Why aren't car companies making better cars?

Hydrogen in particular is very difficult to supply as a major fuel source. H atoms are always combined with other atoms in the universe, and separating them is very energy-consuming.

This may be a regional thing, but for all the hype and whining I hear about global warming and the necessity of alternative fuels, Hummers and Chargers are selling just fine where I live. If people were genuinely, deeply concerned for the environment, manufacturers wouldn’t be able to sell fuel-inefficient and economically substandard cars. It just turns out that we don’t care as much as some like to think.

It’s far easier for a plant to go on producing the same dinosaur-chewing technologies it’s been building for decades, so it simply isn’t fiscally sound to invest R&D into a car people don’t actually want.

It all comes down to money, doesn’t it? We buy what they make now…why would they bother? Until Dyson builds solar cars, or some other ‘outsider’ comes along and steals their market share with a better mousetrap, they have no reason to do it.

I have uncles and brothers in the car market (no literally, I have been to family events with the owners of GM and Chrysler). Here is what my uncles basically tell me (they’re engineers/designers). The guys in charge, are stupid. Plain and simple. They don’t want to build hybrids and clean cars, because no one wants to buy them (or didn’t until this gas thing really hit). Everyone in America wanted a huge f-ing SUV, so they made huge f-ing SUV’s. Completely ignoring the fact that they were focusing themselves onto a small market (not everyone can afford a huge SUV), that was shrunk even further when the oil crisis hit. The engineers have long known this is bad strategy, but the owners don’t care is the problem.

GM right now is making the “volt.” It’s a car that has a lithium ion battery supplemented by a tiny engine. It will go like 50 miles without any gas, and then gets like 45 or something like that miles to the gallon. It’ll be done in like 2 years and there’s already about 10k of them ordered. They FINALLY have come around to realizing the type of cars they need to build, because their foolish ways smacked them in the face (and in all likelihood they won’t all make it).

For the record, I wouldn’t expect to see any hydrogen cars in mass production anytime soon. The changes in technology are simply WAY to drastic. That and I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there’s not a lot of hydrogen fuel stations around. Battery powered you will see though, cuz everyone can plug their car in no problem. And in fact virtually every major car manufacturer has some kind of battery powered car in production or R+D right now.

And water powered cars…. i’m fairly certain you’ve been fooled, lol.

@westy81585, GM just canceled plans for the factory that was going to built the Volt’s engine. They’ve been selling that thing to the media forever, but it’s still far from production.

And I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the people in charge are stupid: they’re businessmen, and their job is to make a product that sells. If enormous SUVs are what people want, they’d be stupid not to build them. Obviously not everyone can afford one, but keep in mind that a higher-priced product carries more room for profit. Should they have been more cautious with regard to a looming energy “crisis?” Probably, but making luxury cars isn’t itself to blame for their present situation.

Also, Honda has already shown that hydrogen-powered cars can be made without being Buck Rogers-complicated. Granted there aren’t many H stations around, but that’s really based on the number of cars they serve.

You’re probably right in saying that the most immediate answer to reducing fuel consumption will be electric hybrid vehicles, since that isn’t really new territory. Still, it may be some time before America’s auto industry has the money to manufacture any.

Well yes they are stupid for building SUV’s. I bet everyone would want a corvette too, but I’d be stupid if I focused on just making those, cuz not everyone can afford one. When people want a specific car, you make as many as your market can actually buy, not as many as possible. That’s why up in Toledo there are thousands of Jeep Liberties sitting unsold for years on the lot, and why all these other massive SUV’s sit in their lots unsold. No one can afford the damned things. Meanwhile fuel efficient cars are going like hot cakes, but because American manufacturers put all their eggs in one basket, they don’t have any good ones to sell.

I mean name me one American car that can actually compete or beat a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corrola. You could make an argument for one or two cars, but they’ll NEVER compete with those foreign cars because we’ve never really put solid R+D into developing them and making them desirable/reliable/efficient.

I mean this whole economic crisis has hit ALL of the auto makers, my brother designs for Honda and their business is down about 30%. The difference is they were smart enough to not just make SUV’s, they also made fuel efficient cars, and other types of cars. And voila, even though the market is in the crapper they’re not at risk of going under.

You’re absolutely right that they miscalculated consumer demand for luxury over frugality; but, that didn’t stop a good number of people from buying Escalades and Excursions. No, everyone cannot afford a Corvette or a Hummer. Some people can, however, and apparently a good many of those people actually bought one. GM has been slinging huge trucks for a long time and they sold pretty well. My point is that, economic crises notwithstanding, enough consumers wanted to drive around in their living rooms to warrant the Big Three building cars for them – and those cars sold.

Does America make a car that can match a Civic or Corolla for value, quality and economy? No. Just as they can’t make anything to compete with an A8 or an S-Class. Traditionally, Americans have been just fine with big, flashy vehicles at the expense of slightly substandard build quality and stone age technology. It just so happens that, in today’s market, the qualities that Americans are suddenly in dire need of are exactly what they didn’t want (by and large) before.

So, yeah. Rick Wagoner definitely made some bad calls.

I don’t feel like driving a car that is made out of all plastic and only goes at a top speed of 70mph. I like pushing my cars I build up to the limit. It’s my adrenaline rush. There will never be a world where everyone is driving fuel efficient cars because there are a lot of people who can’t even afford anything better than a 1978 delta.

In the United States, they like to take every cent that you have by making you pay the highest price they can for gas and giving you cars that are way behind on technology. The hybrids in America still do not compare to Hybrids made overseas. I would take a 60mpg hybrid over a 40mpg hybrid. That is a huge difference in MPG.