The threat of oil price shocks and environmental concerns in the near future will drive people to downsize their cars. It happened back in the 1970s and it happened again more recently, with the local price of fuel hovering around $1.60 a litre or higher.
Aussie manufacturers and importers have blamed the retail price of fuel for scaring buyers away from large cars and even medium-segment cars. For the price of a bare-bones Aussie six, canny buyers could choose a high-spec small car, costing nothing more to buy and less to run. Then there's the resale to consider at the end of the lease or come trade-in time.
This change in consumer thinking is not exclusively an Australian mindset, it's a global trend. It's also the principle underpinning Mitsubishi's announcement that it will build a 'Global Small Car' as a replacement for the Colt (pictured).
This new car will reach Australia, says Mitsubishi Motors Corporation President, Osamu Masuko.
"In response to consumer demand for smaller, more economical vehicles, we are developing a new model, called the Global Small Car," Masuko-san told Australian journalists earlier this week. "This new vehicle is scheduled to be launched globally -- including in Australia."
The new car is expected to hit the market around 2013 and, through an interpreter, Masuko-san indicated it would be both less expensive and smaller than the current Colt, although there will also be an electric variant in the range.
"The size of the Global Small [Car] would actually be smaller than the Colt; and the price would also be cheaper than the Colt. We are also going to launch with an EV."
The EV variant will come to Australia also, but possibly a year after the local launch of the mainstream range due in 2013. Asked why the need exists for such a car in Mitsubishi's product range, the president stated his view that all the growth in the global car market would come from small-car segments.
As with the plug-in SUV, the i-MiEV and the i-MiEV Cargo (now confirmed for production), the Global Small Car is one of the baby steps Mitsubishi is taking on the way to a greener, more sustainable product range, but the company predicts that cars powered by internal-combustion engines will still account for perhaps as much as 80 per cent of global production by 2020.
But at least downsizing can reduce the dependency on fossil fuels in the meantime.
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