Chronicler questions the standardization of the automotive industry, criticizes the predominance of SUVs and defends cars focused on the experience behind the wheel
As a daring chronicler, I will start today’s text talking about a topic that has nothing to do with cars. Apparently. Basically, there is. The meeting point is the fact that you disagree with the vast majority on a certain aspect or circumstance of daily life. We will get there.
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The other day I got involved in an argument with “pet lovers”. He said at one point that I also liked dogs and owned ‘Zeca’. What for… “It’s not the owner who speaks!” In fact, the problem has already started there. You can no longer say “dog owner”. He is a tutor. Oh, go get a Corcel head of those well encrusted with sludge to bathe with kerosene, boy! What is this freshness? I said I think, I just think, and I hope this is still allowed in this society full of touch-me-nots, that restaurants, shopping malls, hotels and other public places should not have pets.
I love dogs. I learned to like even cats. But I don’t think it’s reasonable to impose the presence of ‘Zeca’ on other people who don’t like (or are afraid) in public places. As simple as that. If I travel, I pay someone to take care of him daily. Or I can even leave it at a pet accommodation.
I like dogs. But I have a greater respect for people.
Let’s make an analogy with what interests us, then. There are places that do not allow dogs, safeguarding that minimum portion of people who do not like or are afraid. Well.
But there are no car manufacturers who are interested in consumers like me.
I think, I just think, that car brands are extremely obvious in the formulation of their product families. They are a kind of “pet lovers” unanimously. As one of them decided to launch an SUV a few decades ago and it worked, everyone ran and went to make their own. The fact is that, today, if I have R$ 200 thousand to buy a car, there are practically only SUV options in the Brazilian market. And there’s the Toyota Corolla.
We both know that the cost of developing a new project is very high, if its manufacturer is not in China, and that any “new car” needs to be (well) sold to amortize the investment and still make a profit. We know that. But that’s where, I insist, automakers don’t look at other market segments to delineate their product families.
I’m going to make another analogy here. If I am SBT and I have to compete with Globo in prime time, how will I be able to produce soap operas that steal audience from the leading broadcaster? Either I make a better soap opera, which would be unlikely and very expensive, or I buy a package of Mexican soap operas and put it on the air. Will it have the same level? Obviously not. But I will win in the “cost-benefit”. They will be much cheaper than producing something in the Globo standard and will still earn me a slice of the audience. It will be small, but the cost is low. Or I spend even less and repeat the same 20 episodes of Chaves for years. And move on. I will have less audience, but I will spend little on production.
Record this last sentence of the previous paragraph.
Why don’t manufacturers act like this? I’ll be very didactic: I don’t care about connectivity. I don’t care about the digital instrument panel. I also don’t bother the hard plastic at the top of the dashboard. I don’t need a trunk that opens with a sensor under the bumper. If I take the wheel of a car with semi-autonomous systems, believe me, I don’t start it if I don’t first find out where to turn it all off.
Take all this out of a car now and imagine how much its production cost would drop.
I buy a car because I need a mode of transportation that gets me from point A to point B, but as long as it provides me with driving pleasure. And this is directly related to mechanical aspects, such as the engine, gearbox, suspension, and brakes. That alone interests me in a car.
Is it so unrealistic to expect that any car brand can pay attention to this type of user? To be able to be served by this recipe, I have a car with ten years of use. Simply because today there is no option that gives me this handling proposal for the price I paid. Repeating the example: if I save money to change my F30 and reach R$ 200 thousand to buy a brand new car, I will have to buy a Corolla… or I’ll go for a G20, with 4 or 5 years of use. But R$ 200 SUV There must be about 30. Or 40.
No automaker REALLY will contemplate a consumer like me? Does no one consider the consumer niche anymore? Only Silvio Santos saw that???
How about producing today a 200 hp zero km sedan that is devoid of all this electronic paraphernalia and that is intended for that (minimal) portion of consumers who only like to drive, without worrying about digital modernisms?
In other words, can’t you make a “Mexican soap opera”?
Car brands only work with the herd effect. Where one goes, they all follow. None is capable of thinking outside the box. It is incredible that this exists in abundance in the motorcycle segment, which I also follow closely. What is not a Harley-Davidson if not the praise to the motorcyclist who values a vintage look, visceral roar, low torque… There is no electronics. In fact, there is, but without being intrusive. Without extracting from the product the reasons why the customer bought it.
And I’m not a particular Harley fan. But I have to recognize (praise, praise, value) that it is a recipe that values the customer who has their preferences. This is what we call a niche customer. “Ah, but a Harley costs R$ 130 thousand, at least”. Okay. You spend a third and buy a Royal Enfield. No car factory does that.
Except for Porsche. But the Royal of cars is missing, that is, some company that provides the car I want at a more affordable cost, well.
(I’ve already had a Royal, by the way.)
Changing the subject, but still within the same theme. I am today, the 6th, in Curitiba. I came here yesterday straight from the interior of São Paulo and used a winding road, the SP-079, which leaves Sorocaba and crosses the Serra do Mar until reaching the BR-116 (Rod. Régis Bittencourt). I’ll tell you: I reinforced my convictions that my next car will be a newer 320.
The road is 130 km long, very narrow and the treetops make it very dark. There are no straights of more than 300 meters. One curve on top of the other. As there had been a rain shower hours before, the asphalt was damp. Guess what. I turned off the electronics and, without doing anything crazy, I had a LOT of fun. But a lot, without even going fast.
No SUV would give me that. Neither did the Corolla. I am an exception, I repeat, like the viewer who laughed at the adventures of Chaves, Quico and Professor Girafales. But I think it’s amazing that no automaker contemplates me these days. Does anyone know how much a G20 with low mileage costs?
