My previous car is a Yaris.
When I got the Yaris I heard people make snide comments like “Anyone see that big guy get out of that tiny car?” then gas prices went up and they became “Hey, what kind of MPG does that thing get?”
I like hatchbacks. Bigger is fine but nothing huge.
My current car is an '07 Yaris. It’s totally bare bones, but everyone who has been in it comments on how spacious the interior is.
I’ve always driven small cars, because they’re economical and I’ve never needed anything larger. I hate that small hatchbacks are so scarce in the US and that our roads are overrun with ludicrously huge pickups and SUVs. We transitioned from land yachts to small cars in the late 1970’s and 1980’s, we could do it again with the right incentives.
My current car is an ‘07 Yaris too. It’s also totally bare bones including manual windows and locks and no cruise control (the only feature I sometimes wish it had). It’s economical and much funner to try drive than most bigger cars, trucks, and SUVs. And on multiple occasions I have been able to parallel park it in tight spots that cars in front of me had to pass on.
I can’t even remember what year mine was. It was the first year it was in the US. Was a decent car. Good milage. But it chewed through water pumps so bad. It was either loud squealing belt or too tight causing it to killed the pump. Never could get it “just right”
That’s too bad. I have 189,000 miles on mine (304,000 km) and it’s never let me down. I haven’t had to do anything but regular maintenance on it. I wanted to replace it with something a bit newer and nicer, but had to replace the car my wife and daughter share, instead. Fortuately, I don’t drive very much so it will probably hold out for a few more years.
I drive an Auris station wagon Hybrid (aka, the US Corolla iM with bigger boot). I had a chance to drive multiple Yaris generations and honestly I am always surprised by how roomy it is inside. They made a perfect use of space - way better than VW did with Polo (smaller Golf), that’s for sure…
I have a 2017 Hybrid Yaris in blue like this one:
That I affectionately call “Blue thunder” 🤣
Got the same model in red but with the 1.5L engine from 2019. Love it. Already got 75k km and it’s still running like a charm.
Yaris gang rise up!
Want to trade my 09 in for a more recent model, hatchback would be ideal
My Yaris is actually older than me. so old in fact, that it was called “vitz” and/or “echo” in some countries. i am the 4th owner. had to replace the starter, all the fluids and the clutch (cuz old people). best car ever. it has around 100.000 km on it and runs like it rolled out of the factory just yesterday. considering we euros pay up to 7€ per gallon it’s good i still get around 40mpg out of it. love that thing.
Americans need to embrace public transit. We need trains that don’t completely suck in both speed and schedule reliability.
We’re never going to convince a lot of folks to leave their lifted F-150 or massive Suburban behind for a small car. But quality, affordable public transit that is not only efficient but saves money over owning a car would actually make a difference. We’re more likely to be able to get people to just leave the F-150 in the driveway and eventually move away from it.
Much better for the environment, too, and reduces traffic / congestion, etc. I agree smaller cars would be good, but the goalpost should be getting away from the automobile.
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we need to push representatives into office that are far more left-leaning and not fucking autocrats who will MANDATE massive increases in taxes on billionaires and legislate much more significant subsidization of public transit
You’re framing it wrong. We don’t need to elect scary commies to massively increase taxes in order to subsidize icky collective things; we simply need to elect Fiscal Conservatives™ who will cease massively subsidizing car dependency. In particular, it’s time to repeal Big Government® intrusive regulations that try to tell Red Blooded Americans© they can’t build a multifamily building on their own damn property or that dictate minimum parking requirements.
This is America, damn it! It’s high time we put the invisible hand of the Free Market back in control!
[insert screaming eagle noises]
It’s more complex than that.
The way the US is spread out makes public transit prohibitively expensive and difficult to achieve proper coverage. To make it effective, you would have to shift the entire way we live. Our entire society is built off the concept that everyone has a car.
Add to the fact that building transit is extra expensive in the US and you arrive at the reality that we will NEVER have a working transit system. That’s why the shift to small cars is needed. We don’t have any more room for roads, so we need more cars to fit in the roads we have
My dude what do you think OP is talking about. That’s what embracing public transit means ya dingus.
americans will embrace small cars like they embrace gun control
We embraced the shit out of them during the oil crisis in the '70’s. Then when gasoline got cheap again we snapped right back.
“But my SUV makes me feel so ‘safe’ and gives me a commanding view of the road!!!”
I am of the opinion that everyone ought to just get a motorcycle.
Have you ever seen Americans drive? Or the ones that ride motorcycles?
Give everyone a motorcycle and half the country would be dead in a week
Honestly, fuck motorcycle drivers. I know there’s plenty of them out there who operate your machines properly, but there SO MANY absolute asshats on motorcycles, always making the highway way more dangerous for everyone around them.
If I could remove one vehicle from the earth it would be motorcycles. Idgaf how fun they are for you, people can’t be trusted with them in general.
I think there should be a separate license to drive SUVs and Trucks over a certain size. And that maintaining that license should be a bit of a hassle - like a required in-person written and practical test every 2 years. If people want that commanding view of the road and “safe” feeling that comes from endangering everyone else on the road, then they should have to put in some extra effort - not enough extra effort that it’s unattainable for those who actually have a need for a vehicle of that size, but enough effort that it would discourage the widespread use we have currently.
I am of the opinion that everyone ought to just get a motorcycle.
But only if it’s a dual sport, right? ;)
The US EPA currently penalizes smaller cars thanks to a poorly thought out rule for fuel economy that scales by wheelbase size, making larger cars easier to meet requirements for. The EPA has made many embarrassingly backwards decisions, but this might be the worst.
Normal sized cars* you mean.
Normal cars aren’t small. They’re just small if you compare them to the giant ridiculous trucks they have over that.
Bold idea here, but maybe if we stopped fucking subsidizing SUV’s, people wouldn’t buy so goddamn many of them. Just a thought.
