I personally love that it is running counter to the trend of car masses and sizes increasing across the world [0]. There's a reason why there's a small, very fun and niche community of Kei car enthusiasts - the case against pavement princesses and absurdist masculine performativity is a strong one.
Why would you think that? Well, you sort of explain it, but you don’t have any evidence or experience to back it up, so I’m still not sure why you think it?
Back in the day (think 1990s) plenty of small European hatchbacks weighed less than or around 1000kg, and noise at highway speeds was not a problem: Peugeot, Citroen, Renault, VW, Fiat, and others all had small hatchbacks that were absolutely fine, and perfectly comfortable, at motorway speeds for long distances.
My first car was a used 1998 Renault Clio: depending on which engine and trim level you bought they either weighed a bit less than 1000kg, or a bit more. I looked mine up and it weighed 1050kg.
I did about 50,000 miles in that car, including lots of long journeys. Back then I had a far too heavy right foot - which eventually got me a speeding fine - and even then noise wasn’t an issue on the motorway.
There’s so much more to how noisy a car is inside than merely sound insulation. Aerodynamics are a huge component, but so are shut lines, seals, and panel gaps. Materials and surface finishes also matter. Even things like the shape of the wing mirrors, or how the shape of the front corners and headlights direct air around and past the wing mirrors[0], can have a massive impact on whether or not a car is noisy at speed within the cabin.
This is Hacker News. We all to a greater or lesser extent work or dabble in incredibly detail oriented disciplines. Why would you assume disciplines outside those in majority representation here aren’t equally, or even more, detailed?
[0] I want to say either the Nissan Note or the Nissan Leaf had nobbly protrusions on its headlights specifically to reduce cabin noise by changing the way air flowed around the wing mirrors.
Because there's literally a market carve-out for city-driving electric cars like the Leaf and the BMW i-series. As much as I would love for a group of engineers to go hard on specs out of passion, I also believe that corporations are run much more by MBA-brained types than engineers now and any over-engineering outside of strict business criteria will be immediately vetoed and dumped
> My first car was a used 1998 Renault Clio
And these days the over-reliance on plastics for structure and cost reduction in combination with large scale production sourcing issues that are hangovers from a global pandemic and an increasingly aggressive imperial trade regime by certain bad actors means there's little chance you are getting similar quality standards like those from 20+ years ago
Enshittification is a real thing and I'm not the kind of corporate brand loyalist who still believes these companies are going out of their way to make a car better than it needs to be
And? Do you think these cars are incapable of highway driving? What do you think happens when manufacturers release cars that are terribly noisy in the cabin at highway speeds?
I’ll tell you: what’s always happened. Reviewevers and consumers will slag them off and people will vote with their wallets.
A lightweight car is not a car that inherently has to be unpleasant to drive at speed.
And you think cost cutting is new? Robert McNamara and his “whizz kids” near ruined the reputation of the Ford Motor Company due to quality issues stemming from his relentless cost cutting in the 1950s and 1960s. What he and, really, what the rest of Detroit were doing enabled the success of Japanese manufacturers in the USA because they made a higher quality product and charged less for it.
> And these days the over-reliance on plastics for structure and cost reduction
People have been complaining about this since the 1980s. Plastics have been used extensively in cars for decades, including in ways that compromise the durability of critical components and sensors. This is not a new problem.
It is sheer ignorance to claim that any car weighing less than a ton will inherently be unpleasant to drive at highway speeds.
I don't know about the i-series but the current Leaf is not a city car. Nissan's small city car is the Pixa.
The Leaf is mid sized and well designed for longer distance travel with a range of 387 miles.
What is far more important than total mass is mass distribution, width of the tires (which can be an advantage and a disadvantage depending on the conditions) and traction model. Noise is a function of isolation and shape of the body and road contact and here lighter cars have the advantage: substantially reduced tire noise.
But if, for instance, you're hauling lumber then most small cars are not going be driving great. Ditto if you have to move a family of five (or more). So without your definition of what 'well suited for highway driving' is specified in terms that I can appreciate that do not include the actual driving characteristics of the car then it is very hard to have a productive conversation, regardless of 'corporate wealth hoarding' or other off-topic bits. FWIW I've had just about every type of Citroen and without exception they handled very well within their respective weight class, and they also held their own in terms of hauling capacity. Reliability, now that is something where we can probably come into agreement, the French car industry for the longest time had serious issues (but not as many as their UK counterparts). Even so that too is a thing that is mostly in the past.
And it's not some niche car, it's one of the most sold compact cars on the planet. And the 2026 versions are actually slightly lighter at 1025 and are very comfortable.
Of course comfort is up to interpretation, and as cars get better, our window of expectation moves, the cars my dad used to drive for 8 hours in a row for our summer vacations in the 1970s are considered ridiculously loud and cramped by today's standards. Just like Kings of the past had no tropical fruit in winter, while even unknown shitty corps hand them out for free to their unpaid interns at this point, our standards move.
But even with today's standards I think a modern Yaris at 1 ton (+2%) is completely fine for highway driving.
For some reason, the Peugeot 405 is way lighter than I expected. Also not much above 1000kg for some versions. I was also shocked by how nice a place it was to be in, even at highway speeds, on not particularly great roads. I don't remember anything about the road noise, but the ride quality was good.
Well off-topic: One thing I always remember, is that one time I paid attention to the number of different shades of grey there were in the interior, and it was ridiculous. Almost nothing matched anything else. And yet, it was a very pleasant place to be. That car has by far the largest discrepancy of any vehicle, between how much I mocked it and how much I liked being in it or driving it. I was just completely wrong!
OT - if the Iran regime collapses, it will be an amazing time for 405 restoration in the west. They can still make so many new parts.
My car is 945kg and the biggest issue with longer trips is that the chairs aren’t that comfortable. Although at higher speeds it feels a bit dodgy. It does 170 no problem and that feels quite fast already. Top speed is 190 which I only tried once on the autobahn but that’s quite scary. At about 170 acceleration drops significantly and it takes a few minutes to go from 170 to 190. Won’t ever try that again. Cruising at around 150 for several hours is perfectly fine.
I had no problems going 190-210 on a motorcycle. It's just like boat hull speed, after some limit no matter what you do it just won't go faster.
At the time I lived in Plymouth, Devon and my parents live in Exeter and still do. In between is the A38, which is a dual carriageway and quite a lot of fun to drive. Halden Hill is a good test of a vehicle!
My old Fester managed about 60mph at the top of Halden Hill, going from Exeter. My current EV can be doing 120mph at that point.
The fester used to start chattering at about 65 and then quietened down at 70-75. After 75 (which of course I never achieved, what with that being illegal) it made a strange whining sound, which was not unpleasant. It passed away at M5 J30 (Exeter Services) with at least two shot cylinders.
MX5 is a great little car, you can carve your name with those.
I've been campaigning the car for about a decade though, fantastic machine.
I quite like the Copens, they're fun little cars!
Had a 2005 too, didn't find it too bad but the engine was noisy due to the high rpms at highway speed.
Like a nice pair of expensive headphones, you don’t understannd difference until you experience it. Like a nice pair of headphones, it’s not a necessity, either.
That said, I don’t think that has a whole lot to do with weight. NVH reduction techniques like insulating material and structural adhesives are not a major weight consideration, it’s more of a cost issue.
Expensive headphones and expensive cars are in that sense completely different things.
And of course in the subcompact ultra-cheap segment like the Yaris was in you’d see a difference just from going up segment within the same brand without touching their luxury marquee.
Going further down this tangent I have always felt like the budget segments have really struggled in the US because paying cash or getting unsubsidized new car financing is so rare. Financing is easy to come by that the purchase of a penalty box economy car starts making a lot less sense when you think of the idea of “$50 more per month gets me into a higher segment.” Over 5-7 years that cost difference is significant, large even, but at some point you stretch out that cost difference enough and it’s hard to argue with the consumerist impulse.
Then you’ve got the “everything is a hybrid” setup with brands like Toyota where you’re not really saving any gas money by buying a smaller car anymore. This is also a significant reason why everything is an SUV these days. (And it’s not like you can get a cheap one, see the Chevy Trax or Kia Niro)
And yes, within a single brand there is price differentiation too. That's the whole point: different priced vehicles for people with different budgets and matching expectations. Absolutely nobody is going to expect the same kind of luxury from a Yaris as from a Lexus.
I agree that when you spend other people's money it is easier to overspend, no contest on that.
I never intended to make an apples to apples comparison. I’m not even really making much of a commentary on how much money people have to spend.
To own a 2010 Yaris someone had to buy that as a brand new car off the lot. The value proposition of that sort of new car purchase is a difficult sell because someone on a budget like that isn’t buying a new car typically, and because of how car buying is financed in America.
If a new car buyer is bothered that the 15 year TCO of a Camry is $750 per year ($60/month) higher than a Yaris [1] when considering fuel economy and purchase price spread, that person is likely not going to be buying a new vehicle at all.
The way depreciation curves work there is a cost floor on a reliable transportation and that depreciation curve isn’t favorable to small economy cars. You don’t predominantly see lower income buyers driving Yaris, Mirage, and Chevy Sparks around. Instead you see them driving around in whatever vehicles depreciated the most and had enough new sales volume to be widely available as used vehicles.
Sure, that’s not an apples to apples comparison. But that’s the kind of real comparison that buyers make, in my opinion.
I’m not here to say that the person replied to is wrong for driving and enjoying a Yaris. I’m merely trying to explain why those economy cars have disappeared from the market, as well as talk a little bit about noise reducing materials.
[1] Yes, I did the math on this. The base model purchase price difference was about $8,000, so that’s $533 per year over 15 years of ownership. The mpg difference is 32 versus 26 combined, so over 200,000 miles at $5/gallon average that’s a fuel cost difference of $3233 or $215 per year. We are assuming maintenance and insurance costs are identical.
Much less noise than in my FJ Cruiser.
Only thing is being overtaken by a large truck - that is scary!
I exclusively drive (sub) 1-tonne cars at highway speeds (and more, because Germany). No problem. Why would that be an issue? Sure, depending on the vehicle, it handles a certain way when I go over 150kph and I am alone without luggage, but I know how to drive, not just press 'go' on a train, don't I?
Also, at least here highway driving is quite a bit of slowing down and speeding up, rarely it is just one speed whole way (that unless you're sitting on right lane behind the trucks)