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Comment by ndiscussion | Hacker News Reader

Is this affecting non-American manufacturers? If not, why?

To a casual observer, the writing has been on the wall for sedans for some time. Why would I want to buy a sedan when I could buy a crossover SUV with the same fuel economy for the same price?

Ford has been on top of this trend - they announced they are discontinuing ALL sedan production earlier in 2018.

Car manufacturers come out with new "generations" of vehicles every 5-10 years, so change in production methods is part of the industry. Why can't American manufacturers adapt?

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> Why would I want to buy a sedan when I could buy a crossover SUV with the same fuel economy for the same price

Mainly for better handling. It's easier to avoid a crash if one can maintain control of their vehicle during emergency maneuvers. A vehicle with a higher center of gravity is harder to control in those situations. For example see the following "Moose Test" videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5aM30TFZ-w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B5MDI-tGFY

Great point... I drive a coupe and will get a roadster soon to replace it.

But I think most Americans ignore handling. They certainly ignore drive feel. And we have huge roads here :D

> Why would I want to buy a sedan when I could buy a crossover SUV with the same fuel economy for the same price?

Because you live in a city designed for horses and carriages? It's tough enough driving a small sedan in Sydney, the idea of trying to park an American-style monster SUV here scares me. Much of Europe and Japan is exponentially worse.

Fun fact: in California, most lanes are 12 feet (3.7m) wide. In Sydney, many major roads including the Harbour Bridge have 2.8m lanes, and there are buses 2.5m wide driving on them.

Do the dimensions on something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Edge#Second_generation_(2... qualify as "monster"?

I guess 1.9 meters will be manageable enough for most drivers given a 2.8 meter lane.

But why do you want to drive a car into a city?

I don't and very rarely do, but there are narrow lanes on many Sydney arterial roads well outside the city, like Parramatta Rd.

Personally I really dislike SUVs and Crossovers. But also when I was recently in the market for a different car, I viewed the same fact slightly differently:

Why do the American sedans have such poor fuel economy? They are only on par with SUVs. Most Asian sedans get significantly (10mpg+) better mileage. Why would I get a small car with the efficiency off a big car?

  Why do the American sedans have such poor fuel economy?

Do they? I just had a Chevy Malibu for a rental car, and it got over 30mpg at an average of 85MPH, including climbing the Grapevine both ways. The real-time display indicated as much as 40mpg at 60mph on level ground.

I believe that a lot of foreign sedans get closer to 45mpg these days. Could be wrong on that, but that's what I remember seeing when looking through one of those Car review magazines a month or so back.

Personally, I was looking for something closer to 2010 model year. My mom has a Chevy Impala about that age and it gets around 25mpg in my experience. Maybe close to 30 in ideal conditions.

It's not affecting foreign automakers nearly as much for two reasons:

The Japanese automakers have really worked hard to make their manufacturing lines (and vehicle designs) modular (a line that makes Camrys on Monday can make RAV4s on Tuesday), the foreign automakers' sedan sales didn't slip nearly as badly as the domestic automakers did so a lot of their plants/lines are still profitable to operate, and the US has always been uniquely interested in trucks and SUVs so many of the foreign-owned plants here were already optimized for SUVs (e.g the BMW plant in America has made SUVs since its inception).

> a line that makes Camrys on Monday can make RAV4s on Tuesday

In fact it is even more agile than this! I toured a Toyota factory in Japan last year and they were assembling many different models on the same line at the same time, with the same workers. From what I recall, it is supposed to improve morale as the work is less repetitive.

I highly recommend the tour. It is free, and there is an English-language option. The only downside was it was quite a long train ride away from Tokyo, for quite a short tour.

Why wouldnt American car manufacturers do the same? They don't have the technology?

Historically the American Cars and SUVs were different enough that it would be untenable to make them side by side. It's gotten better since the SUVs became more car-like, but they haven't invested in modularity like the Japanese automakers, sometimes the companies blame unions for the inflexibility, but I think that's a red herring. However, it may be the case that the unions make it expensive enough to build modular lines that it's just not worth pursuing.

Ford is keeping the Focus and Mustang.

  the Focus

No, but there will be a new "Ford Focus Active" which is an entirely new platform -- a crossover.

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