Redefining the hatchback, the new Audi A7
When Chicago’s Dee Brustein graduated college earlier this year, her parents chipped in to help her buy a new Ford Fiesta. The one they had in mind was a sedan. Dee, with her degree in engineering, wanted something that was both more practical and hip. So she opted for the 5-door hatchback.
“They just couldn’t understand,” laughs the 22-year-old. “They’re Boomers, and to them, hatchbacks aren’t cool. But I think it looks nicer and it has a lot more room and that will help me because I figure I may wind up moving a few times as I start my career.”
Hatchback or sedan? That’s a debate a lot of folks are having these days, and not just on the consumer side. Ford officials acknowledge they were originally unsure about offering a five-door body style when they introduced their first subcompact into the U.S. market in decades. But so far, it’s proven unexpectedly popular, accounting for about half of all the Fiestas sold in the U.S. – and hatchbacks make up 41% of the sales for the larger, newly-redesigned Ford Focus.
Ford is anything but unique.
Chevrolet is betting on its Sonic hatchback - the Z-Spec concept shown here - to boost its presence in the subcompact market.
For Nissan, the 5-door version of the subcompact Versa has garnered 60% of sales, “which is a little non-traditional,” says Larry Dominique, U.S. product development chief. The mix could shift to 50/50 in the coming months, he adds, because Nissan is launching an update of the Versa sedan for 2012. But the maker anticipates the hatchback will regain its momentum when it is also redesigned for the 2013 model-year.
“We don’t think hatchbacks will ever outsell sedans” across the board, says George Peterson, chief analyst with the consultancy AutoPacific, Inc., “but there’s a revival as they shift from being the cheapest and most utilitarian products to something more stylish and premium.”
That’s something Europeans have long recognized. On the Continent, hatchbacks vie with station wagons – another body style Americans long ago abandoned – for market dominance. Those designs make particular sense there because European motorists typically drive products several size classes smaller than Americans with similar incomes and driving patterns. Functionality is as important as styling – though in that hotly competitive market, makers battle it out to come up with chic 3- and 5-doors that also sell on style.
While European families are more likely to have just one shared vehicle, Americans typically have two or more parked in the driveway, one quite likely to be an SUV or crossover. And those, notes Nissan’s Dominique, are really just big 5-door hatchbacks by a different name.
When it comes to vehicles that are actually defined as hatches, sales have been steadily growing, in recent years, even during the industry’s downturn. Demand surged 63%, between the 2006 and 2010 model-years, according to WardsAuto.com, from 291,853 to 475,048.
The big resurgence has been in the fast-expanding small car market. As recently as 2003, hatches accounted for just 15.5% of the subcompact segment. Last year it hit 41.8%, according to AutoPacific data. But demand actually declined in the compact niche, from 57.4% to just 29.1%, perhaps reflecting a decline in product availability.
The biggest surge in demand for hatchbacks is coming from the Gen-X cohort, says Rebecca Lindland, of the consulting firm IHS, “because they are practical and useful,” especially for those who don’t need to move to a minivan for their families.
Younger buyers, Lindland says, are sedan-oriented, but are starting to take hatchbacks “more seriously,” perhaps because of the expanding array of offerings. That could also start to influence aging, affluent Boomers. One of the hottest new models on the market is the 2012 Audi A7, which blends a coupe-like roofline with hatchback trunk access.
“If we get more of these premium hatchbacks we could see demand grow even more,” the analyst suggests, IHS data projecting that in the premium compact segment hatchbacks will expand from 50.1% of the market in 2009 to 84.4% in 2012.
Not everyone is convinced. Chrysler’s small Dodge Caliber hatchback has drawn a lackluster market response and will soon be replaced by a sedan. General Motors, meanwhile, stuck with a sedan – and may add a coupe – to its compact Cruze line, even though a hatchback is available in Europe.
But GM is playing up the hatch version of its new Sonic model, which some planners think may outsell the sedan version of the subcompact line. That could be significant for GM, which took a risk bringing production of the Sonic line to a suburban Detroit factory. Its predecessor, the old Chevy Aveo, imported from Korea.
“We believe this will be one of the fastest-growing segments in the American market,” says Chevy marketing director Margaret Brooks, so the hatchback version of the Sonic will have to carry its weight if the U.S. maker hopes to become a viable competitor in a segment traditionally dominated by imports like the Nissan Versa.