Morning Musings: Are Small Cars Here to Stay, Or Just a Flash in the Pan?

Morning Musings: Are Small Cars Here to Stay, Or Just a Flash in the Pan?

Newspaper Suggests We're Over Them, Market Researcher Says They'll Be Hot For Years

We're a little pessimistic here at Green Car Advisor - we find the best way to keep from getting your hopes dashed time after time is not to let them get too high in the first place.

But we've been hoping for a while now that more Americans would catch the small(er) car and crossover SUV bug and abandon some of the more ludicrous super-sized vehicles offered by Detroit, Germany (What? You think an S-Class 'Benz or a 7-Series Bimmer is small?) and, for a while there, Japan - think Sequoia...Tundra...Titan.

We're not suggesting those cars and trucks shouldn't exist or that nobody should buy them, just that a lot of people have them for no reason other than status, certainly not out of need, and that it is time we all started reexamining out choices in transportation.

It looked as though that was happening as the cost of gasoline spiraled upward this summer. But with the collapse of the economy came a downward swoop in petrol prices and a slowing of small car sales.

So we were heartened the other day when market researchers at AutoPacific released a forecast flatly stating that small cars, which right now are outselling mid-sized cars (not that anything is selling all that well), would continue to be the volume leader in the market for years to come.

Imagine the deflation we felt when we saw this little item from the Wall Street Journal just a few days after we posted a piece on AutoPacific's predictions.  "Industry's Big Hope For Small Cars Fades," the newspaper declared.

Buyers who were snapping up smaller, fuel-efficient cars in the summer are ignoring them in droves now, the Journal reported, and there are something like 500,000 unsold fuel-efficient vehicles sitting on new car lots around the country.

The newspaper's take on the situation was encapsulated in a quote from Beau Boeckmann, whose family owns Galpin Ford, the country's largest Ford dealer (and one that makes a lot more money selling a loaded F150 than a frumpy Focus).

"I don't think Americans really like small cars," Boeckmann is quoted as saying. "They drive them when they have to, when gas prices are high. But we're big people and we like big cars."

We sent a copy of an on-line brief of that story to Dan Hall, vice president for marketing at AutoPacific, and asked if he or one of the other analysts there would care to comment in light of their more positive ideas about the future for small cars.

Here's what he shot back, in a matter of minutes:

"The present volatility of the market makes monthly changes in segment performance difficult to extrapolate into the long-term.

"AutoPacific's prediction of a steady growth in the compact segment does not depend upon a future spike in fuel prices.

"We see the compact car segment growing for two major reasons. First is the growing number of Generation Y buyers who are shifting from used cars to new cars. Second is the overall increasing appeal of compact cars. They have more features and size than compact cars of the past.

"Today's compact car is a true alternative to a mid-size car."

We know that the Wall Street Journal, like any daily news report (like Green Car Advisor, for honesty's sake) looks at events with an eye toward making them as exciting, as immediate, yes, even as controversial or contrarian as possible to attract readers' interest.

And we know that AutoPacific, like other market research and consulting firms, sells its advice and insights and can't be seen to be flip-flopping on issues.

We, frankly, don't know which is right, but we come from a long, long newspapering background and we know that what is presented as hot news today is often humbug by the end of the week.

So we'll take AutoPacific's side in this one, even though, deep down in our pessimistic little heart, we worry - as this nation's first treasury secretary is unreliably reported to have said - that as smart as we can be as individuals, the masses, indeed, are asses and will revert to humongous Hummers and rampaging Rams if gas prices don't rise and the auto industry ever recovers enough to start making them again.

We wince recalling, from not long ago, long lines of gleaming Suburbans at the local elementary school drop-off zone, each bus-sized SUV carrying one petite mom, one or two small children and, maybe, a few pieces of dry cleaning - loads that could easily have been handled by those frumpy Focuses.

We'd like to think that worry is groundless, though, and that as the beefy bottoms that found a home in cushy SUV, luxo-sedan and deluxe pickup seats are gradually outnumbered in the market by those Gen Y rebels in whom the AutoPacific researchers place such faith, that smaller, more sensible cars and trucks will prevail and we will find that we can drive happy and a lot more earth-friendly than ever before.

Peace.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor

John O'Dell:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.