odd choosing Opel lineup in Europe, more popular VW Polo, Golf and Passat would make more sense, polo was introduced 1975, Golf 1974, Passat 1973 and they have even consistent model names for almost 50 years unlike Opel
Until past year I had a Polo Mk3 and it's baffling the "growth speed" for those "supermini" cars... Now I have a 2011 Honda Fit/Jazz, and it has the same boot/trunk volume than the Golf 8... even when the Jazz is 30cm shorter than the Golf.
Polo Mk1 - 360 - 1975
Polo Mk2 - 365 - 1981
Polo Mk3 - 371 - 1994
Polo Mk4 - 389 - 2001
Polo Mk5 - 395 - 2009
Polo Mk6 - 405 - 2007
don't get too hung up on the model names. If you're looking at specific segments, the current Up is the closest to the original Polo, be it in price or features or size
Same story in the Jetta in the US.
Jetta 1 - 427cm VS (USDM) current Jetta - 466cm
There is only 19cm between the long-lived B6 Passat and the modern US Jetta and no Passat was bigger than the new Jetta until the B5. Cars are huge these days
Bear in mind that as each model grows (because each version has to be "better" than the last), new models are inserted at the bottom. In 1990 the Polo 2 was the smallest car VW made (375cm), the Polo 6 has the Up below it (355cm)
Yes, but also no. I'm not a huge car person but it seems they automakers are diversifying their lineup quite a bit. Look at BMW in the 90s, there was basically the 3,5,7 series (plus a few outliers, then the Z4) but now they have troubles putting all the models in one navigation bar :P One could argue that it's more built-to order now but you could already choose all the options, but I guess there was simply a different segmentation - i.e. let's say there were like 3-5 engines per series and 3 series, and now it's 5 series but maybe not with 5 engines each...
A large part of this is VW taking advantage of the brand cachet that the Polo and Golf have accumulated to move the vehicle upscale. VW then comes up with new brands like the Up to cover the market they are leaving behind.
Honda & Toyota do the same thing -- for instance the Honda Fit covers the niche the Civic used to cover.
So the study should be done on brands that don't have cachet. For example, cars like the GM Vega, Sonic and Spark didn't really grow. They just got cancelled.
Would be interesting to see a similar article on car design through the years. I’ve always wondered what happened in somewhat recent years where many cars were made to look like they had an angry monster face. I haven’t looked into it much but that trend seems to be changing now in favour of more futuristic looking cars, especially the electric ones like the Ioniq 5.
This article is accurate, but it doesn't talk about causes. Is the market looking for larger vehicles? Are the auto-makers in cahoots with the oil industry to use larger engines? Is marketing convincing people that having larger vehicles is universally better?
What about the increases in safety over that time span? Crumple-zones in some areas and stronger structural members add weight. Air bags add weight and decrease interior space. A-pillars used to be dainty for visibility but have been thickened to provide rollover protection.
The analysis provided doesn't give any reasons for the changes, only pointing out that they trend toward larger/heavier.
It's a safe assumption that safety requirements were a big driver of increased size and weight. And some of this factors have a snowball effect. Some requirements make the car bigger and heavier so it needs bigger engine, wider tires, bigger fuel tank, then it's even bigger and heavier.
Add all the luxury elements that attract customers and you have a lot more extra weight. Small cars are generally seen as entry level, unsafe, so car manufactures are more than willing to provide bigger, fancier models. It's not just the size that shot up, prices did too in order to cover all the extras.
People are also bigger and heavier than they used to so extra space and carrying capacity are more than welcome.
In Europe in particular, there was the diesel craze of the 2000s. Few cars in the 1990s had diesel engines. The average family car was something like a Ford Mondeo with a 1.8 NA petrol engine.
By around 2005, almost any "premium" mid-sized car like a Mercedes E-class or a BMW 5 series had a turbocharged 6-cylinder diesel engine around 3 litres with common rail injection. These engines have much heavier blocks and need a lot of additional systems for emission control.
I think this could be different depending of the country. In Spain the most popular engines in premium cars in the 90s were the 2.0L and the 2.5L turbo Diesel, and lots of compacts and mid-sized sedans, specially at the late 90s, were sold with 1.8L to 2.2L engines (Peugeot 205, Citroën Xsara, Renault Clio, Opel Corsa).
At the early 2000s, about 90% of the cars sold were Diesel IIRC. We always care a lot in terms of economy where buying a car, and with a Diesel oil cheaper than gas, and Diesel cars that had more mileage than petrol ones, there's the reason.
It's mostly safety, engines got actually much smaller since you can't get atmospheric engine anymore, where you would have in past basic 1.5-1.8L without turbo now you have 1.0L turbo.
I think it is the market, and by market, I mean baby boomer legacy. They were always taught that bigger is better (because crumple zones didn't exist in their parents cars), and now they guilt x, millennial, and z.
I feel this pressure from my baby boomer parents and millennial partner - especially in the southeast; they ignore the likelihood of rollovers in SUVs and the proven safety of modern suspensions and airbags in sedans.
But bigger is pretty universally better from energy management perspective, right? Simply having more material/size means lower deceleration rates for whatever you're trying to keep out of the passenger compartment.
Bigger vehicles have bigger engines, frame rails, and suspensions. Some of these for cost, some of these for towing performance.
An example being a truck, bigger frame rails that will crumple less, leaf spring suspension that will crumple less, and a high rake grill that will capture more force, and a higher mounted engine and higher mounted passenger compartment that makes separation less ideal.
I once read an article that claimed the rise of SUVs/Crossovers in America was the result of a number of factors.
* A loophole allows SUVs to bypass pollution regulations by calling themselves 'light trucks'
* Japanese automakers were outcompeting American automakers in the late 1990s in the car segment - but not the SUV segment. Lawmakers don't want to close the loophole, because SUV sales are propping up US automakers.
* The US auto industry made a big marketing push for SUVs - adverts, product placement in movies and so on - branding them as a sporty choice for your active lifestyle, in contrast to the staid image of minivans and station wagons.
* If you do market research on SUV owners asking them why they chose that car - they'll say they like the fact it's spacious. Makers of regular cars saw the market asking for bigger cars.
* As you've identified, stricter safety demands for things like crumple zones have also added to vehicles' sizes.
* With people's heights and waistlines growing every generation, it's unlikely we'll ever see a renaissance of cars as small as the European cars of the 1970s like the Mini Mk 1 or the Reliant Robin.
"Japanese automakers were outcompeting American automakers in the late 1990s in the car segment - but not the SUV segment. Lawmakers don't want to close the loophole, because SUV sales are propping up US automakers."
> * A loophole allows SUVs to bypass pollution regulations by calling themselves 'light trucks'
SUVs, light trucks and cars have to pass the same emission standards in the US. I think you meant fuel economy that has different rules for light trucks and cars.
There is also a vicious circle where I feel less safe in a small car between huge ones. Not sure how this cycle can be broken without regulation or higher taxes based on vehicle size
If I'm going to be in a crash, I want to be in the bigger car.
Of course, what I _actually_ want is to be riding a bakfiets with my kids in the front, but when I'm getting tailgated by an F-150 that's not very practical.
It would be interesting to see a study on the net impact increasing vehicle size actually has had on safety. All else being equal, it makes logical sense that a larger vehicle would be safer in a crash than a smaller one. But the proliferation of larger and larger vehicles almost certainly causes some second order effects that means all else is likely not equal, especially when you consider the population as a whole.
An accident involving two large vehicles seems like it could actually be more dangerous than an accident involving two smaller vehicles since there is a lot more force involved. And to your example, it seems like larger vehicles could make people drive more aggressively since they feel more invulnerable. Certainly larger vehicles are less agile, harder to control, and more prone to things like rollovers, which could make avoiding an accident in the first place more difficult.
I think the statistics show that if you're making a personal buying choice in 2023, a larger vehicle is safer than a smaller one. But the impact on overall safety of all those personal choices added up is less obviously a positive one.
The answer is right there, so obvious. More mass in motion at high speeds, all things being equal, is more danger, damage and destruction, more wear and tear on roads. Simple physics.
It is a tragedy of the commons. Any individual rationalization is in effect making the situation worse, and a post hoc justification of the current arms race.
This needs top down regulation, not bottom-up convergence. Many cities are objectively worse now than 15-20 years ago, because cars have gotten more foul. Note that the only places where this noxious effect is countered, are the places that side-step the issue by curbing driving as a whole. The galvanizing program of every western european city the last 10-15 years has been calming traffic and encouraging walking, cycling, transit. The effects are clear. Cars are trashing up those cities less than before, they've improved quality of life. In most of the US, the effect is the opposite. No efforts to curb driving; and the bigger cars and trucks have made cities worse; deadly, dangerous, scaring people into bigger cars, scaring people from riding bikes, walking.
Things can always get worse, and we've been finding out.
Listen, I hate the electric hummer and Chevy 2500s as much as the next guy but talking point needs to be taken out back and shot. The wear and tear light vehicles put on the road is a rounding error on any road that sees commercial traffic
>Many cities are objectively worse now than 15-20 years ago,
This is just pure lying. The "fleet" is much cleaner than it was 15-20yr ago for a variety of reasons. Cities are much safer and richer.
>This needs top down regulation,
Top down regulation is what gave us LA. People in general can't be trusted to centrally plan and the people who think they can solve the world's ills with central planning are the least trustworthy. We need to "regress" to pre-1940s urban development patterns.
Speaking generally, rather than specifically in the context of cars, most big US cities were worse on pretty much every axis (other than cost) in 1990 than they are today. I suspect most people who object to the, say, Disneyfication of Times Square weren't there at night 30 years ago. Cities were in general significantly more dangerous and grittier than they are today.
Kinetic energy is proportional to the velocity squared, so yes, heavier cars expend more energy in collisions, likely making the collisions more destructive.
"Being in a larger car" is basically the classic competition of armor vs projectile: the currently bigger thing has an advantage, but the opposing side of the collision quickly gets up to par and beyond, and the cycle continues.
A key value is that larger cars are worse in every single accident avoidance situation. Braking distances are longer in the dry and much longer in the wet, moose test results are often failed by large SUVs, rollover risks are higher, and general vehicle visibility is worse. A Toyota RAV4 for example has a stopping distance (in ideal situations) of 135ft. A Camry stops 15 feet quicker. Interestingly, the Hybrid RAV4 Prime with eco-focused tires stops up to 12 feet further than the base RAV4.
This isn't all due to SUVs of course, a Volvo XC40 does it in a stunning 110ft. But cheap tires and small brake packages harm SUVs worse.
This chart is fascinating but seems somewhat devoid of the reality of marketshare, price, regulations (safety, taxes), etc. Tracking a particular set of car models and talking about how they have evolved over time is only relevant if the marketshare is similar and the demographics of the customers are similar. If the average selling price of a particular a "compact" car has increased in price (relative to inflation and the market) by 2x and it's gotten .5m longer, is it really the same car segment anymore? Just because it has the same name is it the same thing?
Another aspect which is fascinating is how neatly these mythical segments all increase in length over time. The reality is that for any given year, there are a variety of sizes of car for sale. Do we look at a scatter plot per year of length vs price, or length vs engine displacement, or length vs marketshare? There are so many ways to slice and dice the data.
The auto industry has also been predicated for years on the concept of planned obsolescence. Each year the new model of a particular car needs to get slightly "better" in some way. Bigger, better (more "luxurious"), faster....
The overall average of all of this may be essentially similar. The graph reminds me a bit of a Shepard tone. It's an audio illusion where a sound seems to be constantly rising in pitch, but on average it's actually staying the same.
As I understand it, fuel economy regulations in both the US and EU allow larger cars to burn more fuel before there's a penalty or a need for the car maker to buy offsets from a company that sells more efficient cars[0].
I'm inclined to think that's a bad idea since it incentivizes the production and purchase of larger, less fuel-efficient cars, and could probably be fixed by simply treating all passenger cars and light trucks the same.
32 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 90.8 ms ] threadPolo 1 - 360 cm VS Polo 6 - 407 cm
Golf 1 - 382 cm VS Golf 8 - 428 cm
Honda & Toyota do the same thing -- for instance the Honda Fit covers the niche the Civic used to cover.
So the study should be done on brands that don't have cachet. For example, cars like the GM Vega, Sonic and Spark didn't really grow. They just got cancelled.
What about the increases in safety over that time span? Crumple-zones in some areas and stronger structural members add weight. Air bags add weight and decrease interior space. A-pillars used to be dainty for visibility but have been thickened to provide rollover protection.
The analysis provided doesn't give any reasons for the changes, only pointing out that they trend toward larger/heavier.
Add all the luxury elements that attract customers and you have a lot more extra weight. Small cars are generally seen as entry level, unsafe, so car manufactures are more than willing to provide bigger, fancier models. It's not just the size that shot up, prices did too in order to cover all the extras.
People are also bigger and heavier than they used to so extra space and carrying capacity are more than welcome.
By around 2005, almost any "premium" mid-sized car like a Mercedes E-class or a BMW 5 series had a turbocharged 6-cylinder diesel engine around 3 litres with common rail injection. These engines have much heavier blocks and need a lot of additional systems for emission control.
At the early 2000s, about 90% of the cars sold were Diesel IIRC. We always care a lot in terms of economy where buying a car, and with a Diesel oil cheaper than gas, and Diesel cars that had more mileage than petrol ones, there's the reason.
I feel this pressure from my baby boomer parents and millennial partner - especially in the southeast; they ignore the likelihood of rollovers in SUVs and the proven safety of modern suspensions and airbags in sedans.
But bigger is pretty universally better from energy management perspective, right? Simply having more material/size means lower deceleration rates for whatever you're trying to keep out of the passenger compartment.
Bigger vehicles have bigger engines, frame rails, and suspensions. Some of these for cost, some of these for towing performance.
An example being a truck, bigger frame rails that will crumple less, leaf spring suspension that will crumple less, and a high rake grill that will capture more force, and a higher mounted engine and higher mounted passenger compartment that makes separation less ideal.
* A loophole allows SUVs to bypass pollution regulations by calling themselves 'light trucks'
* Japanese automakers were outcompeting American automakers in the late 1990s in the car segment - but not the SUV segment. Lawmakers don't want to close the loophole, because SUV sales are propping up US automakers.
* The US auto industry made a big marketing push for SUVs - adverts, product placement in movies and so on - branding them as a sporty choice for your active lifestyle, in contrast to the staid image of minivans and station wagons.
* If you do market research on SUV owners asking them why they chose that car - they'll say they like the fact it's spacious. Makers of regular cars saw the market asking for bigger cars.
* As you've identified, stricter safety demands for things like crumple zones have also added to vehicles' sizes.
* With people's heights and waistlines growing every generation, it's unlikely we'll ever see a renaissance of cars as small as the European cars of the 1970s like the Mini Mk 1 or the Reliant Robin.
The reason for this is tariffs on SUV imports.
SUVs, light trucks and cars have to pass the same emission standards in the US. I think you meant fuel economy that has different rules for light trucks and cars.
More regulation = more complexity = more weight
Similar can be seen with houses sort of.
More regulation = more complexity = higher cost
If you could weigh a house it’d probably be heavier too ;P
Both cars and houses have certainly inflated in size over time. But both are almost certainly not due solely to increased regulation.
Of course, what I _actually_ want is to be riding a bakfiets with my kids in the front, but when I'm getting tailgated by an F-150 that's not very practical.
An accident involving two large vehicles seems like it could actually be more dangerous than an accident involving two smaller vehicles since there is a lot more force involved. And to your example, it seems like larger vehicles could make people drive more aggressively since they feel more invulnerable. Certainly larger vehicles are less agile, harder to control, and more prone to things like rollovers, which could make avoiding an accident in the first place more difficult.
I think the statistics show that if you're making a personal buying choice in 2023, a larger vehicle is safer than a smaller one. But the impact on overall safety of all those personal choices added up is less obviously a positive one.
It is a tragedy of the commons. Any individual rationalization is in effect making the situation worse, and a post hoc justification of the current arms race.
This needs top down regulation, not bottom-up convergence. Many cities are objectively worse now than 15-20 years ago, because cars have gotten more foul. Note that the only places where this noxious effect is countered, are the places that side-step the issue by curbing driving as a whole. The galvanizing program of every western european city the last 10-15 years has been calming traffic and encouraging walking, cycling, transit. The effects are clear. Cars are trashing up those cities less than before, they've improved quality of life. In most of the US, the effect is the opposite. No efforts to curb driving; and the bigger cars and trucks have made cities worse; deadly, dangerous, scaring people into bigger cars, scaring people from riding bikes, walking.
Things can always get worse, and we've been finding out.
Listen, I hate the electric hummer and Chevy 2500s as much as the next guy but talking point needs to be taken out back and shot. The wear and tear light vehicles put on the road is a rounding error on any road that sees commercial traffic
>Many cities are objectively worse now than 15-20 years ago,
This is just pure lying. The "fleet" is much cleaner than it was 15-20yr ago for a variety of reasons. Cities are much safer and richer.
>This needs top down regulation,
Top down regulation is what gave us LA. People in general can't be trusted to centrally plan and the people who think they can solve the world's ills with central planning are the least trustworthy. We need to "regress" to pre-1940s urban development patterns.
Speaking generally, rather than specifically in the context of cars, most big US cities were worse on pretty much every axis (other than cost) in 1990 than they are today. I suspect most people who object to the, say, Disneyfication of Times Square weren't there at night 30 years ago. Cities were in general significantly more dangerous and grittier than they are today.
"Being in a larger car" is basically the classic competition of armor vs projectile: the currently bigger thing has an advantage, but the opposing side of the collision quickly gets up to par and beyond, and the cycle continues.
This isn't all due to SUVs of course, a Volvo XC40 does it in a stunning 110ft. But cheap tires and small brake packages harm SUVs worse.
Another aspect which is fascinating is how neatly these mythical segments all increase in length over time. The reality is that for any given year, there are a variety of sizes of car for sale. Do we look at a scatter plot per year of length vs price, or length vs engine displacement, or length vs marketshare? There are so many ways to slice and dice the data.
The auto industry has also been predicated for years on the concept of planned obsolescence. Each year the new model of a particular car needs to get slightly "better" in some way. Bigger, better (more "luxurious"), faster....
The overall average of all of this may be essentially similar. The graph reminds me a bit of a Shepard tone. It's an audio illusion where a sound seems to be constantly rising in pitch, but on average it's actually staying the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone
I'm inclined to think that's a bad idea since it incentivizes the production and purchase of larger, less fuel-efficient cars, and could probably be fixed by simply treating all passenger cars and light trucks the same.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31218747