The Geo Metro and consumer choice
While fuel hit $4.00 a gallon, Geo Metro's broke their original MSRP, even ones with 100k miles on the clock.
The Geo Metro is a crappy car. It was a crappy car when it was built, and today, about 10 to 15 years later, it is uber crappy in comparison to what is on the market. A stipper Nissan Sentra (surprisingly, the cheapest car on the market today), is better by 1000% than the Metro.
Except for getting good mileage.
The Metro got 50mpg, and 60-80mpg if you were careful. Why is that? Because it is a death box on wheels, with a lawnmower engine. With 49hp, and weighing about 1/2 of a normal car, it got good mileage for the same reason a dirt bike does.
And you cant build one today, because of millions of safety regulations which dictate things like not dying when you hit a tree at 30mph.
Consumers, aware that the Metro was a deathbox on wheels, pushed its price way way up during the oil price spike, and that was a rational decision: they wanted to save money, and were willing to risk their life to do so.
If it were not for govt. healthcare, that choice would and should have been left entirely up to the consumer - especially since I can go out an buy a motorcycle, scooter, dirt bike, etc etc. why the hell cant I go out and buy a new Geo metro if I want to, or maybe a Tata Nano? Screw the Prius, you could get 60mpg for $2,500 and use the spare $23,000 and 20mpg you saved to buy yourself a Hummer H3 on sale and drive it around when you felt like it. The govt's regulation of choice in the auto market is completely illogical--not surprising, but frustrating as hell.
The Geo Metro is a crappy car. It was a crappy car when it was built, and today, about 10 to 15 years later, it is uber crappy in comparison to what is on the market. A stipper Nissan Sentra (surprisingly, the cheapest car on the market today), is better by 1000% than the Metro.
Except for getting good mileage.
The Metro got 50mpg, and 60-80mpg if you were careful. Why is that? Because it is a death box on wheels, with a lawnmower engine. With 49hp, and weighing about 1/2 of a normal car, it got good mileage for the same reason a dirt bike does.
And you cant build one today, because of millions of safety regulations which dictate things like not dying when you hit a tree at 30mph.
Consumers, aware that the Metro was a deathbox on wheels, pushed its price way way up during the oil price spike, and that was a rational decision: they wanted to save money, and were willing to risk their life to do so.
If it were not for govt. healthcare, that choice would and should have been left entirely up to the consumer - especially since I can go out an buy a motorcycle, scooter, dirt bike, etc etc. why the hell cant I go out and buy a new Geo metro if I want to, or maybe a Tata Nano? Screw the Prius, you could get 60mpg for $2,500 and use the spare $23,000 and 20mpg you saved to buy yourself a Hummer H3 on sale and drive it around when you felt like it. The govt's regulation of choice in the auto market is completely illogical--not surprising, but frustrating as hell.
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