It used to be Subaru, but who is the national car of 2015?

On the occasion of Rosh Hashanah, we set out to find who best defined the "Israeli car" in the past year.

What actually makes it like this and what might happen next year?

Kenan Cohen

25/09/2022

Sunday, September 25, 2022, 10:29 am Updated: 11:11 am

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So who packs into it everything that Israelis love in a car? (Photo: Keinan Cohen)

In the beginning there was a Subaru DL and the country was chaos, sweatbands and leggings, dresses with shoulder pads, a single channel on TV, neon-phosphor nail fights between fans of Ofra Haza and Jordana Erzi and creations in macrame - full of macrame everywhere and mustaches, everyone had mustaches even the men.

And there was also a Subaru.

Call it DL, call it Leona, but just call it Subaru and everyone will know what you mean.

And there were dominant cars before it, but it wasn't until the 80s that Subaru rose up and created the template from which the "national car" would be replicated.

The one that the People of Israel will drool over, praise it, buy it en masse, vote with their wallets even in the face of connoisseurs' crooked noses, but you know what Menachem Begin said about crooked noses - "So let them have crooked noses".

We started wondering who is the "Subaru" of the past year?

Who best defines that spirit?

So come on, first of all, it's not rocket science.

And yet we tried to find a method and to understand it, we first need to crack the subaroid genome, and to some extent the Israeli one into its components and then see who fits within these patterns in the most striking way.

In this generation and the one before it, the Leona was the car that taught us what a "national car" is (photo: manufacturer's website)

Peace of mind with the herd

The secret of Subaru's magic was simple, it brought here what people were looking for in a car and didn't really exist before - extraordinary reliability and durability, for those who switched to it from Contessa, Opel, Fiat, Renault, Peugeot (perhaps except for the immortal 404 and 504) or From all kinds of nonsense like Carmel Dukes, Austin Montagu and Dacia Delta a wonderful world was discovered where the car just drives every morning and drives and drives.

Satisfied with the routine treatments and even that could sometimes be given up and in general demonstrates reliability that defined one of the basic concepts in the local market "doesn't see a garage".

The mass attack on it also created the cultural effect of assuming that what everyone buys is probably a good thing, and when the neighbor, across the street, on the same street, an uncle, a friend at work, and the one from the reserves have one - it must be good, bought too.

And there were stories about the importer's disdainful attitude, about cars being locked in the showroom, but people flocked in droves.

And one last point, this madness continued even when the car was passed on to the next buyer,

Central locking, tampon in the color of the car, original air conditioner?

Three year warranty?

The Israelis are blown away by the Lancer (Photo: Manufacturer's website, Mitsubishi)

Pamper her

Decades have passed since then and in fact so little has changed.

After Subaru, in the early 1990s, other Japanese companies arrived here.

From which we mainly learned a few Subarus, the manufacturer that for the people of Zion was considered an automotive powerhouse, is a small comma in the world of the big players.

And after Launa, her successors came and went as a national mother on wheels.

There was an amazing Mitsubishi Lancer with a three-year warranty and 100,000 km and with generous accessories and these two were from the main selling points (certainly not the 1.5 liter 75 hp engine...), electric windows, central locking, original air conditioning , preparing for the radio and opening the trunk and fuel tank lid from inside the vehicle - who is this pampering?

Mass raids on the importer's agencies were also observed at her during sales days, but what she established is one of the main means of seduction when it comes to the Israeli customer - no matter if it's a falafel dish or a car - he wants you to push as many things as possible inside.

After that, Mazda came and went with the 323 and the Lantis, the Corolla, and then in the early 2000s, the business started to get a bit disrupted.

With the rise of the leasing method and the compact car that made the car chosen by the companies common in Israel, but this was really not the choice of the private customer.

That private customer, within a few years found a new love - the Jeep.

You are not an SUV, you are a station wagon with heels (Photo: Rami Gilboa, Rami Gilboa)

Even a ridiculous pose is a pose

We won't go back to the roots of the phenomenon, we won't get into the discussion of who was first and why - because it doesn't matter.

We will also mention some basic lines for the character of the jeep or crossover.

Whether it's a wild hallucination or someone thinking that the super mini on his heels is broadcasting "I'm so knotty, in my free time I grind Ma'ale Jihari Brewers with a boulder tied to a tambon".

Or it's the illusion of "If I only sit 15 cm higher, I'll see the road so much better". Where this genre does offer a certain advantage is a more convenient entry and exit from the car and the ability to perform the motor equivalent of licking a dog's modesty - climbing on sidewalks - in both cases it is done under the same reason "because he can".

But Am Israel fell in love with Jeeps, it didn't matter if the fantasy was a Pajero, Trooper or Land Cruiser and the whole Nissan Juke, Toyota Rav 4 or Hyundai Tucson - was it higher than the neighbor's vehicle?

It was possible to put decorations on it and it went on sidewalks?

We'll take two.

The hybrids put the country in trouble (Photo: Keinan Cohen, Keinan Cohen)

Beating the method

Another element that shaped the motor preferences of the Israeli was our desire to screw up the system.

As we know, the State of Israel was blessed not only with the seven species but also with creative taxation.

And when it comes to vehicles, from the point of view of the treasury, everything that adds is fine, and that's why they used to ignore the law and impose the whole element on the Israeli driver.

The lion's share of it is taken at the beginning with the purchase tax and further down the road with small urgencies of car maintenance in the prices of spare parts, fuel and tolls.

Then the hybrid car appeared, and the State of Israel was torn, on the one hand we want to pretend that we care about the environment, on the other hand, what will happen to the revenue from the fuel?

The patent trick was to lower the purchase tax for hybrid cars for a fixed period.

But the success was greater than they expected.

The leasing companies and the Israeli customer flocked to the hybrid cars, flying their market share and cutting the state's income from taxation twice, in the purchase of the car and in the rest of its life from the fuel income.

The era of electricity caused Israelis to say goodbye to paying the tax on fuel (Photo: Keinan Cohen)

The end of the period in which these cars received tax benefits coincided with the beginning of a new era in the local car market - the electric era.

Was the state afraid that it would bring in less from taxation on fuel due to the low consumption?

Get the car that consumes no fuel at all and as of now there is no way to tax the electricity it consumes.

A few tens of thousands of Israelis who have already switched to getting around in an electric car have net savings starting at a few thousand shekels a year, and this is a savings that increases exponentially as the cost of driving increases.

Not to mention the reduced maintenance and licensing costs.

By the way, a response to this is also being planned in the Ministry of Finance, and these lights that are on until late in the offices of the Tax Authority stem from this exact reason.

What's going on right now?

Taxation based on travel for electric cars, how exactly and who against whom?

A complicated story that we will not go into this time.

This was also a very Israeli car for a moment... (Photo: Herzliya Studios)

And the Israeli car is...

The all-Israeli car doesn't need to be safe, it doesn't really matter if it's comfortable or not, performance is nice but not critical and if you mention "driving pleasure" you'll find that 7 out of 10 random people will look at you with the look of "strange man, you must also have a room A whole set of Lego spaceships that you build in your spare time and the thought of your Google search history really scares me."

Just before our choice, let's summarize the main points it needs to answer.

It should be reliable and give peace of mind, we like to see that everyone buys the same thing to confirm our choice and hope that it will also ensure good marketability in the future, it should be very well equipped, it should sit high and it should be such that we feel that if we bought it, we are knocking The method.

The best to beat the method - Tesla Model 3, but this time it was not chosen (Photo: Keinan Cohen)

So first of all it has to be electric, because we want to screw up the method and as of today it is still a huge savings compared to a gasoline car.

True, the question of the survival of the batteries still floats, and what will be the condition of these used cars over time will still have to be clarified.

But regarding the batteries, electric cars have been on the market for close to a decade in a relatively wide distribution, we don't see them being thrown away due to lack of use in large numbers as is the case with the performance of the batteries in hybrid cars. Regarding the second hand, at least from what is happening now, the trolling is at its peak with phenomena of cars being sold for tens of thousands Shekels above their price as news due to demand. Will it remain so in the future? It's hard to say.

And besides an electric car, it should be equipped for the treats and come with a long warranty for peace of mind.

We want to see a lot more people doing the same.

It can't be low because everyone wants a crossover, or a Jeep or an SUV or all the names that are invented for a privateer on heels and just as important to sell a lot, it also has to be relatively popular.

More in Walla!

Between Susita and Sportage: 7 cars that shaped Israel

To the full article

Geely Geometric C, everything that is important to the people of Israel, minus what is really important (photo: Keinan Cohen)

And in fact three candidates reached our finals, two of them, the Tesla Model 3 and the Hyundai Ioniq 5, which settle for second place as cars that are significantly better than the chosen car, left significantly - better than it by a margin in every section.

Every section except the price, because what always accompanied our national cars was the affordable price, and the car we chose this time is the Geely Geometric C. With a 5-year warranty or 150,000 km for the car and 8 years or 150,000 km for the battery , a lot of equipment and especially one that, from the moment of its launch, experienced an onslaught of the kind we already thought we would not see here (an onslaught that was delayed a bit with the arrival of the new girl in the BYD class).

No western crash tests?

Is the ride comfortable?

Average road behavior?

The importer decided that the car can't go without "treatment" every 15,000 km? For several thousand Israelis who have already chosen it and a few more who are waiting for the next deliveries, it bothered them less. Until the next National Mami, that's what there is. Crooked noses? May you have a crooked nose.

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