Americans like big cars!
Although Americans are being told to get themselves smaller cars to drive, they still are picking the big gas guzzlers, despite gas prices rising and government subsidies for hybrid and more fuel efficient vehicles. The market is being flooding with fuel-efficient car tires and options abound, but people still want to drive around in their Cadillac Escalades and Hummers. And they want to get them tricked out, so they can be bigger and better than anything anyone has ever seen on the road. I have seen an SUV decked out with 40 inch truck rims. Now that is not freaking fuel efficient that is just insane. That is some huge truck wheels.
Really it’s just a sign of our culture that bigger is most definitely what American citizens want. It always makes me think of that television show on MTV, Pimp My Ride. If you haven’t seen it, they would basically update a car of an individual that clearly could not afford it, ripping the car to basically nothing and then building it back up with ridiculous features. The craziest one I saw was they put a bath tub in the back of a pickup truck, or big van, I can’t remember. But it was completely insane.
All upgrades aside, there is always going to be a market for big vehicles in the United States. Americans like to have room and bigger is better when it comes to the notion of what luxury is and what isn’t. Fuel-efficiency takes a back seat to what looks cool and is a sign of status.
Until car makers can design a hybrid car that is actually attractive to American buyers, the goal of going all eco-friendly will not be within the grasp of this country.
Time will tell if car makers can give the American car buyer what they really want. Even if we don’t even really know what that is.