Another Car We’re Not Allowed to Buy

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Would you be interested in a brand-new, fully warranted, five-door crossover SUV built by a major, name-brand automaker that gave you 50-plus MPG with a gas (not diesel or hybrid) engine, that has a top speed around 125 mph, is capable of getting to 60 in 12 seconds (about the same as a Prius hybrid) that stickered for less than $5,000?Kwid lead

Yeah, me too.

It’s called the Renault Kwid (see here) and it looks kinda-sorta like a Nissan Juke or Kia Soul and is about the same size as those units.

It isn’t a latter-day Yugo either.

The Kwid comes standard with AC, power windows and a digital dashboard, a seven-inch LCD display in the center stack and most of the apps you’d find in a new Soul or Juke.

It also has a modern, fuel-injected engine and a five-speed overdrive transmission.    

The difference is the Kwid costs about a third what a new Juke or Soul would cost you to buy: Its base price is just $4,700 (not counting taxes and tags).    

Too bad we can’t buy one.

Not because such a vehicle isn’t available.

It’s just not available here.

Neither are other such cars, like the Suzuki Alto 800 (53 MPG and a base price of $3,870; $5,755 loaded) and the Hyundai Eon (50 MPG and $4,856 to start; $6,636 loaded).

Qwid interior

Because Uncle.

His “safety” mandates make these vehicles illegal for sale in the United (at gunpoint) States. Even though the Kwid has an air bag – the main fetish item of America’s gone-off-the-deep-end Safety Cult.

It just doesn’t have enough of them.

Only one (for the driver) rather than the six or more that are now necessary in the U.S. to comply with Uncle’s nail-biting, neurotic – and very expensive –  “safety” mandates. It also couldn’t pass current federal bumper impact or roof crush standards – notwithstanding that the Kwid is much more crashworthy than, say, a classic ’70s-era VW Beetle or (probably) even a Chrysler K-car from the 1980s.

“Safety” is relative.

The federal government says a SmartCar is “safe” because it meets the requirements for its class (subcompact). But see what happens when it gets T-boned by a ’70 Eldorado without a single air bag that would never pass the “safety” tests required of the not-so-smart car.Kwid road 1

The Kwid is probably “safer” – as far as its ability to protect occupants in the event of a crash – than the federally approved SmartCar.

It doesn’t matter.

Nor the fact that the Kwid’s emissions are also a fraction of those produced by cars that were legal for sale in this country as recently as the 1990s. Unfortunately – for us – the Kwid doesn’t meet current federal standards, which ceased being reasonable back in the ’90s. Current federal standards pursue the remaining 1-3 percent of a new car’s exhaust emissions not yet “controlled” with an Inspector Javert-like mania – irrespective of cost and even when achieving compliance results in more emissions, grand scheme of things.

It doesn’t matter that the Kwid’s less-than-one-liter three cylinder engine produces a smaller total volume of exhaust – because it burns less fuel – which means that on the whole, its emissions output is lower than U.S.-legal cars with much larger (1.8-2.5 liter four cylinder, typically) engines that burn much more fuel overall and so produce a greater volume of exhaust gas.

And, therefore, more emissions.

Kwid details

Uncle knows all this, probably.

It does not – as the saying goes – take a rocket scientist. If idle my ’76 Trans-Am for five minutes, then turn it off – it produces fewer emissions than a Prius that’s run for an hour.

The problem isn’t the Kwid’s emissions – or its “safety.”

It is both reasonably clean and safe – as well being extremely fuel efficient (surpassing by at least 10 MPG the highest numbers achieved by any non-hybrid car currently available for sale in the United States).

It is that the Kwid is inexpensive – and that is a dagger aimed at the heart of the debt-financed Jenga castle that is the U.S. economy.

If this car were available here, people would once again be able to stroke a check for a brand-new car. No monthly payment for the next six years. They’d have money in the bank – rather be in hock to bankers.debt pic

The Kwid costs less than the options packages on many new cars. The Hyundai Eon costs even less.

The competitive pressure that the availability of such cars would put on the established automakers would be tremendous. They’d have to lower the cost of their cars, too, to remain in the game. People would realize that a decent new car, with more luxury amenities than most luxury cars had 20 years ago, need not cost $20,000 or even $15,000 – or even $10,000.

And they’d know exactly how much “safety” and “emissions” mandates emanating out of the various orifices in Washington have been costing them.

Most people are blind to it because these costs are very astutely folded into the cost of the car. There is no line-item for air bags, or the now-mandatory back-up cameras. Let alone the enormous costs imposed on consumers via the government’s various impact/rollover resistance standards.

When air bags were first offered as optional equipment back in the ’70s, the cost of the air bags was right there on the window sticker. Most people decided – reasonably – that the expense (at the time, back in the early ’70s, about $800 for just the one, driver’s side air bag) was simply not worth it.new car cost graphic

Then government mandated the bags and this choice was taken away.

And so was the price tag.

Now – today – almost every new car has at least six air bags. Not only do the cars cost thousands more as a result, they also cost thousands more to fix (and insure).

They are heavier – and much less fuel efficient – than they might otherwise be. The Kwid and Eon and the Suzuki Alto are four-wheeled/real-deal proof of this. They show us what we could have – were it not for the effrontery (and cupidity) of the government (and the car cartels) who now work together to shear us like sheep, while telling us it’s all for our own good, to keep us “safe.”

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Billy
Billy

Also, probably no way to track us via GPS or whatever snitch program they’re wanting to use, thereby showing our driving habits, where we’re going, what we’re doing, etc…

Also no way to shut down the vehicle remotely, like ONSTAR, etc. Can’t sell it here if they can’t remotely control your vehicle and you by default…

I’m thinking there might be a niche market for rebuilt-from-the-ground-up late 70’s, early-80’s Chevy’s and Fords… the Chevy Caprice Classic of that era was damn near bomb-proof. They were used as police cars and taxi cabs not because they were the fastest or the most maneuverable or any of that shit – it was because you couldn’t kill the little shits. You could beat on them forever and they would just keep going.

Ugly as fuck, but they worked and ran forever…

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Of course, the Caprice Classic has been the focus of much negritude over the years… why the yoofs and dindus decided to focus on this vehicle – just like their fetish with the Chrysler 300 – is completely beyond me… I’d have to lose dozens of IQ points just to have a chance of thinking like they do…

Caprice Classic after being negricized…. poor thing…

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Another Caprice Classic turned into a ghetto sled…

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And, lest the yoofs and dindus get all the laughs, the beanbags horn in on the fuckery by turning a Caprice into one of those ghettofied gay-assed fuckin’ “lowrider” things with ridiculously small wheels and hydraulics… ’cause wheels that are so small they look like someone kifed them off a Hot Wheels car are just as fuckin’ useful as those ridiculously huge chromed wagon wheels the dindus put on…

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These ghetto sleds are allowed on US roads, but the above affordable cars are not? Well, in their defense, I would hate to see what the dindus and beans would do to them if they were sold over here..

derp
derp

Air bags total more cars than accidents do. Its illegal to repair a car with a used airbag. A chrysler will typically destroy the dashboard when the passenger side bag pops, and all it takes is a six mile per hour wreck to detonate all the bags. I worked on a chrysler 300, that hit a shopping cart in a grocery store parking lot. Side curtain bags deployed blowing out all four side windows, the passenger front bag ripped the dash and cracked the windshield, the drivers bag ruined the clock spring, and the bumper cover had a nice little gouge where he smacked the cart. Woulda been under 800 bucks to pull off the cover, fix it and put it back on with fresh paint. Instead, the bill bill was in excess of 12,000 bucks, and breached the 40 percent thresh hold and totalled said shitbox. Thats how cosmetic damage produces junkyard fodder. Worked on a Qsomethin or other lexus. Expensive suv. Hit in the running board hard. 600 dollar part maybe. Except it popped a dozen bags from all over the place, including out of the sides of the front seats. Mudding in my friends 98 jeep popped airbags. I have been driving for 35 years. Crashed cars a few times. None with air bags, yet I am still here. Eliminate airbags and mandate 4 point harnesses and helmets. They work better and are cheaper. Ever see airbags deploy in a nascar wreck?

starfcker
starfcker

Eric peters looked pretty shaky to me, but he is growing on me, and his last couple of articles have been pretty good. Props to him, and nice find, jim

m111ark
m111ark

All true, however the main reason you’ll never see an affordable, ultra cheap car here is that it does not serve the interest of the Financial Oligarchs. Debt-money, being the near total kind of “money” we have, is the only method whereby new “money” can come into existence – and the only thing the Oligarchs need/want is new “money” to pay the interest that they collect and makes them wealthy. As an example, remember the response of the government after the collapse in 2008 – cash for clunkers and first time home buyers tax credit. Both programs were an effort to get the suckers/people to take on more debt… when the monetary system is debt based, the only thing that counts is that debt MUST forever increase to pay off previous debt.

There is no solution that solves the black hole that is a debt-money monetary system. New people/suckers must always be found to take on the debt burden and the old, used up, dead-broke debt serfs MUST be destroyed, which is why the U.S. is being systematically discredited in the minds of foreigners and americans alike. However, one must remember that you cannot blame, entirely, the government of this nation. True, they must take their share of the blame but the greater portion of the blame goes back to 1913 when the Financial Oligarchs took control of the issuance of our money. No nation can remain sovereign when it gives away it’s rightful power to create and spend it’s own money. Debt is the destroyer of nations.

If the Oligarchs lose control of our present very dangerous environment one can expect a financial tsunami that will obliterate the world… if not, we americans will be reviled around the world, a civil/race war will destroy us and the Oligarchs will accomplished their long sought objective of destroying, for a time, the very ideal of democracy… after all, what self-respecting Oligarch wouldn’t prefer the Chinese model.

Either way, we’re in the shit… like I’ve said elsewhere, it’s gotta break to get to a brand new day…

Billy
Billy

derp,

Precisely.

Airbags go off at the slightest provocation. In fact, there used to be a game the dindus played a few years ago. They’d drive around till they found a police car and get behind it. When the cops came to a stop at a red light, they’d “bump” the back of the patrol car just hard enough to have all the airbags go off in the cops’ faces… easy thing to deny doing, too. “Oh, sorry officer! I didn’t mean to bump your vehicle… I was changing the radio station and, well… my bad”… they rarely have insurance, so what do they care?

I think airbags sometimes do more damage than they prevent.

My wife and I were involved in an accident in Florida on the A1A. Wasn’t a terribly horrible accident, but the airbags went off. I lost use of my left hand for a week – my left hand was at the 12 o’clock position on the steering wheel when the airbag went off. Smashed my left hand straight up into the windshield. My wife was wearing shorts and the passenger airbag cut her thigh badly enough to require a couple stitches… and my wife has very nice legs. I was more infuriated at the cut on my wife’s thigh than the accident. Like breaking a stained glass window. Plus, my airbag destroyed a pair of $165 dollar Ray Bans by smashing them right off my face…

There aughta be a way to disarm airbags. A big switch on the dashboard that lets you choose if you want them armed or not… I’ve even heard about babies being killed in the front seat by deploying airbags. Don’t know how much truth there is to that, but still… they fucked us up, and we’re grown adults. Little infant gets smashed by those fucking things, I don’t doubt it could kill them….

harry p.
harry p.

But we “need” airbags, they “save” lives (according to govt stats) and we are all too feeble minded to make decisions regarding our own safety

flash
flash

another fine example of the ” free market” we’re told is the boon of modern America.. phhttt..

AC
AC

I like these:

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Piaggio Porter – 1.2 liter Euro 5 diesel, carries half a metric ton of cargo plus two adults in the cab. About $12,000 to $15,000 US, new – including VAT, so probably cheaper in the US. Comes in cargo van and passenger versions, too.

The Japanese have their Kei trucks (and care), which are also nice.

AC
AC

…..Kei trucks (and cars) . . .

timbo
timbo

Yeah, we need cheaper lightweight cars. Again to the crash videos, how about a suzuki alto with no air bags (zero star crash rating for adults):

vs. a subaru forester with airbags on the much harder small overlap test:

Driving is probably the most hazardous thing people do on a daily basis. Why risk it with a cheap ass tin can with no air bags?

Billy
Billy

You’re missing the point, tim…

It’s not that cars have airbags. It’s the insufferable mandates that force American car companies to knuckle under – and us via extension.

If I wanted a car with airbags, I would have bought one with airbags.

Instead, I bought a 40 year old Ford truck because I can guaran-damn-tee you it will do way better than some POS shitpot Subaru on a crash test… insurance is higher on the truck, despite it’s age, because according to State Farm, my truck is made “from good stuff” (yes, that is a quote) and not plastic and shit sheet metal today’s automobiles are made of…

You can’t fight physics.

EPA says “Thou shalt make cars that get 50mpg”. Well, that means you have to put a dinky engine in it that sips shitty low octane pump gas. And nobody will buy it because that dinky engine means it won’t accelerate when you push on the accelerator.

So you have to lighten it up a bunch to increase the power to weight ratio so it actually, you know… accelerates… Otherwise, nobody will buy your shit car.

But lightening it up removes a bunch of metal – metal that used to go towards an actual frame and layers of steel between you and whatever was coming your way. Replaced with unibody construction, plastics, alloys and ever-thinner sheets of steel…

But now that you have your light car, you’re running afoul of the dictats from the government re: weight of vehicles… and removing all that steel made it “unsafe” – so now you have to hang a half dozen air bags in it to keep the people inside alive if and when an accident happens… Layers of steel replaced with “crumple zones” – your car is designed to self-destruct on impact and this is somehow supposed to make you “safer”…. yeah, yeah, don’t go into absorption of energy and all that shit – I’ve heard it before. So you’re trapped in your shitbox Subaru while the Fire Department chops you out of the wreckage because your car “crumpled” on impact… nice.

This goes to the VW mess as well – the Herms figured out how to get high mileage, good performance and low emissions out of a vehicle and their even bigger emissions maniacs than the Kommiefornians and the EPA – but because their system didn’t conform to the EPA’s dictats, they won’t let their cars in the country…. it would kill the American car companies if they did. So they gin up some bullshit regs the Herms have to abide by – which they do – and they played the EPA for the chumps they are. EPA finds out about it and kicks VW’s cars out…

It’s a fuckin’ scam, man….

Billy
Billy

Shit.. typo… should be “They’re even bigger emissions maniacs…”…. not “their”…

Billy Jr
Billy Jr

Typo, should say ‘Billy needs to get uh gawd damn job so we can git Direct TV turned back on.’

Unclezip
Unclezip

I had both a ’72 ‘Dorado and a ’76 Caprice Classic. Both cars were actively avoided on the street by the puddle jumpers, and I knew I could survive a crash in either one. The down side of the El Dorado, of course, was the 500 inch engine, which sucked fuel at an alarming rate.

I have been driving a ’03 Silverado since new, and can turn off nearly every “safety” function on the thing. It even has a key switch on the dash to turn off the passenger air bag. I’m on the second engine, transmission, and front end, and will drive it until it dies.

timbo
timbo

No Billy I totally disagree. If you get in an accident in your old ford truck you will be much more likely to die or be seriously injured than in a new vehicle. Did you not see that video I posted of the new Malibu crashing into the 1950’s vintage Chevy? Or the smart type car into the old Volvo. The old cars were decimated! Does your old truck just have lap belts? Do you wear your seat belt or are you one of those people who thinks they are safer without?

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