Sales Stats Suggest Americans Now Accept That Small is Beautiful

Filed in archive News , VW , What the World Drives on July 13, 2010

Automotive News magazine is, as most of us know, the Bible of industry information in North America. Thus we journalists pay attention to the contents. The magazine's latest issue chronicles the buying habits of Americans post-recession in which Senior Writer Jesse Snyder's story explains that "people are buying substantially different vehicles from those they bought before the crash - smaller, more fuel efficient and less ostentatious."

He writes that a major shift has taken place since 2007, the last of the boom years. Compared with the first half of 2007 American consumers are buying more cars, fewer trucks and smaller vehicles in general; smaller and less expensive cars within segments; and in some cases replacing big or luxury vehicles with more ordinary rides to replace big or luxury vehicles.

Well, darn, I never would have guessed, except that as an automobile journalist I've been predicting this change even before 2007. Talk about conspicuous consumption... it was evident to anyone who'd observed so-called Soccer Moms competing for a parking spot while they waited to pick up their kids from school in huge SUVs and minivans. Just as people bought new homes for next-to-nothing down and then used them as cash machines, it wasn't going to last. So I'm not the least bit surprised to read the results of Automotive News' sales survey.

What worries me is that Americans, and Canadians, too, might revert to their old habits when the recession ends, as they have before. And that would be a shame because a major "reset" must happen if we're to change from an industrial society to a creative society. Driving "smaller, more fuel efficient and less ostentatious" vehicles is a necessity. Switching, gradually, to cars powered by electricity will be essential.

Responsibility for holding the line, however, really belongs to the manufacturers. Obsessed with growth as opposed to market share, they'll have to shed old habits. They'll need to agree that bigger is not better and never was. "Less is more" (to quote the architect LeCorbusier) must become the new theme for the auto industry if we're to break the cycle.

[Photo: 2011 Volkswagen Polo]