I'm containing my enthusiasm about the idea of a new small car class that's meant to save Europe's automotive industry.
European car makers have been lobbying the EU to let them sell cheaper cars again, citing the fact that the average age of cars in Europe is getting older and older, and arguing that the bloc's introduction of legislation that has made cars more expensive through mandating active safety kit and increasing levels of electrification is handing an advantage to Chinese car makers, which can offer those things more cheaply.
"In 2019, 49 cars sold for under €15,000 in Europe," Stellantis chairman John Elkann told the Automotive News Europe congress last June. "Now, it's just one". (His firm's own Fiat Panda.)
Faced with more expensive cars, Europeans have had three choices: buy the cheaper ones, which tend to be Chinese; borrow more money for locally made ones, which was more palatable when borrowing money was easy; or keep what they've got. More of us have been keeping what we've got, but none of those three choices does European car makers a favour now that credit is no longer cheap.
In September, the EU, not blind to how many of its citizens work in the car industry, showed it was listening. "Millions of Europeans want to buy affordable European cars," said the European Commission's German president, Ursula von der Leyen.
"This is why we will propose to work with industry on a new small affordable cars initiative". She even used Stellantis's proposed name for the new category, 'E-car', saying the 'E' stood for 'European', 'environmental' and 'economical'.
Not 'electric', maybe notably, maybe not. "No matter what, the future is electric, and Europe will be part of it," she said. Either way, this is good news, yes? We'll see.
Perhaps like you, I like small cars. As a car enthusiast, I like that they're more fun to drive. As an engineer, I like that they use fewer materials. Former Renault Group boss Luca de Meo told us that small cars can have 75% less whole life environmental impact than bigger cars, which is effectively what EU legislation had been pushing people towards.
"A- and B-segment cars [meaning city cars and superminis] are not profitable any more, because auto makers have to produce cars dressed up like Christmas trees," de Meo said over the summer, having chosen to leave the industry. "It doesn't make a difference if it's a Clio or a big limo". With credit cheap in the 2010s, choosing bigger and more expensive was fine. Not any more.
The big question in introducing a new car class, though, is what will be undone from the existing regulations. Because fitting increasing amounts of electrification and active safety kit is all that was preventing the profitable sale of those cars in the first place.
The EU's leader believes that "no matter what, the future is electric", which doesn't imply that small engines shorn of various filters that are cheap to make and maintain are in the offing, much as consumers might like them.
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If the EU *truly* cared about safety, it shouldn't allow physical stalks, switches, and knobs to be replaced with touchscreens that force you to look at the screen instead of keeping your eyes on the road while driving. Even EuroNCAP, in recent years, has deducted points for missing ADAS which everyone deactivates before starting a journey, but only now does it seem to realize that touchscreens are distracting and dangerous. I think carmakers' love for touchscreens is purely due to cost reduction, with the added bonus of a "wow factor" that is increasingly less effective, since consumers are getting increasingly irritated by their expensive new products with bells whistles at the expense of practicality. NB: I always talk about the EU because I live in Italy but all such considerations are also valid for the UK.
We need a car to be astra 308 size that can sit 4 adults and luggage we do not need forward collision rear collision lane keep etc all thesecthing nake drivers lazy make them bad
Do need electronic had brakes we don't need anything that over complex all these drivers aid have taken away from the skill of driving . Car drivers today are awful , the skills we learn in 1980 are just non existent today. Prople don't know how to drive safely they exorct the car to turn lights on today people don't bother to manually turn lights on and its become clear on our road the number of car in very poor weather during the day with only drls on people need to drive cars to be incharge and take responsibility. Take responsibility fir there action. Modern car are frustrating they don't let you drive the break when they think there danger but skilled drivers don't need that we got over 20 years of drivers deskilled and it shows .
We need basic cars for them to learn i. We don't need entertainment centres on wheels which we have today . We don't need self driving
The needs . I have a 10 year old 150bhp vsuxhall astra 1.4 saloon big boot 4 aul6s no electric seats it got traction control abs and airbads it automatic with manual hand brake airbags
Air con and a stereo cd player pa's electric window parking sensor front and resr . And it works fine it's got
Large door mirrors and analog dialsi5s got tyres with proper side walls so it great on poor road surface it good for the rural lane . . The only thing I wish is if it was bit higher due to hedges the engine powerful enough for motorways and hills and give 42mpg all day long I am not a slow driver I lead foot. But if driven by my other half gets better mpg .
We need to look at these cars from 2012 to 2015 they had what we needed . We did not need all these extra bits making cars over complex it got wire to remote open boot et keep it simple.
People need to learn to drive again without all the added crap . I get in my modern car and turn of safety systems as they interfer with the drive. Lane keep assist it a dangerous distraction . Beeps and bong about speed limit not needed telling me I going to fast no I can see by the speedo. But we have to change the road rules because we cannot keep putting all the responsibility on the car driver. We need to get back to those shocking public service bread cast the green Cross code etc lower speed limit does not work children and adults need to be taught road safety and they are responsible for there behaviour not the car driver.
We have forgotten what roads and cars are for we made our cities more congested by removing road space by reducing space for cars. OK city centre can be car free but you build the support and you open up roads . You bring back the dual carriage ways on trunk roads that labour councils govt and mp have been getting ride of journey that took 10 minutes in the 1980 now take 25 plus due to the removal of lanes. The introduction of cycle lines and bus lanes thrn cutting bus services. Road planning needs to increase flow and movement not restricted. Ring road in our cities have been destroyed because of crazy environmentalist all,its done is slowed traffic increase pollution . We have to change China produces cars under 10k and they still have good range 60kw batteries and 120kw motors they move the people about and they have less driving skills than used but they don't have all the crap europe forced on use . Where has the common sense gone
Of course, smaller, lighter cars have a lower environmental impact over their overall life cycle — which should be what really matters. However, I disagree that they should be exempt from ADAS, assuming they are truly effective — which, let's be clear, I strongly doubt. But if EU experts are truly convinced of what they've imposed (GSR rules), there's no point in waiving them: safety can't be based on wealth. In fact, I believe mandatory ADAS shouldn't be deactivatable. Adding to the cost of cars with deactivatable ADAS is completely hypocritical and truly seems like a ploy to push city cars and superminis off the market. Or, more bluntly, to exclude large portions of the European population from personal *private* mobility. So, is this environmental awareness or a social project to the detriment of the masses? What can Occam's razor tell us? In 2016, the World Economic Forum published an article: "Welcome to 2030. You'll own nothing and you'll be happy." I suspect EU policymakers were so enthusiastic about it that they began zealously implementing it. Only now, European carmakers are waking up to the consequences. And even those among them who attempted to diversify their business into car-sharing services —as Luca De Meo should have noticed— have failed miserably.
Sorry, in my haste I wrote an incomplete sentence above. Here's the correct version: "So, is this environmental awareness (Euro6, Euro7) and safety concern (GSR, GSR2) or a social project to the detriment of the masses?".