Earlier this year, Volkswagen public relations told me it wasn’t planning to introduce the 2012 Beetle at New York. The prospect of the triple introduction, in Shanghai, Manhattan and Berlin, fit VW’s aspirations to find a bigger market for the car, while serving its primary market, the United States.
Mercedes-Benz introduced its A-Class concept in Shanghai and in New York. Shanghai did get the more complete of two show-car “properties,” the one with the full interior. But the showing here was the big hint, and Mercedes let it be known it will bring some sort of small, front-wheel-drive entry-level premium car to the U.S. in a year or so, and try to capture the luxury-aspiring youth market.
GM unveiled its 2013 Chevrolet Malibu some nine months before it will go on sale, as Wall Street analysts questioned the company recent lack of new product, typical of investors’ short attention span. The Shanghai/New York intro drove home GM’s plan to make the Chevy midsizer a global car, which raises questions of whether the corporation’s European operations, Opel and Vauxhall, are on the bubble. Opel had better start contributing to profits, or the Chevy nameplate could take over.
Being the media center that New York is, the show was full of celebrity appearances, both at the show and at the parties. I didn’t see them all, but the celebrity sightings included Stephen Colbert at the Audi presser, Megan Fox at Jaguar’s party, Gene Simmons and Kiss at Mini’s press conference and the Black Eyed Peas at VW’s Monday night preview.
More importantly, the New York show brought us normalization of the 40-mpg small car. They’re not just Chevy Cruze Eco stick shifts anymore, but also Honda Civic HFs, Hyundai Accents, Kia Rios and Mazda3s, and almost, the new Subaru Impreza. That last car falls short of the 40-mpg ideal, though at 36-mpg highway, it can claim to be the most fuel efficient all-wheel-drive vehicle sold in America.
The Chevy Malibu Eco falls 2 mpg short of the ideal American family car, which would be a midsizer that gets 40 mpg. Chevy notes that its 38-highway mpg tops that of the Toyota Camry, Nissan Altima and Ford Fusion hybrids – though not the Hyundai Sonata hybrid. Like most hybrids, the Camry, Altima and Fusion make their fuel efficiency gains in city stop-and-go traffic, though. So will fuel efficiency-conscious families try to estimate whether they’re better off with city high-mileage or highway high-mileage in choosing their next midsize cars? Even if gas hits $4.50 or $5 per gallon, they’ll overwhelmingly choose the conventional, gas engines and be happy they’re not driving Tahoes and V-8 Explorers anymore.
That’s the kind of auto show season we’ve had. It began with an upbeat Detroit show that was short on concepts, rolled through a pretty quiet Chicago and a typically busy, glitzy Geneva. The “green” cars we’ve been promised the last few years are arriving, though the most important ones are the high sales volume compact and midsize sedans that don’t give up performance for four-cylinder fuel efficiency. They’re not drivers’ cars, though they are texter/phone callers’ cars. The only question now is whether middle America can still afford to buy them.
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