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Is the Smart car treated badly by American car magazines and the official press?
This post is in reply to another asking whether Smart car reviews in USA car magazines are fair and unbiased. This is long and very opinionated! I would like to add my .05 cents worth. First off, I am from Germany but I have lived here longer than I have lived there. So this makes me half an American. The problem I see is, that "America" (and I am using this general term with all due respect because there are a lot of smart Americans) is brain washed into believing big is best and the world owes us low prices at the gas pump. I have seen gas prices almost triple during the past 3 years. I also have seen my heating oil price triple in the same period of time. I say, it is still not expensive enough! (Start flaming....) In Europe, and I was just there a few weeks ago, visiting England, Germany, France and Holland, you pay, more or less, about $10.00 per gallon. People do complain because they used to pay $7-8-9.00 per gallon. But, they are used to it because this has been the norm in Europe for a long, long time. I visited my home town and parts of it were totally different from what I remembered. Where I could use one cross street to move across from one street to the next, now there were huge concrete planters and the cross street was blocked off for any kind of traffic. Some "Main" streets, where I used to be able to just zip through from one end to the other, did force me to drive s-curves around these concrete planters, in order to get to the other end. In Germany, they now have introduced "green zones" and depending on what kind of a car you drive, you fall into 1 of 3 classes, which will determine how close to the city center you are allowed to drive you car!! Guess, how far you can go in a Hummer or SUV!! You will be issued a sticker, which you must display on your windshield. In England, they now make you pay dearly to enter the inner city. All this is being done to "reduce and calm down" traffic. Just try to imagine some USA city would really try to introduce this scheme (as New York did and their anointed officials voted down... not in their lifetime... we prefer to keep our cushy jobs...) it would be the opener for another civil war. Of course, the US auto industry continues to push big, gas-guzzling cars. They are driven purely by profit motives because big cars earn them higher profits. They have a short-term view to satisfy shareholders. That is why, IMHO, the car magazines come down hard on small, micro, non USA cars. Let's face it, the reviewer and "testers" grew-up with big cars and to them a micro car such as the Smart is simply not a car. It is a nuisance or a novely but not a car. Let's turn this around and look for reviews by European car magazines of, lets say, a Hummer. You would be getting the same but totally opposite review. It is very unfortunate that the majority of the American people will have to first feel the really strong pain of very high gas prices, before a majority will start to look at and accept smaller \ small \ micro cars. They believed every word coming out of Detroit and now they start to pay for it. I am not faulting the American people. I am directing this at the American car industry.
Most Americans simply do not believe that a Smart car is a safe car. This is proven by the comments I receive from my own employees. They think, I am this crazy German guy. Let him enjoy this crazy, stupid car, while we continue driving our big and safe SUV's (and complain about high gas prices). The point I am trying to make is, that America must learn that the rest of the world is no longer willing to subsidize America when it comes to gas prices. Get used to Smart or the new Fiat 500 and all of the many, small(er) mini and micro cars, which will provide great gas mileage. General Motors? You will end-up being a division of Toyota. You deserve it.
Overall you make an excellent and accurate analysis of us.I have believed for at least 30 years that if the government had large enough b#*ls we would have had taxes on gas that could have gone a long way towards viable public transportation. We have a number of areas in this country for example that are prime candidates for high speed rail such as the TGV. Who knows how urban sprawl might have been slowed or altered if we had better rail and/or underground systems.
Hi Bremer Speck. I agree with you. I'm disappointed by general quick dismissal reactions from people when they see my new car. I would be happy with jovial laughter and "well, I don't think it's for me, but it's neat!" A guy I work with, when he first learned that I was waiting for one of these, couldn't stop warning me of its size and impending doom it meant to my well-being. Then he started reading the articles on it... then he saw mine and I gave him a ride... He really likes it now! It just takes all of these lesser-open-minded Americans finding someone they look up to or trust that believes in something new to change their perception. Easier said than done, for sure. But, if we all give up on everyone else, and simply think that there's no way we can help inform people and assume that other people will never get it, then we're right... they never will. People will only expect out of themselves what people around them expect of them.
I understand the point of your post but must point out what I think the problem is.
The American auto industry is not shoving anything down anyones throught.
We and when I say we I mean the American consumers are driving the industry. The big cars and trucks would not be built or sold if we were not buying them, we the conumer drive the market not the other way around.
People buy what people want, in europe they want small cars that are very fuel efficiant, because of the reasons you stated in you previous post.
Even before the smart there were and still are small car options for us to purchase. But we chose to buy the big comfrtable gas guzzelers.
We are now starting to feel the pain and are now looking for alternatives.
I personaly own one of the gas guzzelers, a Ford F250 with a 6.8l V10. It gets around 11 MPG. It servers it poupous very well, that is to tow our travel trailer. It is not a very good choice for a everyday commuter.
We are about to take delevery of our new smart, and it will preform the task for which it is intended very well, however it will not tow our trailer at all. The smart is a very pourpous built and designed car, and acomplishes its task very well.
Time will tell if the American public is ready for it or not. I for one am.
MR Claudia, thanks for responding. I do not agree with you (oh, I love a good argument... :-) ... I seriously doubt it is the consumer who is driving the industry. That is what Detroit says and wants us to believe (most recently put force in an interview with Bob Lutz), that they are the good guys and would build small, fuel efficient cars, if only the buyers would want them. IMHO, it is brain-washing through ADVERTISING! How do most consumers find out about new cars? Most of us through advertising and possibly a write-up in a car or other magazine. That is how I found out about the VW EOS and I have lusted after it for 2 years, until my lease ended and I was able to buy the EOS in January. The Smart is my wife's car.
I also do admit to owning a big F250 Diesel truck. We used it to commute 75 miles every day. We no longer do. It has turned into a 3rd car, to be used when there is a need for it. If you live outside the city, a pickup truck comes in very handy.
The review I saw that bothered me basically said it didn't compare to other vehicles, and then trashed the transmission because it didn't. I can't find the link for it, but there were 2 articles on the same source, one fairly favorable (he seemed to "get it"), but his partner's very negative. I thought they were on MSN, but can't find them again to quote them.
Well, the point for me is that I don't want it to compare to other cars, otherwise I would have kept the minivan and the SLK.
I wanted, craved something unique and unusual, something with "wow" factor. I could have moved up from my SLK to a CLK, but, while they are a beautiful car, the CLK looks like an awful lot like everything else on the road.
For the Smart to be practical, too, is just a lagniappe for me.
As for the reviewer trashing the way the car runs, did he drive the same model as I did? I think the shift paddles are brilliant. I drove the car fifty yards in automatic mode, said "ew yuck", and never looked back. It's paddles for me, baby, and I love 'em. He talked about them being jerky and inconvenient. Huh? He ranted about how it chugged slowing down at stops. Huh? How the upshift arrows were set wrong, blah blah, blah blah.
Well, I'm sorry if I'm huffy and unable to express myself properly about cars, but I'm a chick, I like cars, don't know that much about them, just what I like, but I was taught as a ten year old to drive a stick by feel and sound. If a professional reviewer, who is also, presumably a professional driver, can't get the same results out of the little car as I feel like I do, then give me his job. (Besides, I might get to meet Clarkson, May, and Hammond some day. Talk about 'yer lagniappes!!!!!! Sorry, an utterly chick response there. )
I figured out within the first mile or two to ignore the arrows, which are simply suggestions, imho. If silly little ole' me can figure that out, why can't the big bad reviewer? (*bats eyelids dangerously*)
By the time I got home from the dealer, I'd figured out that shifting UP when approaching a stop was the trick to the car, versus shifting down. The reviewer even said that the dealer had even mentioned this, but thought it was bad advice, and went on the complain about it jerking as he downshifted. Well, DUH!
Here's a car with some imagination and creativity, but he harps on it not running or driving compared to other cars.
I guess my point is, if everything's the same, and anything new is compared to everything else unfavorably simply because it is new, then what a dull dull world it will be.
I mean we're not talking Galileo and the Inquisition here, but for heaven's sake.... accept that things change and review it with an open mind. I guess I'm one of the "rabid" fans one reviewer so dismissively mentions, but I love my little car, and I can tell early on if a car "loves me back". The Yellow Peril does!!!!!
Last edited by Springlering; 04-10-2008 at 09:13 AM..
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