The Reason

My dad grew up without a car. Growing up in Chapel Hill, NC, his family rode their bikes everywhere. Ever since he first bought his own car when he was 27, he has seen cars as a necessary luxury (however oxymoronic that might sound). For him, they are nothing but a way to conveniently get from point A to point B.

Last summer he bought his first car with power windows. As an automotive enthusiast myself, going car shopping with him was sometimes frustrating. He asked one Honda dealer if they could give him a car with roll-up windows for a lower price. They informed him that they didn’t make cars with roll-up windows anymore.

He ended up buying a silver Honda Fit with a stick-shift. It was the perfect choice.

Most people aren’t like my dad. Most people view cars as a status symbol. The fact that it will get you from point A to point B is unimportant to most people. Would anyone buy a Cadillac Escalade if 50 Cent didn’t put it in his videos?

A Honda Fit weighs 2,489 pounds and costs $15,000. A Cadillac Escalade weighs 5,895 pounds and costs $87,000. Let’s examine what the Cadillac has that the Honda does not.

• An in-dash DVD player with two roof-mounted Flip-down 8" screens
• Power-retractable running boards
• Heated steering wheel
• Heated and cooled cup holders
• Heated and cooled front seats
• GPS navigation system
• Bose 5.1 surround sound system

The list goes on and on. My house doesn’t even have surround sound. It’s a question of “want” versus “need.” My dad doesn’t want or need anything more than the Honda Fit provides. He can fit his bike in the back, he gets 35 miles per gallon, and it doesn’t break down.

No one “needs” heated and cooled cup holders, but everyone seems to “want” more and more out of their cars. The idea of owning an Escalade is attractive to many American consumers. Being behind the wheel of a 3 ton beast makes you feel powerful and in control. It’s an American ideal. We have wide highways, open space, and unlimited opportunity.

Europe is different. There, a Honda Fit is a family car. No one wants or needs anything more. In Europe, an Escalade would be more out of place than a bull in a china shop. Their narrow roads don’t afford big cars, and neither do their gas prices.

Americans have downsized their cars before. The 1973 oil crisis brought myriad Japanese automakers like Toyota and Honda to the forefront of the American auto market because their small, reliable, and cheap cars offered a practical alternative to American land barges like Lincolns and Buicks.

Maybe what we need is another oil crisis so that Americans stop taking our resources for granted. Automakers are engineering many different alternative-fuel vehicles for the future, but this does little good if Americans keep buying inefficient cars. If events like oil crises can motivate consumers to change their habits, then maybe the government needs to come up with something like increased gas taxes to create a monetary initiative to downsize.