly go 4-7 weeks between fill ups. As far as I’m concerned the less time spent at gas stations the better.
Day to day, do I have good news about EV’s for you, assuming you park somewhere with access to electricity.
my Hyundai gets a reliable 620 miles of range on a tank, up to 700 under ideal conditions, and I’ve been kind of liking that. I drove to Michigan from Delaware and back in one weekend a few weeks ago, and only used two tanks of gas, one out, one back. Made two brief pee stops, but that was it.
About one or two weekends a month from the Spring through the Fall, I head down to the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia, which is about an 800 mile round trip, been doing those trips for years with several different vehicles, but this is the first one I’ve had where I can drive all the way down there, do some running around in the local area, and drive a good part of the way back before having to refuel, which is kind of nice.
Hopefully you stop for lunch or at least a bathroom break?
Leave Toronto with a full charge of 381, drive it down to 10% so you’ve driven 350 miles roughly. Stop for lunch/ bathroom, charge back to 80% in 18 minutes while eating etc., that’s gives you another 304 miles or range or 100 more than you need. if you charge to 90% , still while you’re eating and get a further 342. that’ll get you to York Maine. with 71 miles spare.
Sure these are under ideal conditions for weather, charging speeds and charging station locations, but it’s not impossible.
I also don’t like gas stations, charge at home and never go to a gas station again.
I think the Ioniq 6 would make an excellent Jetta replacement for you.
I love a tank full of diesel and a back seat floor full of trucker bombs.
I agree. I want the trip over. Minimal food/drink. As much range as possible is great.
I had a diesel Jetta that would go about 900km on a tank- my bladder gave out long before
For a few years the Cruze Eco was the only way to get a manual Cruze with the 1.4T engine. GM gave the transmission a split personality with three fairly aggressive gears and three overdrive gears. Making it 200 lbs lighter than it’s linemates made it simultaneously the fastest to 60 and most fuel efficient Cruze. Interestingly the only Cruzes I still see are either LS base models or Eco models. –\”_”/–
Toyota 4Runner sr5 premium. Most of the limited goodies for substantially less money. I really enjoyed my two without the eye watering costs of the limited.
When we were buying or Kia Carnival, I really wanted the SX but after looking at them and looking at what was immediately available we got the EX. It is the middle of the range, but it has the nicer wheels, bigger infotainment screen, syn-tex seats and a bunch of other stuff over the LX base. For the price we paid I can’t imagine the the SX would have been that much better.
For minivans (or MPVs lol) I think the mid range is the sweet spot, especially with little kids in car seats
I wish it was possible to buy a van with all the creature comforts imaginable up front (heated & cooled leather seats, heated wheel, good stereo, nav, etc) and hose it out vinyl floor and seats in the rear two rows.
For some reason, van manufacturers don’t seem to grasp the idea that I want nice things, but that my kids can’t be trusted with them.
Better than a truck for most people, those with kids and without. As you point out, with kids, you want easy-clean, durable (and safe, I guess, I don’t have them). Without kids, you don’t really care about the back seat passengers and their comfort 90%+ of the time. That space can be used to haul crap from your favorite project store, yard center, lumber yard, bulk-goods store, or even empty like almost every single truck bed. Also nice to transport expensive toys and gear in dry, conditioned space, specially when it is easy to clean.
My 911 came from The Collection originally. Seems like half of the south Florida ones do. They move a lot of cars, but I can see both ways. It’s totally Porsche’s prerogative to withhold supply, and since they are only withholding discretionary stock, I don’t think it falls under that law, which covers manufacturer *requirements*.
They are also suing, which is never the first or second step – manufacturers tend to remember things like lawsuits for a long time. This has to have been a long-standing issue and it’s finally boiled over.
Middle child? Cadillac.
CTS!
Oh and my favorite forgotten middle trim is the LT1 Camaro. If you go easy on the options you can have a 450 horsepower, RWD, NA V8 for about 35 grand, and the LT1 package gives you front brembos and some chassis upgrades as well. Both transmission options rule too…that 10 speed is an amazing pairing with that engine and the manual is a Tremec.
It’s one of the best performance per dollar ratios on the market and you get some sleeper potential with it because it shares the same front end with the 4 and 6 cylinder cars. That being said, the gas and insurance costs will add up quickly, so the cost of entry is just the beginning. But still, it’s one hell of a car for the price. I’d equip one with nothing but the manual and adaptive exhaust in that electric blue color. What more do you need? For the cost of a GTI SE you can have a legitimate beast of a sports car.
How many times do you wake up at night to go to the bathroom?
Probably depends if he’s sleeping through the night while sitting upright in a chair, causing his back and butt to get uncomfortable.
Once, but it used to be zero for over 40 years.
Too close to home.
I wake up almost every night between 1 and 4am to empty my bladder and chug whatever’s left of the water on my nightstand. It’s tradition at this point.
Normally zero. But I have a big tank. In the morning I feel like I could fill a gallon jug. I’ll have to test it sometime.
Usually if I sleep for 6-8 hours I wake up having to pee so bad I feel like I’m going to burst. Just during my normal 8 hour shift at work I go twice. I also drink more than a gallon of water a day. On road trips I usually stop every 150-200 just to stretch. I used to intentionally not drink water on trips and see how far I can go, but that’s not healthy.
I’m very intrigued by the Ioniq 6 and eagerly await the N version. If they somehow keep it under 60k or so I’d consider one as my next car, but we’ll see. Performance EVs are hot right now and command quite a premium.
Favorite middle child is easy: Corvette Z06. With the unfortunate exception of the C7 they have all been NA, track optimized, and driver focused vs the top dog ZR1s.
The C6 Z06 has that absolutely glorious 7 liter too. If 7 liters of NA V8 can’t get your blood pumping it’s time to consult a medical professional. I’m also absolutely smitten with the new Z06 as well but alas…I’m not in the financial position to buy a six figure weekend car. Unless the wife wants to downsize the house and hand me the equity to buy it with. I’ll…get back to you on that one.
I’m holding out hope that in 5 years or so there may be used ones in the 70s but with the end of ICE mass hysteria and current production issues I doubt it’ll happen. But we’ll see. Maybe GM can put the engine in a limited run Camaro for all 7 of us that would want that sort of thing.
“Maybe GM can put the engine in a limited run Camaro for all 7 of us that would want that sort of thing.”
Unfortunately, I have bad news for you:
https://gmauthority.com/blog/2021/07/sixth-gen-camaro-z-28-with-flat-plane-v8-was-apparently-planned-then-axed/
Trying to get on a C8 Z06 waiting list/order book was among the most depressing car buying experiences I’ve ever had. 3-4 year wait or $50,000+ over sticker were the norms. I’m hoping the production run is long enough that some normalcy comes into it by the end, but otherwise I’ve pretty much given up hope of acquiring one.
*sad upper middle class enthusiast noises*
I agree with the Corvette, but I’d go with the Grand Sport as the middle-child to have.
This. I’d love to see a C8 Grand Sport. I’d even buy it new.
That’s a good amount of range. It’s not the max range that’s important, it’s how comfortable you can be in between the max and min range. I.e. drive it down to 15% and fill it up to 80% to keep your battery alive and shorten charging times versus 5% and 90% to make the same trip. Being able to stop at 80% charge and still have a lot of range dramatically cuts time at the charging station as the current falls off a cliff after that point. i.e. more range means more options, less stress on the battery and less time at the charger.
That’s an interesting exercise. Start with the most generous range figure of 381 miles. The bottom 15% of that is 57 miles, bringing us to 324 miles. The top 20% is 76 miles, taking it down to 248 miles of range in normal use. It can go farther than that of course, but if you were road tripping that’s about as far as you’d ideally want to go between recharges.
To take it one step further, in the wintertime EVs tend to lose about 30% of their range as a rough rule of thumb. You might expect 174 miles of usable range under those conditions, again assuming you were reserving 15% for contingencies and only charging to 80% max.
In real life these figures would all be a bit lower, as the WLTP cycle is dumb.
This will also be great for whenever infrastructure allows our focus to shift from range to energy efficiency. The draw of an electric sedan is that you’re squeezing over 4 miles per kWh from a relatively small battery, so your cost and time to charge go down quite a bit.
You can fast charge that smaller battery from 10-80% in about 15 minutes and be on your way. Or get a day’s worth of range from a Level 2 charging session while you’re at the grocery store.
I’ve been screaming for an affordable rear-drive EV sedan (built by a company that actually knows how to build cars) ever since the Model 3 came out. Wish granted, and hopefully more companies come out with similar products.
I wonder why more cars aren’t more aerodynamic. It’s not like the rules for good airflow are a mystery anymore.
Because the rules of fashion trump them in the market.
A recent survey indicated that fuel economy was the number one criteria people were considering when selecting a car. 2nd place was safety. 3rd place was low cost. Aerodynamic drag reduction is the single most important AND inexpensive thing that can be done to increase a car’s fuel economy, and in the case of EVs, the least expensive way to increase range per charge. Toward the very bottom of the list of criteria consumers were considering was “design”(styling/aesthetics).
https://www.statista.com/chart/13075/most-important-factors-when-buying-a-car/
Car aero today is only marginally better than it was in the 1980s, and the average new car has a drag coefficient that has just recently begun to match the 1921 Rumpler Tropfenwagen, around 0.28. The recent Hyundai IONIQ 6 scheduled for production in 2023 has a drag coefficient of 0.21, which matches that of the 1935 Tatra T77A. Things have been quite backwards, regarding automobile aerodynamics, for a century.
Drag coefficients of around 0.15 are possible for practical road-going vehicles while still retaining acceptable variability of styling, according to technical papers written by aerodynamicists Wolf-Heinrich Hucho. See the book “Aerodynamics of Road Vehicles” as one example of their writings where this is mentioned; this book is nearly 40 years old. Examples of what such a car might look like include but are not limited to the 2020 GAC ENO 146(0.146 Cd), 2000 GM Precept(0.16 Cd), or 1983 Ford Probe IV(0.15 Cd). A sports car designed for ultimate streamlining might look like the 1967 Panhard CD Peugeot 66C(0.13 Cd). All of these values compare closely to the modern Aptera(0.14 Cd), which is a greatly less conventional design than either of these.
Much lower is possible with significant compromises. My Milan SL velomobile has a drag coefficient of only 0.08, but it achieves this by having a terribly large turning radius and low ground clearance of only 2.9″. Unmotorized, I can pedal it to 50 mph on flat ground because it is so slippery. Most of the drag induced is from the small portion of the wheels and tires exposed to the airflow.
If someone made a big-block V8 musclecar with a drag coefficient around 0.15 and a frontal area around 22 square feet, 50+ mpg on the highway would be possible due to such low drag, and the car wouldn’t be all that small. If they instead used a 1.9L VW TDI engine, 100+ mpg on the highway would be possible in the same car. EVs that can seat 5 people but only need 150 Wh/mile on the highway are also possible with such a platform.
It is not the “market” deciding that cars need to be the unaerodynamic lardasses that they are, it is the companies building them making that decision, in effort to pad in more profit margin and to retain a paradigm of planned obsolescence.
I’m glad that Hyundai is finally starting to rock the boat on this, even if only slightly. Tesla was the other major company where this was a consideration. Both of these cars are at least a generation ahead aerodynamically of their closest mainstream competition. This sort of aerodynamic drag reduction really should have eben adopted 50 years ago during the fuel crisis of the 1970s. We could have had 35+ mpg V8 musclecars, instead of Malaise.
Those survey responses don’t really match people’s buying patterns though. If fuel mileage were the number one consideration, CUVs and trucks wouldn’t sell so well, and smaller sedans would be more popular.
I think that’s because most new car buyers are in the upper-income range, whereas it appears the survey picked randomly selected adults. A good tell is what used cars best retain their value: fuel-efficient, reliable sedans from Toyota and Honda, and small but useful pickup trucks. The typical new car buyer has an individual income in the upper 20% of the population according to a 2015 NADA survey, and to this demographic, operating cost is less of a concern than it is for everyone else.
But within those categories, fuel efficiency can be a big motivator. People decide they need a big SUV, but they want the most efficient big SUV. And fewer full-size sedans, combined with a marketing push, have pushed people who might have purchased sedans into small SUVs.
Sure, people are also just buying larger vehicles than they need. But we have people convinced that they need a vehicle that will put them higher up, be capable of light off-roading, can tow, and can fit half the contents of their home. They’ll pick the most efficient, safest, cheapest one that meets all the needs they think they have.
I’m not immune to this problem, either. I have a pickup I don’t use enough and my little efficient vehicle, and I want to consolidate to one Sportage, because I think it will cover the uses of both. It’s going to be less efficient than what I currently drive, but more efficient than the pickup by a lot. Given my usage, still a net efficiency loss for the sake of consolidation.
People saying one thing then doing another…
To be fair there are hardly any sedans/ small cars left to purchase. Although that could be because nobody was buying them, like manuals…
One challenge with many super-aerodynamic cars is the slope of the windshield: to achieve low wind resistance, the windshield lays back pretty flat, gets very large, and ends up creating a huge dashboard. A really steeply raked windshield can be pretty hard to see through due to internal reflections and veiling glare. You could add anti-reflective coatings, but that would get EXPENSIVE.
This is not an insurmountable challenge, mainly because for the most part, the shape of the front of the car is not as important as the shape of the rear of the car. There are plenty of streamlined car prototypes that manage to avoid this issue by making sure the rear is correctly shaped for the front shape chosen so that the airflow is disturbed as little as possible.
My Milan SL velomobile, with a drag coefficient of only 0.08, also does not have a problem reflections and glare. It also doesn’t have or need a steeply raked windshield due to the way the overal shape of the vehicle was designed.
A steeply raked windshield is only needed if the rest of the vehicle is designed in a way that necessitates it for drag reduction. Sometimes, a steeply raked windshield could hinder the quest for a low drag coefficient. The entire car as a whole has to be examined.
I agree, but fashion (and yes, manufacturers help dictate what’s fashionable). Also, it is sometimes surprising which designs are more aerodynamic – I give you the Lancia/Autobianchi Y10 as my prime example. Square as a box, yet slipperier than a 1994 Acura Integra or the Mazda MX-3 for example.
Yeah, my Kia Soul gets better fuel economy than the PT Cruiser it replaced, and that car was shaped like a bathtub.
Vanity. I understand why the back end of the Ionic 6 looks like that from an aerodynamic and efficiency standard, and these are both things I place a high importance on when shopping. But I’d have a hard time looking at it every day and being excited to drive it. I’d take 5-10%+ efficiency or power drop to drive something that excites me. (I do drive a Wrangler most of the time after all)