Today’s small cars are better than they’ve ever been, even if few of them are among the EPA’s all-time gas mileage champs.

And spurred by tighter fuel-economy laws, 40 miles per gallon on the highway is becoming the new target for subcompact and even compact cars.

There’s just one little problem: Not only are 40-mpg models not selling particularly well, the whole small-car segment is anemic at best.

As auto sales have started to recover, the fastest growing segment is midsize sport utilities and crossovers. According to sales data from Ward’s Auto, small cars have been the only segment to decline in sales even as sales rose overall. (All data cover the 12 months from October 2009 through September 2010.)

Declines of 25 percent…or more

In fact, sales of the much-praised 2010 Honda Fit fell a remarkable 26.6 percent, with the older 2010 Toyota Yaris declining more than 30 percent. Sales across the Scion brand, which offers only small cars, plummeted 30.7 percent, while Smart was down 63 percent and Suzuki lost essentially half its sales.

The 2011 Ford Fiesta, new this year, “isn’t setting the sales world on fire,” in the words of Cars.com. The optional trim level that rates the Fiesta at 40 mpg on the highway doesn’t seem to have helped much.

Hybrid sales, too, fell 3.8 percent for 2010 model year offerings. The car that accounts for more than half of all hybrids sold here, the 2010 Toyota Prius, was in short supply just 18 months ago but is now easily available on dealer lots.

Gas prices, of course

The culprit, of course, is essentially stable U.S. gasoline prices–which remain at levels far lower than those in much of the rest of the world.

It’s a truism that new-car buyers generally opt for the largest, best-equipped vehicle they think at the time that they can afford. Not every buyer, but most of them. And that seems to apply equally in Europe and Asia too.

New entries regardless

Several new compact cars are entering the market, or about to. The 2011 Chevrolet Cruze is now in dealerships, the 2011 Hyundai Elantra will arrive shortly, and the eagerly awaited 2012 Ford Focus will land in a matter of months.

Then there are the plug-in cars, albeit in small volumes: the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and 2011 Nissan Leaf. Despite high purchase prices, they’re essentially sold out for the year. Their real test won’t come until 2013, when much higher volumes are available and waiting lists will have been sated.

What will it take?

But it may take the next spike in gasoline prices before U.S. car buyers look again at small and subcompact cars.

In the summer of 2008, remember, when gas prices soared to $4 a gallon or more, buying behavior changed so abruptly that for several months, the mix of models sold would have–if continued–met the 2016 fuel economy standards a full seven years earlier.

But then gas prices ebbed, and gradually U.S. buyers returned to larger vehicles. Which poses a question: What would it take to raise sales of subcompact and 40-mpg vehicles?

Leave us your thoughts in the Comments section, below.

[Kicking Tires, Ward’s Auto]

This story originally appeared at Green Car Repor

Production of the world’s first range-extended electric car is now a reality.

Today, the first shipment of 2011 Chevrolet Volt electric cars left the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant. The cars are bound for dealers and buyers in the initial launch markets: California, Texas, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Today’s shipment comes exactly four years after Chevrolet began briefing the press, under embargo, about the Chevrolet Volt concept car it would unveil at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show. That concept became the 2011 Chevy Volt extended-range electric vehicle.

Chevrolet publicity included the usual carefully-crafted corporate statement, couched in a language very much like English. “Today is a historic milestone for Chevrolet,” said Tony DiSalle, the latest marketing director for the 2011 Volt.

“We have redefined automotive transportation with the Volt,” he continued, “and soon the first customers will be able to experience gas-free commuting with the freedom to take an extended trip whenever or wherever they want.”

Chevrolet said it expects to ship 160 vehicles this week, in contrast to the very small handful of the first 2011 Nissan Leaf electric cars to be delivered to buyers in a few cities before the end of the year. The very first 2011 Leaf was delivered to a retail buyer in San Francisco on Saturday.

Fifteen pre-production Volts were delivered earlier this year to electric-vehicle advocates, technology enthusiasts, and other influential early adopters who formed the Volt Customer Advisory Board. They are taking part in a 90-day evaluation of the vehicle and its associated 240-Volt charging station.

The 2011 Chevy Volt is the only mass-produced electric car being manufactured in the U.S. Its 16-kilowatt-hour battery pack provides roughly 40 miles of all-electric driving, after which a 1.4-liter gasoline engine switches on to generate power that operates the electric drive motor.

Total range from both modes is up to 379 miles, Chevrolet says.

[Chevrolet]

This story originally appeared at Green Car Repor

Ford’s first all-electric passenger vehicle, the 2012 Focus Electric, has just received its list of initial launch markets. Totaling 19 cities in all, the vehicle will roll out across the country with Nissan LEAF-like targets for range and performance.

Ford says the Focus Electric will be shooting for “up to 100 miles of zero C02 emissions, gas free driving on a full charge” of its liquid-cooled lithium battery pack. That’s about what we’ve come to expect of the only other mass-market pure EV announced to date, the Nissan LEAF. But unlike the LEAF, the Focus EV won’t be on the market until late 2011.

The first cities to get the vehicle will be: Atlanta, GA; Austin and Houston, TX; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Detroit, MI; Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco, CA; New York, NY; Orlando FL; Phoenix and Tucson, AZ; Portland, OR; Raleigh-Durham, NC; Richmond, VA; Seattle, WA; and Washington D.C.

Those markets, aside from Atlanta, Austin, and Houston, mark the largely East- and West-Coast areas you’d expect for such a green vehicle, though the three Southern markets aren’t unexpected, as they’re among the most forward-looking cities in terms of transportation outside the rim states. Ford says it chose its launch markets on a range of criteria including existing buying trends, collaboration with utilities and government to help ensure the infrastructure necessary will be in place, and Ford’s own outreach programs to help publicize and familiarize the vehicles with consumers.

The 2012 Ford Focus Electric will be built at the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, MI, on the same production line as the regular gas-powered Focus, with a target sale date of “late 2011.”

[Ford]

This story originally appeared at All Cars Electr

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