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Comment by warning26 | Hacker News Reader

So frustrating that Europe and Asia are getting all the nice compact EVs; once again Americans get stuck with the giant monstrosities.

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There are quite a few EV sedans and small hatchbacks available. Hyundai Kona is an affordable, small hatchback.

Kona and even the Ioniq5/EV6/G60 are probably closer to being hatchbacks than SUVs.

But purists will still chide you that they are SUVs (or specifically, CUVs, which they still consider evil).

In Europe the Kona is being marketed as a SUV, and as someone who semi-regularly drives a rental one I have to agree. It is definitely not something I would describe as "small".

Is a Camry large, then?

Kona dimensions: 166″ L x 71″ W x 61-62″ H

Camry dimensions: 192-193″ L x 72″ W x 56-57″ H

The Kona is much shorter, a tiny bit narrower, and only 5" taller.

I drive a Prius C. I adore it, see them everywhere and of course it was canceled. I live in Wisconsin and so see so many full sized trucks that have never touched a dirt road or been to a Home Depot. If everybody got 50mpg in a little economy car we wouldn't even need EVs.

I sold my Prius C last year and it was the biggest mistake. The goal was to get a slightly larger hatchback like the Kia Niro, but now I want the newer body style Niro but cant stomach buying a new car at a dealer. I'm stuck at the moment waiting for all these repos to come through so I can get something cheap for cash.

Exactly. More than 2/3 of cars in the US are SUVs/trucks nowadays. To me, this means we aren't allowed to complain about gas prices. Most people are willingly buying a brand new car that gets like the same MPG as my beat up old Ford Crown Vic.

It's also an annoying race to the top because SUVs block visibility and pose a threat to your car during an accident, unless of course you buy your own SUV (the Vic is also ok).

The best way to support it is to buy one... Unfortunately the same thing happened to the Volt, which was an engineering masterpiece.

Tangent, but there is a running joke amongst sports car enthusiast circles.

A: "Woe is me! They discontinued <insert sports car here> in favor of more SUVs!" B: "Because no one bought <insert sports car here>!" A: "But I would have! In five years, used!"

For now, I think those that want an EV, are in fact, buying (or leasing) them new though.

Relatedly, there is interesting indirect evidence that the US market is dominated by "Spiders Georg" ("SUVs Georg") outliers that should not be counted. The SUVs Georg buy/lease new SUVs, crash them in 1-5 years, then buy/lease new SUVs. The used market sees a strange fraction of SUV sales and interest in SUV ownership compared to the new market, but the car companies don't sell to the used markets they like the high profit margins of the SUVs Georg.

I don't think you even have to analyze that deep.

"Mainstream buyers", who in this day and age, mean CUV buyers - will go to a dealership and lease a new CUV every 3 years. As you said, these are the ones that make money for the manufacturers.

Not the enthusiast who waits 5 years to buy his dream sports car used.

I feel your pain, however, it's probably driven mostly by demand, and that demand just isn't high enough when you have limited resources for production.

I interpret it as Americans just have awful taste in cars.

Almost no one outside of NYC and Boston want such a small car. Small cars aren’t even really a safe option given how big the other cars are.

Almost noone wants small cars in Europe either. People want cheap cars not small.

Everyone living in cities does want one.

Larger cars rarely provide a significant tangible benefit, and in return you'll constantly have trouble trying to fit it into spaces designed for far smaller cars. American pickup trucks simply do not exist in Europe for a reason.

No, people don't want tiny cars like Bolt and don't want American pickups too. I don't know a single person who wants a small car.

People in cities need a small car, which is different than wanting a small car. I definitely had a small car in NYC out of necessity, but still wished I could bring my daughter's crib to my parents' place on the weekend (obviously impossible in a small car while bringing the family along).

Plenty of people in Europe want a smaller car, as it's easier to drive and park.

This is especially the case if their household also has a larger car.

("Which car are we going in, dad?" "The black one, I don't want to drive the blue one round town." = my childhood.)

I drive regularly from Milwaukee to Kenosha county and I have a Mini Cooper. I love it. It's not super comfortable for passengers and it's hard to do long road trips due to lack of storage space, but whenever we need more space we take my SO's 2 door Civic. I know many, many people who have multiple vehicles and they could absolutely get away with half of their vehicles being on the smaller side.

I love my small sports hatch. My old WRX wagon was even better and served a starting family of 4 just fine. People definitely want such small cars.

Larger cars are more likely to get into a car accident in the first place [1]. While a smaller car may be less safe in the event of an accident [2], they may not necessarily be less safe overall.

[1]: https://www.insurancehotline.com/resources/are-small-cars-mo...

[2]: https://www.motorbiscuit.com/larger-vehicles-smaller-cars-sa...

I don't understand the data in the first link. What is "Percentage of Accidents for Small Vehicles" and "Percentage of Accidents for Large Vehicles"? They didn't define how they compute this.

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