Depends. I mean the roads in Western Europe are smooooth. Ours are crap, full of potholes or badly patched potholes. Is it really that hard to level the hole?

 

I think the City planners think it's harder to fix a hole than to fix the crack in my rim that I just found out today! ( I bought a rim to replace my bent rim in the pass.rear, installed it yesterday, now the pass.front rim cracked)

 

Dunno about winterpeg (:P) but here if the road damages your vehicle, you can file a claim and they'll pay the replacement cost.

 

Part of that is the climate....Western Europe generally has milder winters than interior North America. Nothing tears up a road more than ice and the freeze-thaw cycles in winter. Drive around in Ohio, Michigan, western New York state, and other Snow Belt areas and you will see what I mean.

Some of the badly torn-up roads in East Coast cities like Washington, New York City, and Boston are due to corrupt local governments that don't spend enough money manitaining them.

 

It would be nice if nav systems come standard on all vehicles. That will save me some money to buy other cool options.

 

No it won't. You will just be paying one or two thousand dollars more for each new car that doesn't have it now.

In fact, that's the problem.....the government requires too many things in new cars NOW. That's what keeps both their prices and complexity up.

The next thing we will probably see in all new cars, by government mandate, is stability control.

 

i dont want a navi system standard in the car if it increases the price, not o mention to maintain the navi system in the future if it dies outside of warranty. I'd rather buy one of those portable GPS devices

 

I think crossovers will largely replace the SUV and the standard sedan in the next few years. Although their larger frontal area makes them less efficient on the highway, most folks primary use of their car is shopping and commuting. The more relevant packaging of a 5 or 7-passenger CUV provides more seating room, more luggage space, and the option to trade passenger seating for payload.

They also provide more comfortable seating, easier entry and exit, and more suburban practicality for entering and leaving sharply-angled driveways and parking lots. The slightly shorter overall length for a given capacity helps make them more maneuverable as well. Higher sightlines contribute to safety, enabling the driver to see a bit better what is down the road.

Finally, it is the "Utility" in the Sport Utility Vehicle that makes it popular. Even if you don't head off on a cross-country camping trip with the family every week, many people like the feeling that they could.

The truck-based SUV will face continued declining popularity as more CUV's come to market. Many people once enamored with the tough "truck" image of their Suburban or Expedition found them to be too rough, clumsy, and thirsty for their taste. As a alternative, the CUV offers something closer to the sedan experience - lighter weight, improved economy, better handling, and 21st Century engineering than the truck-based SUV.

Now, for the slightly longer term, hybrids may make a considerable impact as people become comfortable with the technology, and aspire to savings - purchase cost notwithstanding. In the longer term, low sulfur diesels will be more practical choices, greatly simplifying the economy/performance equation. Alternative fuels like hydrogen are a long way off, since a whole infrastructure would have to be built to support them, and that leads to a chicken-or-egg question of who is going to step up first to provide H2 pumps . . . nobody's going to jump on this opportunity until there are a lot of hydrogen vehicles out there . . . and no manufacturer is going into full production of a vehicle that can't find convenient fuel.

For urban transport, the Smart is an impressive little car - an almost perfect commuter for one or two. It won't replace a family car, because it can't take a couple of kids, let alone all of the stuff - car seat, stroller, diaper bag, etc. that infants require - even on a short trip. But for a cheap way to follow that bumper in front of you to work every morning, you could do a lot worse. Now, if they install a dynamite stereo with XM, Ipod dock, traffic-linked GPS, bluetooth phone, and all of the coming car/computer technology that will replace all of the toys with a single double-DIN package. For that reason, I rate the new commuter cars only slightly less likely than the new telematics. Both will probably appear in the next two years, but if only because it's easier to engineer and market a stereo than a whole car, the electronics will come first.

All-out sports cars will remain a niche market, even if they can be mass-produced economically. Most OG's who can afford them will probably opt for something more family oriented, trust fund kids probably won't be able to front the insurance for a real pavement-ripper, and the truly wealthy will turn up their noses at something so pedestrian as a car that they see out on the road at least twice a day.

 

Unless this type of vehicle was truly NEEDED for heavy towing or hauling needs, that "enamored" feeling you describe was silly in the first place, unnecessary, and should have never really happened. People who drove these type of vehicles without really needing them were probably just watching too many macho commercials with the Marlboro man.

The fact that these vehicles (finally) ended up too rough, clumsy, and thirsty for them just opened their eyes a little.

You can also blame the first round of CAFE rules in the 1970's and marketing decisions for encouraging the sale of these vehicles by bringing the production of many traditional full-size RWD V8 station wagons to a close. Once the conventional big wagons were gone, many people turned to (what else) full-sized RWD/4WD V8 SUV's for their hauling needs. GM kept the big Caprice Classic and Roadmaster (Buick Estate) wagons in production until 1996, but then dropped them to convert the Arlington, TX plant to (what else) trucks and SUVs.

The problem now is: the second round of CAFEs will likely spell the end of conventional big SUVs as well...though some may stick around in hybrid form. Now, with even THOSE gone, it will be interesting to see where the former Suburban/Expedition customers go.

 

fo sho, Nuvi 760

 

Yes but wouldn't better materials and proper drainage reduce the amount of freeze-thaw damage?

Let all the water drain off before it has a chance to freeze overnight?

 

Yes, to an extent, but nature will always win in the end. Roads in snowy/freeze-thaw areas are going to get torn up no matter what kind of pavement you use.

That is what has been forgotten in the rush to make sports-sedans out of everything by adding firm suspensions and low-profile tires. Car & Driver and AUTOMOBILE magazines, which operate primarly out of Ann Arbor, MI (Michigan, overall, is perhaps the worst of all 50 states for torn-up roads) have gotten to the point where even they are concerned about too little concern for ride comfort.....and they are sport-driving enthusiasts.

 

Hybrids, b/c it allows people to basically drive the same kind of vehicles they can but with increased MPG.

You know I've been looking at sub compacts/compacts recently and a lot of their MPG is not all that great.

 

I suspect mopeds will make a comeback (they were gaining popularity in the late 70's, but died out after Regan took the helm). I also suspect the cost of energy will force a lot more people onto public transportation for their daily grind, or telecommuting will become even more popular. I also suspect people will start thinking more about where they spend their remaining dollars after they realize how much they actually spend on driving around to shop, entertain themselves, and otherwise needlessly burn fuel.

 

Hydrogen or Hybrid is my vote!!