[Quietcars] Leaner Detroit rolls out hybrids, smaller cars

[michael townsend]

As the world goes greener, people have to beware.  Not only do other
motorists have to be aware that cars are quieter, more efficient and more
economical to drive, but pedestrians have to be aware of how different their
world is as well.  People who are blind have to be especially concerned with
their surroundings and where cars are near them at all times.  Accidents can
happen to anyone, but quieter cars bring with them the charge that we all
have to be on our toes.  See the below article which shows that Detroit, n
order to survive, has to make cars smarter, quieter and more economical.
'this may cause dog guide schools, and other mobility specialty personnel to
rethink how they train blind travelers for their future mobility needs.

Mike T in NJ

  

Leaner Detroit rolls out hybrids, smaller cars Jessie Jones shines up a 2010
Chevrolet Camaro RS in the General Motors exhibit of the North American
International Auto Show January 9, 2010 at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan.
The show opens to media on Monday and to the general public next Saturday.
Jessie Jones shines up a 2010 Chevrolet Camaro RS in the General Motors
exhibit of the North American International Auto Show January 9, 2010 at
Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan. The show opens to media on Monday and to the
general public next Saturday.
Getty Images
At the International Auto Show, it's out with the muscle cars and
gas-guzzling SUVs, in with Electric Avenue's plug-ins and hybrids omments
(28) GREG KEENAN Globe and Mail Update Published on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2010
7:06PM EST Last updated on Monday, Jan. 11, 2010 3:39AM EST T here's
something missing from the North American International Auto Show this
year:
good old-fashioned American horsepower.
The watchwords are "small" and "electric" at the first Detroit auto show
since two Motown giants collapsed into bankruptcy protection and had to be
rescued with a bailout from U.S. and Canadian taxpayers that amounted to
more than $75-billion (U.S.).
"It is a new era," says David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive
Research, an industry think-tank in Ann Arbor, Mich.
In this new era, everything is smaller - the companies, the market, the
vehicles and the show itself. Consider that in 1998, when Volkswagen AG
introduced its New Beetle, the main show floor at the downtown Detroit
convention hall was so packed that the German auto maker's unveiling was
relegated to the basement.
This year, some auto makers are skipping the event entirely and others have
shrunk so much that there's room between the Ford Motor Co. and General
Motors Co.
displays
for an exhibition called Electric Avenue, which will showcase such new
technologies as battery-powered vehicles and plug-in hybrids that represent
the industry's new arms race.
That the stage that traditionally roars with the unveiling of muscle cars
and behemoth sport utility vehicles is now the site of Electric Avenue puts
an exclamation point on the end of a decade of disaster and downsizing for
Detroit.
Beyond the shrunken size of Chrysler Group LLC, Ford, GM and even mighty
Toyota Motor Corp., is the downsizing in the vehicles North Americans are
buying.
It's easy to point to the spike in gas prices to more than $4 (U.S.) a
gallon 18 months ago as the culprit, but much of the transformation in the
market is because the baby boomer generation is aging and their children are
in a massive group of people who are buying their first vehicles. First
vehicle usually equals small vehicle.
"For the next couple of decades to come, boomers are going to desire smaller
vehicles -maybe even fewer vehicles - as they go from two-income households
to one-income or no-income households, and this will be the dominant force
in the downsizing of the vehicle population," says George Pipas, manager of
sales analysis for Ford.
Sales of compact cars, for example, exceeded those of mid-sized cars last
year for the first time in the U.S. market.
In Canada, entry-level vehicles represented more than 50 per cent of the
market last year, compared with 35 per cent in 2000, statistics compiled by
DesRosiers Automotive Consultants Inc. show.
That massive switch in consumers' desires is reflected todaymon at the first
of two media days.
Ford, which stayed out of bankruptcy protection and has begun turning a
profit again, will show off the latest version of its Focus compact. It's a
car for all global markets, but the first time Ford has united its once
disparate international operations to create one car for all markets instead
of different iterations for North America, Europe and Asia.
>From GM, a new version of the subcompact Chevrolet Aveo and its new compact
car, the Chevrolet Cruze, will be centre stage.
Not at the show, but waiting in the wings to be introduced to North America
on Thursday at the Detroit Science Center is the tiny, ultracheap Nano from
Tata Motors Ltd.
of India. Tata said last week it is developing a North American Nano that it
hopes will be available in three years.
Meeting U.S. and Canadian safety standards and consumer tastes will raise
the price of the car well above its $2,500 cost in India, but if Tata goes
ahead, it will be another entry in the growing subcompact segment, which
Detroit ignored for more than a decade.
The downsizing of vehicles also shows up under the hood. Even if drivers are
replacing their current vehicles with new cars of the same size, they're
moving to smaller engines.
"Instead of buying a V-6 engine, they buy a four-cylinder engine," says
Xavier Mosquet, who heads the automotive practice at New York-based
consulting firm The Boston Group.
Although fuel prices fell last year from the surge in 2008, the thinking
among road warriors is: "If fuel prices rise again, I've just been smarter
because I've made the right choice," Mr. Mosquet says.
When Ford's mid-sized Fusion sedan went on the market in 2006, the split
between four-cylinder and six-cylinder engines was about 50-50, Mr. Pipas
says.
Last year, 60 per cent of buyers chose a four-cylinder, another 10 per cent
bought a hybrid version and 30 per cent bought Fusions with V-6 engines.
The absence of horsepower comes in part because there are no news
conferences or unveilings by Chrysler, which in past years could be counted
on to roll out a super car with a top speed of 248 miles per hour, a reborn
Challenger muscle car or a four-wheeled motorcycle with a V10 engine.
Instead, Chrysler's most intriguing new product will be from Fiat SpA, which
now owns 20 per cent of the No. 3 Detroit company and has management
control.
An electric version of the Fiat 500 subcompact car will troll Electric
Avenue.
The
gas version of the 500 is coming to a Chrysler dealership near you, perhaps
as early as the end of this year.
The Leaf, an electric vehicle developed by Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. will also
be on display on Electric Avenue.
Toyota will unveil a new hybrid-electric car that's smaller than its Prius,
which jolted the market a decade ago.
The pure electric vehicles such as the Leaf and even the cars that will be
mainly battery powered with a small gasoline engine, such as the Chevrolet
Volt, are not expected to generate profits for the auto makers for years or
even to capture significant market share. But the small cars such as the
Chevrolet Cruze and Ford's new Fiesta and the new offerings Chrysler will
bring to the market with Fiat's help next year and in 2012 need to be
profitable.
"The small car issue is a big question mark for everyone," says Mr. Cole of
the Center for Automotive Research.
But one way to generate profits from them and attract the millennial
generation is to pack them with entertainment and information technology.
So it was no accident that Ford chief executive officer Alan Mulally gave
the keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week.
Ford used that show to announce that its vehicle communication and
entertainment system known as Sync - developed with Microsoft Inc. - will
soon offer Internet radio and access to Twitter messages.
Mr. Pipas has noticed how that's a striking change from his teenage years,
when friends connected by getting the keys to the family car and hanging out
at a drive-in or some other place.
"People today hang out on YouTube, they hang out on Twitter, they hang out
on God only knows where," he says. "But they don't have to go from A to B to
be connected, that's the point."