My next car?

[cjsmith]

I like small. (To give you an idea, I consider today's Corolla "a bit big".) I like good gas mileage. I like efficiency, especially in design.

Small, sleek, and gets unprecedented mileage.

I would only have to make my current car last until 2009. Hey, why not? Twenty years is a nice round number.

Disadvantages: diesel fuel (not at every gas station around here), unproven design (can't count on getting twenty years out of this one).

Comments

[gdmusumeci.livejournal.com]

That's pretty cool. I wonder if it will even make it to the US, though. It's hard to sell that sort of thing over here.

...you know, the DA42 takes diesel. And cruised transatlantic at 5.74gph with a ground speed of 152 kts (over 30 mph!). :-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

It is, although the tide of consumer opinion is shifting at least a little. The Prius is still selling like hotcakes. Maybe by 2009, or the year or two thereafter that it'd take for US road certification, there would be some buyers here. Presuming that there would be enough buyers to make a US market worth their while might be stretching it.

To survive on the roads here you'd want to get the slightly more powerful of the two Loremo models. The less-powerful one does 0-100 (kph, close to 0-60 mph) in 20 seconds. That's... not good, not for freeway ramps.

[eichin.livejournal.com]

It's hard to sell that sort of thing over here because it's hard to get it to pass US emissions standards, so you can't even bring it to market. (For a while you couldn't even get the VW TDI.) On a one-by-one basis, you can fake it with Maryland "Dealer" Plates (also a popular trick for getting the Lotus 7 on the road.)

I actually saw a SmartCar in motion a couple of nights ago, crossing RT 2 heading into Lincoln (instead of parked, like most of the ones I have pictures of. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/search/tags:smartcar/)) The odd shape made it stand out, it was certainly moving quickly enough :-)

(As for diesel fuel - california might be excessively special, but semis run on diesel, you're not going to ever fail entirely to find it - you'll just have to look harder. This is inconvenient when travelling in strange cities, but not a problem along highways at all, from what I could tell over the last 5 years... and when most of your driving is in familiar areas, it's really not a problem.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I'd be awfully surprised if something that gets 150+ MPG has trouble meeting emissions standards.

Obviously diesel's findable, but having to look harder *is* a negative. Another possible negative, obviously, is safety -- a car that weighs 470kg has some disadvantages right out of the starting gate. (But then, as I told joedecker earlier today, it's probably safer in some respects than what I'm driving today. It has airbags.)

[takhisis.livejournal.com]

Oooo, very nice!

When I get a new car (several years from now) it'll probably be one of these:

http://www.saturn.com/saturn/vehicles/sky/overview.jsp

Saturn's always done me right in great gas mileage, low need for repairs, and impeccable service.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Nifty!

*nod of understanding* Toyota has earned my loyalty the same way. If the Prius weren't so danged BIG... (wry smile at my unusual viewpoint)

[firecat]

Honda Insight?

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Intriguing. Thanks for the link.

[lkeele.livejournal.com]

Your car could definitely last until 2009. It's a trooper!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to think that car will last as long as I will. It's certainly in better shape than I am!

[lkeele.livejournal.com]

(I really really really want a mini, like they drive in Britain. But Rondo says I couldn't fit the groceries in, let alone the kids. Damned minivan, anyway! It's not at all cute like a British mini is!)

[eichin.livejournal.com]

The "classic" not-made-in-20-years mini, yeah, that's tiny. The *current* bmw-owned mini is a lot more roomy inside than you'd expect - I've been driving the convertible since last summer and have successfully packed tall swedes in as passengers :-) 4 or 5 bags of groceries in the "luggage compartment", no problem, without folding down the back seats. And 25mpg is the *worst* mileage I've gotten, 30 is more typical. Very fun to drive, easy to park, terribly cute :-)

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Small, sleek, and gets unprecedented mileage.

And cute!!

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

A very CJ car indeed :)

[lrc.livejournal.com]

Instead of two lateral doors there is one "gate":
A frontal door opens forward before the seats, taking the steering wheel with it.

In other words, it's a fancy Isetta.

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

That car is CUTE! The look harkens back to the 3-wheelers I saw in Germany in 1960; there were bunches of those about.

Safety

[apparentparadox]

Well, I think that you'd have to get the GT model. The LS model takes 20 seconds to go from 0 to 60. To me, that just isn't safe on the freeways around here: think of trying to get on the freeway some time when the jerk in front of you stops dead on the onramp, and then you have to start from a dead stop to merge into traffic. If it's gonna take you 20 sec to come even close to the speed of the freeway, you're either going to sit on the onramp forever, or you're going to risk getting rear-ended by one of the people flying by.

Re: Safety

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Absolutely.