What are the best selling cars in your country?

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How about you studying my start topic on the first page again and than take into consideration that about half of the cars you see listed there, are clean, modern diesels that do between 35 and 70 miles to the gallon?

I'll help him out a bit:

Germany top 5:

1 VW Golf, Jetta 214.367
2 VW Passat 105.308
3 BMW 3-Series 100.559
4 Audi A4 84.092
5 Opel Astra 83.048

USA top 5:

1. Ford F-Series: 411,926
2. Chevy Silverado: 357,893
3. Toyota Camry: 282,044
4. Toyota Corolla: 231,940
5. Honda Accord: 219,488

303 million people in the US vs 82 million in Germany.
 
Hmmm... yeah, well... there is a fundamental difference, though: Luxury sedans aren't on top of our sales lists.

The F-150 is a bit of an odd duck. It's difficult to tell which are bought for personal commuting and which are bought for commercial purposes - so they just lump them all in. I think that if you rule out the fleet/commercial truck sales, though, you'd end up with numbers roughly comparable to, say, the percentage of German sedans (3 series and up, C-class and up) that are sold in Germany.

Also, some of the pickups get better gas mileage than your German sedans do. Or has BMW made a petrol-powered 7 that gets more than 28mpg yet?

Hm, nope, just checked with fueleconomy.gov. The most efficient 7 on sale in the US right now is the 750i, which gets 15 city/23 highway. The Colorado 2WD pickup gets 18/24.

Well, let's look at the 135i with a manual transmission. Oh, look, it's a "small, efficient German sedan" that gets.... 17/25. And costs almost three times as much as a Colorado.

Which one is more wasteful, especially if you do mostly city driving or sit in traffic a lot?

Seems to me that some of your "small efficient cars" aren't really all that efficient. And before you mention the diesel variants, allow me to let you in on a little secret - most of the European diesel engines are FAR too polluting to be allowed into the US. That's right - those "save the earth with fuel efficiency" engines are actually gross polluters. Surprise!

Thanks for bringing the attention to that article. If I may quote from it: Vojtech Hainer, president of IASO's European section, said Germans had not yet reached US levels of obesity. "Of all industrial states the US is the country with the highest proportion of obese people," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

I never saw someone pouring sugar into his cola here so far...

There is a later BBC article that says otherwise. Unfortunately, I can't find it right now, since I'm doing this odd thing called "work".

You compare sales figures of 19.000 per year (for 7-series and S-class) in Germany with the sales figures of pickup trucks in the USA? That really is absurd, I'll give you that :mrgreen:

No, I'm comparing all of your petrol sedans from BMW and Mercedes and Audi to the percentage of non-commercial/fleet sales of trucks in the US. As I said above, once you remove those from the equation, I suspect the percentages are roughly similar between private truck sales in the US and German luxury sedans (i.e., everyone but VW) in Germany.


How about you studying my start topic on the first page again and than take into consideration that about half of the cars you see listed there, are clean, modern diesels that do 35 or 40 miles to the gallon?

Mmm, yes, the so called "clean diesels". The ones that are so clean, they're banned from import into the US because they don't meet emissions standards? Those "clean diesels"?
 
Mmm, yes, the so called "clean diesels". The ones that are so clean, they're banned from import into the US because they don't meet emissions standards? Those "clean diesels"?

VW Golf and Jetta is available in the US

The US focuses on anti-smog, hence a focus on particulate pollution. In terms of invisible toxins Diesels are usually cleaner.
 
By the way: Guess which is the country where BMW and Mercedes sell most 7-series and S-classes?

Yes, it's the USA :)

You may have stricter emission laws over there, when it comes to diesels. But the air is still cleaner in Berlin, than in L.A. ;)

And the new generation of diesel cars from Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Volkswagen will even fulfill the Californian emission standards.
 
I'll help him out a bit:

Germany top 5:

1 VW Golf, Jetta 214.367
2 VW Passat 105.308
3 BMW 3-Series 100.559
4 Audi A4 84.092
5 Opel Astra 83.048

USA top 5:

1. Ford F-Series: 411,926
2. Chevy Silverado: 357,893
3. Toyota Camry: 282,044
4. Toyota Corolla: 231,940
5. Honda Accord: 219,488

303 million people in the US vs 82 million in Germany.

Math time.

Let's add up the number of people that bought the F-series and Silverado. For right now, we'll say that they're all private sales and not commercial (which in reality isn't true, but it makes the math easier). So, 769819 people bought the two "leading" trucks.

Let's add up the people that bought the leading German luxury sedans - the 3 series and A4: 184651.

Now, let me crunch the numbers and see what the percentages are for who bought what. I was educated in one of the most liberal (read: useless) public school systems in America (Los Angeles Unified School District) so while I do know why Heather Has Two Mommies, math can be a challenge for me.

If I have the numbers right:
Percentage of US population who bought the leading trucks: about 0.025%
Percentage of German population who bought German luxury sedans: about 0.022%

So, about comparable. And if I take the estimated fleet sales out, why, a greater percentage of Germans bought luxury sedans than Americans bought trucks!

Seems to me that if you want to complain about Americans and their "inefficient trucks", I get to complain about Europeans and their "inefficient sedans".

VW Golf and Jetta is available in the US

The US focuses on anti-smog, hence a focus on particulate pollution. In terms of invisible toxins Diesels are usually cleaner.

Golf and Jetta were not available in the US as diesels for the 07 model year. There were no 2008 model year VW car diesels in the US until January, when the Jetta diesel returned with an all new, hastily designed BlueTec engine.

By the way: Guess which is the country where BMW and Mercedes sell most 7-series and S-classes?

Yes, it's the USA :)

You may have stricter emission laws over there, when it comes to diesels. But the air is still cleaner in Berlin, than in L.A. ;)

And the new generation of diesel cars from Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Volkswagen will even fulfill the Californian emission standards.

The LA problem is because the idiots that settled the city built in a basin where winds do not have the ability to dissipate *anything* that enters the air. The indigenous inhabitants called the LA basin the "Valley Of Smoke" since smoke from cookfires or forest fires would linger in the air for literally days. They wouldn't live there. Says something about how dumb the ex-European/Mexican/American settlers who DID move in there were... Even if you banned all vehicular use in the LA basin, you'd still have a cloud of smog hovering over the place.

I'm not surprised that we buy more cars, numerically, than the Germans do. We have a lot more people. But if you look at percentages, I suspect you'll find that the percentage of the German population that buys a 7 or S is the same or higher than the percentage of the US population that buys a 7 or S.
 
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Math time.

Let's add up the number of people that bought the F-series and Silverado. For right now, we'll say that they're all private sales and not commercial (which in reality isn't true, but it makes the math easier). So, 769819 people bought the two "leading" trucks.

Let's add up the people that bought the leading German luxury sedans - the 3 series and A4: 184651.

Now, let me crunch the numbers and see what the percentages are for who bought what. I was educated in one of the most liberal (read: useless) public school systems in America (Los Angeles Unified School District) so while I do know why Heather Has Two Mommies, math can be a challenge for me.

If I have the numbers right:
Percentage of US population who bought the leading trucks: about 0.025%
Percentage of German population who bought German luxury sedans: about 0.022%

So, about comparable. And if I take the estimated fleet sales out, why, a greater percentage of Germans bought luxury sedans than Americans bought trucks!

WTF are you talking about all the time? Both the 3-series and the A4 are smaller than any car in the American top 5 except the Corolla and contrary to the top of the range versions you always mention, the vast majority of these cars that are sold in Germany are sold with the 4 cylinders, mostly diesels. And that some people call them luxury sedans, so what? They're in fact smaller than many family cars, like the mondeo.
 
Math time.

Let's add up the number of people that bought the F-series and Silverado. For right now, we'll say that they're all private sales and not commercial (which in reality isn't true, but it makes the math easier). So, 769819 people bought the two "leading" trucks.

Let's add up the people that bought the leading German luxury sedans - the 3 series and A4: 184651.

Now, let me crunch the numbers and see what the percentages are for who bought what. I was educated in one of the most liberal (read: useless) public school systems in America (Los Angeles Unified School District) so while I do know why Heather Has Two Mommies, math can be a challenge for me.

If I have the numbers right:
Percentage of US population who bought the leading trucks: about 0.025%
Percentage of German population who bought German luxury sedans: about 0.022%

So, about comparable. And if I take the estimated fleet sales out, why, a greater percentage of Germans bought luxury sedans than Americans bought trucks!

Let's do some different maths.

We'll do what all the other countries do and remove commercial type vehicles from the list. So the USA top 5 is:

1. Toyota Camry: 282,044
2. Toyota Corolla: 231,940
3. Honda Accord: 219,488
4. Honda Civic: 201,652
5. Chevrolet Impala: 201,612

Which shows a good spread of different cars from different manufacturers.

Remember when considering European lists that 'luxury sedans' like the A4 are often the preferred model for many fleets, so commercial sales adjustments need to be taken into account too.

Why do they put pickups in the American lists?
 
Let's do some different maths.

We'll do what all the other countries do and remove commercial type vehicles from the list. So the USA top 5 is:

1. Toyota Camry: 282,044
2. Toyota Corolla: 231,940
3. Honda Accord: 219,488
4. Honda Civic: 201,652
5. Chevrolet Impala: 201,612

Which shows a good spread of different cars from different manufacturers.

Remember when considering European lists that 'luxury sedans' like the A4 are often the preferred model for many fleets, so commercial sales adjustments need to be taken into account too.

Why do they put pickups in the American lists?

If you're removing or adjusting the A4 numbers, in the interest of fairness we must also adjust the Chevy Impala's numbers. The other cars in the "corrected" top 5 there are generally not found in rental fleets or in service as taxis or police cars. About 125,000 of the Impalas went to rental companies, taxis, or police sales, per GM last year.

Something that should also be mentioned; we don't generally have company car fleets in the US any more. I understand that there are tax advantages and such for European companies to have them there, but there's little to none here so most companies - even the large ones - don't have "fleets" of cars per se. Truck fleets for service and business, yes. Car fleets, no.

I just realized that what's been posted is probably the list for total US vehicle sales (which are much promoted by the USDM makers, for obvious reasons), not the ones broken down into "cars" and "trucks". Those lists are actually published too, but again, the US makers don't really want to emphasize them separately. This is an outgrowth of the 1980s, when the Japanese started to dominate the market. Makers used to break out or have available their fleet sales numbers vice their "regular" sales numbers. When the Camcord (Camry/Accord) types started dominating the US market for "regular" sales, the USDM makers suddenly started rolling fleet sales into their total sales numbers. When the Camcord types started dominating even that, they started pointing to absolute sales numbers of all models. When that barrier fell, they started rolling the truck numbers in with their declared sales statements.

There is *some* justification for that. It's difficult to tell if someone is buying an F-150 for commuting duty, or if they're buying it for their small business or handyman job, and even companies will buy some very well appointed units; going by purchased trim level isn't a sure indicator. The majority of truck sales *are* to fleets, though.
 
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Let's do some different maths.

We'll do what all the other countries do and remove commercial type vehicles from the list. So the USA top 5 is:

1. Toyota Camry: 282,044
2. Toyota Corolla: 231,940
3. Honda Accord: 219,488
4. Honda Civic: 201,652
5. Chevrolet Impala: 201,612

Which shows a good spread of different cars from different manufacturers.

Remember when considering European lists that 'luxury sedans' like the A4 are often the preferred model for many fleets, so commercial sales adjustments need to be taken into account too.

Why do they put pickups in the American lists?

The list I posted for Germany, includes all vehicles except lorries from 7.5 tons upwards and agricultural vehicles.

There are a number of vans in there, as you may notice. So a comparison with the U.S. list ist absolutely acceptable.
 
Let's add up the people that bought the leading German luxury sedans - the 3 series and A4: 184651.


a 318i with a cloth interior isn't really that luxurious though
 
Neither is a base CTS (save for the fact it comes with leather) or G35. They're still competitors, they're still luxury sedans.
 
Nevertheless cars of that size and class are not luxury cars. They may be premium products in their segment but a luxury car is a car that has no practical use whatswhoever. So a luxury car to me is a Rolls or a Maybach. Or a Lambo, a Ferrari, a Porsche.
 
Allow me to chime in again if you will.
The thing is that, yes, you may need bigass trucks, and yes, us Eurotrash may driv big saloons while we're all alone and have 4 empty seats.

BUT! If we need to haul shit, we can fold down the seats, or even take them out completely on some cars, and haul shit. If we don't need to haul shit, we can have people sit there instead.

A pickup truck cannot do both (unless you're a hillbilly and like riding in the back of a pickup truck).

Conclusion : our cars are more efficient because they can be used for both purposes.
 
Allow me to chime in again if you will.
The thing is that, yes, you may need bigass trucks, and yes, us Eurotrash may driv big saloons while we're all alone and have 4 empty seats.

BUT! If we need to haul shit, we can fold down the seats, or even take them out completely on some cars, and haul shit. If we don't need to haul shit, we can have people sit there instead.

A pickup truck cannot do both (unless you're a hillbilly and like riding in the back of a pickup truck).

Conclusion : our cars are more efficient because they can be used for both purposes.

you put bricks in the back of your car? for instance?
 
you put bricks in the back of your car? for instance?

Yes, if need be.
I've done it with my Astra, why not? it has a trunk you know.
There's also been trees in the back of my car, and almost everything I've ever owned that would not fit into the moving truck. (ie a million boxes and shit)
 
I have a hard time thinking of anything you cant put in the back of an Astra (or any normal, sane vehicle for personal transportation) except sand and water...
Well alright large and/or dangerous animals... Like a horse. Although it could fit. This one does.

Conveniently sized horse
 
My brother relies on our 306 to get his full drumkit around. Just fold the seats and voila! The car struggles with the weight, however, and I can see the equipment becoming deadly missiles in a crash. A wagon / estate with a cargo barrier is what he really needs.

BTW - I love the way this thread has turned into yet another sort of trans-Atlantic battle royale..
 
I have a hard time thinking of anything you cant put in the back of an Astra (or any normal, sane vehicle for personal transportation) except sand and water...

Actually water works too. As long as it's in buckets with lids on them.
My sister moved house a while back and as the big brother I was needed to do the heavy lifting. She has one of those huuuge fishtanks that needed moving. Which fitted nicely.

But after that run we also needed to transport all the 400 l of special water the fish needed. So you just plonk some buckets into the back of the car and you're good to go
 
What you say, there are containers avalible for fluids to help facilitate transport of the same? This new technology is amazing! Soon we will be able harness the winds and waves and travel to distant lands!
 
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