Why crossovers are replacing sedans in SA
Most new family cars are crossovers. They used to be sedans. That body configuration change matters more than you think.
If you were a kid in the 1980s or 1990s and privileged enough to be taken in a private vehicle to school, your lift club car was a sedan. Lockable metal boot, where all the school suitcases and sports backpacks went, and one of many legendary nameplates on the back: Camry, Corolla, Cressida, Jetta, Passat, Maxima, Sentra. You get the idea.
But today, none of those brands really market a mid-size sedan anymore. Even the aspirational German compact sedans that defined the market for mid-sized four-door luxury cars for decades are now a niche. Here we include Audi’s A4/5, the BMW 3 Series and the Mercedes-Benz C-Class. Ironically, these models are now real head-turners, yet they sell in such low numbers.
Crossovers have replaced or displaced traditional sedans in the South African market in a dramatic market change. If you want to understand the development history of crossovers and SUV, we cover that here.
How did South African car buyers move away from sedans? Or have they been lured to crossovers for curious reasons? That’s an excellent question. And, as with many issues in the car industry, it’s a question of fashion, not function.
Crossovers are about aspiration & image
South Africans were very loyal to sedans, but also had exposure to large SUVs and double-cab bakkies before those 2 categories became globally trending. Why is that important? It meant that South African new-car buyers understood that there were real applications for a bodystyle beyond the sedan. These included adventure road trips, on rural dirt roads, where an SUV and a double-cab bakkie were far superior to a sedan.
Car company product planners realised that not everyone who aspired to an adventure road-trip lifestyle could afford a double-cab bakkie or a rugged, large SUV. Or have space to park one. However, parking is much less of an issue in South Africa than in Europe or large American urban centres.
The solution, between aspiration and product reality, was to create vehicles that looked like they could undertake an adventure journey despite not having the mechanical hardware you’d need: all-wheel drive, lockable differentials, or wheel-well room for large-volume tyres. Those vehicles were crossovers and they rapidly lured South Africans away from the proven practicality of sedans.
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The driving-position fallacy
The irony of the crossover models that replaced some of South Africa’s most popular family sedans in the Toyota, Nissan, and VW product lines was that they weren’t really capable of doing much more than a sedan. Especially in South African conditions, where an adventure road trip would include severely corrugated Karoo roads, the kind of roads that families in the 1980s and 1990s had regularly travelled slowly in sedans.
Compact and mid-size crossovers are evolutions of hatchbacks. They don’t give much more all-terrain driving ability. But they look like they do, and that’s all that matter to South African buyers.
A marginal advantage of crossovers, which has been wildly inflated in its importance, is the slightly elevated driving position. As vehicle crash regulations have required engineers to create oversized A-pillars to prevent roof crush during rollover accidents, visibility has decreased as A-pillars have grown bigger.
Most drivers feel they can “see” more if they are seated slightly higher, but they’re still staring at the same size A-pillars in their corner view. It’s a bit of a fallacy to imagine crossovers have better visibility. Why? Because crossovers have only slightly larger wheels than comparable sedans, giving them a few millimetres more ground clearance and a very slightly elevated driving position.
That idea of a crossover having a higher, better driving position and visibility doesn’t make the real-world difference people assume it should. Why? Because the A-pillars aren’t smaller than those in a sedan, and that’s what blocks most of your front corner awareness.
Crossovers can’t do everything sedans can
Compact and mid-size crossovers now outsell sedans by an enormous margin in South Africa.
For some brands that had popular sedan lineups, like Hyundai (remember the Elantra?), they have now become crossover brands. It’s the same for VW, which marketed some of South Africa’s most revered sedans like the Jumbo Jetta with its legendary boot size. Today, VW’s compact and mid-size product portfolio is essentially all-crossover.
But have South African family car buyers who have embraced the crossover really received a better deal than they would have with sedans? When you do the deep technical and engineering analysis, the answers are interesting.
Sedans are much better than crossovers at solving one of South African car owners’ most intractable issues: luggage compartment intrusion and theft. Crossovers have a tailgate and its glass panel is easily broken, allowing access to valuables stored under that parcel shelf. Sedans? They have a lockable steel boot structure that’s much harder to break through to get at laptops or anything else you’ve locked in the back.
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Sedans are better in hot weather
South Africa is a warm-weather automotive market. The summers are long and temperatures are routinely extreme. South African drivers know this and appreciate in-car thermal regulation and cooling.
Guess what? Sedans are much better at cooling and heating their cabins and passengers than crossovers. Why? Because the cabin space, regarding legroom and headroom, might be similar between a crossover and sedan, but the sedan doesn’t have that open rear space above the parcel shelf and tailgate. That’s volume that also needs to be cooled, but for absolutely no reason. Sedans use their air-conditioning much more effectively and efficiently than a similarly sized crossover.
Another engineering feature where sedans are superior to crossovers for South African families? Road noise. Crossovers have rear-wheel wells that are part of the cabin and that means all that rear tyre road noise and resonance transfer into the cabin, increasing overall noise levels. With a sedan? The wheel wells and arches extend into the boot area, where the noise they generate is contained and doesn’t bother anyone.
Crossovers might look cool, but in real-world driving conditions, sedans are often better for South African families. It is both ironic and sad that marketing momentum and product planning have lured South African buyers away from dependable sedans towards crossovers. But you can’t blame the car companies because buyers have bought into the dream that crossovers are adventure vehicles.
See more: Family sedans under R300k
