News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
Everyone I know has been begging for smaller cars for years. Idk why everyone thinks people don't want them. No one said they didn't want them it was just decided for us by some CEOs. That seems to be how all of the opinions of "Americans" are formed. Same way the CEO of my company says we all love to go into an empty office and do all of our work online. It's just bullshit
Not just CEOs. Tax and emissions law in the US discourages smaller vehicles and encourages personal vehicles large enough to qualify as "light trucks". https://publications.lawschool.cornell.edu/jlpp/2024/11/25/the-unchecked-rise-of-trucks-and-suvs-in-america/
I bring this up every time people talk about vehicle sizes and people always treat me like a conspiracy theorist.
You're 100% right tho. It just means other people aren't interested in the truth. I used to be ignorant too until someone made that comment and i looked into it a little. Between emissions and safety standards we really push the prices of vehicles up ourselves with all the rules we've put in place.
I think the thing is when they do make them, they’re a shitty American car and nobody wants that so the Detroit execs blame us and go back to making luxury tanks for the wine moms.
I think the REAL issue is that when they sell those little cars people do buy them, but they are people who would have bought a larger more expensive car if that little car wasn't available.
We have a little Honda fit. Great car. Also a pretty popular car that you see on the road all the damned time. Honda still sells the car globally, but they stopped selling it in the US. Not because it wasn't selling, but because it was selling to people that would have bought HRVs or Civics (which cost more) instead.
That not true, the Fit started off strong at 80,000/yr sales but by 2020 hit 30,000/yr. Everyone is driving pickups now.
Best selling cars of 2024:
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g60385784/bestselling-cars-2024/
Yeah. I want to blame car company executives and do when I’m cranky but ultimately much of this is a problem with drivers. People want big, pedestrian-slaughtering, gas-guzzling planet-killers and as long as we allow don’t take a more aggressive regulatory approach to SUVs and bloated pavement princess pickups it’s going to stay bad.
rare point of view here... that people are responsible for themselves and not everything is some psyop conspiracy wherein people have no agency.
I do still think corporate decision makers bear a portion of the blame. They’d rather make big cars, too, and are doing nothing to use their advertising to help shape consumer demand to be in favor of smaller cars or promote fuel economy. Individual demand exists and people bear responsibility, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
But we blame car companies for not making vehicles OTHER PEOPLE should buy.
The fit isn't a great car for highway driving. Yeah, they are popular for city drivers would also into mini coopers and SMART cars. There are plenty of 'little cars' on the market, but people don't genreally like them because they are impactical and sucky to drive compared to compact suvs and sedans, that are more or less the same price and offer a way more comfortable experience.
after you go over 65mph it feels like the wheels will fall off, and it's low weight and box frame makes it blow around like a leaf in any substantial winds. I chose a civic because it was so much safer and more comfortable for highway driving at 70mph+. it is a much stiffer chasis, my civic can hit 110mph before it starts to feel sketchy.
Civic and HRV and CRV are way more stable and comfortable vehicles and get the same mileage, and have more storage space.
A modern Mini Cooper is nothing like a Smart car. It's comparable in size to a Golf, or a Corolla hatch.
which model? the countryman is bigger, but the basic one is still barely a 4 seater. the 2 door is tiny.
The normal Cooper.
The 4 door Cooper is the same width as the 2 door, 1cm taller, and 16cm longer, based on a 2013-2018 model since that's what this tool has available:
https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/mini-cooper-2013-3-door-hatchback-vs-mini-cooper-2013-5-door-hatchback/
Compare a 2 door Cooper vs 2 door Golf and it's barely different:
https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/mini-cooper-2013-3-door-hatchback-vs-volkswagen-golf-2012-3-door-hatchback
Or 2 door Cooper vs Smart Fortwo:
https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/smart-fortwo-2014-3-door-hatchback-vs-mini-cooper-2013-3-door-hatchback/
The Smart is clearly a smaller size. The Cooper and the Golf are basically the same. There's definitely a lot more cross shopping of Coopers and Golfs than Coopers and Smarts.
The 40mpg highway mileage that the Fit gets tells me that you have different priorities than I do on the highway.
my civic gets over 40mph on the highway. usually 42+
I've also never experienced the "wheels wanting to fall off" bullshit or the wind buffeting it personally.
The only thing I don't like about highway driving is the revs get higher when you go fast.
Which AFAIK is because the fit is geared more towards lower speed driving, but honestly it is not a problem.
Ours is perfectly stable at highway speeds and is absolutely capable of greatly exceeding the speed limit if you are patient enough.
I also love how much shit can "fit" in it, lol. I have the back seats down often, hauling lots of stuff.
Exactly why Stellantis is selling this in the USA in 2026:
this is basically a shitty golf cart. golf cart carries more people and cargo and has the same driving distance.
Golf cart can't legally carry 4 people on the roads and usually has top speed limited to about half of this one.
What is this?
Is this a Fiat?
It's no hyalux
There's a much higher markup on large luxury vehicles so no manufacturer wants to waste their time on smaller cheaper ones.
Same problem with affordable housing units :(
I just walked by two people in adjacent cubicles on a meeting with only each other. Boggles.