A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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Within the "truck" class of vehicles, EPA fuel efficiency standards are based on weight. It's easier to build heavy trucks and SUVs that meet those standards, than light trucks.
Effectively, the US government legislated heavier trucks and SUVs.
We got here because fuel economy requirements are tied to the size and type of vehicle, and so it's easier to make and sell larger, less efficient vehicles.
https://afdc.energy.gov/data/mobile/10562
Why make a smaller vehicle with a smaller margin that requires more engineering time to reach fuel economy standards when you can sell a larger, often more expensive vehicle that has the same fuel economy as last year's model?
Consequently they have become best selling vehicles because there are increasingly fewer small vehicles on dealer lots to purchase.
Stop buying bigger and bigger cars.
I drive a station wagon because I need to fit two dogs in the booth plus and entire family in the same car. But this is a transitory need. At some point I'll either get a small van, for carrying the dogs, or a small hatchback and have the backseats always folded down.
You should buy according to your true needs not market pressure.
" everyone should do thing!
But not me, I have a particular circumstance that means I need to exempt myself from the logic!
I plan to stop in the future but for now am certain!
"
Everyone buying these cars has some reason that matters to them. They all believe they need it.
Myself included (similar reason, dogs, kids, family out of state that we need to help often), but I have no illusions that I took the dirty way.
The key words here are "matters" and "need".
I bought the car I have today because driving my small 4 door hatchback was no longer a feaseable endeavour when wanting to move the entire family all at once. It was an objective need, not something it mattered.
You can reply I didn't need to get a family or the dogs. You're right. But that actually mattered to me, regardless if it was an objective need.
As I said, I'm in the same spot.
My point is that 99.9% of large car owners have what to them seems like an objective need. Humans are super good at justifying our actions, especially to ourselves
I don't even consider a station wagon a big car anymore. And I bet the vast majority of station wagon owners actually need the space. No shot the average SUV owner needs the weight for anything other than to feel "safe" in their tank.
As someone with one forward facing and two rear facing kids right now - this is so frustrating. I feel like there are so few vehicles that can hold them without busting at the seams and even our minivan makes it hard with getting kids hooked in if they are in the very back.
I can’t wait until they are all forward facing and I can open up what cars we can have.
There are like 2 station wagons on the US market. I'd love one, but I'm not into VWs and the Volvo PHEV wagon is only available as a $75,000 performance wagon and no one makes an EV wagon.
You don't have access to Stellantis FIAT line? The Doblo and Scudo (short chassis model) are pretty affordable and decently compact.
The Kia Niro and the Hyundai Kona are both basically station wagons and they have EV models.
The headlights can be angled downwards but fuck it, it's not themselves they're blinding
I’ve stopped driving my wee little Subaru at night because of these asshats with 900 lights on at roughly supernova levels of brightness.
(eyes burnt to crisps) What do mean? I drive a 2012 Renault Twingo and i'm not complaining.
Trucks have been bestselling models for literally decades.
It's because there's a 25% tariff on importing trucks. It was put in place nearly 60 years ago by Lyndon B Johnson; it's called the "chicken tax" because the excuse for passing it was as a retaliatory tariff against France and Germany taxing American factory farmed chicken.
Because of the chicken tax, fairly few foreign car companies in the US sell pickups.
And because being a "best selling" model is good marketing, truck makers generally sell very few models of truck. For example, the best selling vehicle right now is the Ford "F series". So that's the F150, F250, and F350, in all of their assorted trims. There's a couple other models they sell - the Maverick and the Ranger - but most of the trucks Ford sells are F series.
So a truck driver has been much more likely to drive a F-series for decades than a car driver was to be driving a Civic.
Don't forget the insane fuel efficiency calculation that rewards larger, less efficient trucks over the smaller more efficient ones we used to have. It's the reason even an f150 is gargantuan compared to ones of the past.
Partially because people are selfish narcissistic cunts, and partially because being a selfish narcissistic cunt has become normalised.
People have always been, and will always be, selfish narcissistic cunts. That's why the concept of regulation exists.
That's where the market led us. We have to accept some responsibility but I can't just build my own car when I don't find one I like.
A huge chunk of it is because the USA has a huge tax incentive for car manufacturers to make bigger cars. When fuel efficiency standards started coming in, trucks were exempted because farmers needed their trucks for farm work, it's a loophole that encourages the manufacturers to build bigger vehicles to avoid these taxes. These massive vehicles are unusually cheap in the USA. If these loopholes regarding fuel efficiency were closed out people would be financially incentivised to buy smaller cars. Unfortunately, money talks. People aren't all selfish, they're just doing what makes sense for them.
I think this is USA only. Maybe mention that in the title. They don't sell half of those cars here.
We just had a laugh about this this week at work - it's just such a ridiculous size compared to European cars.
Even our cars are getting noticeably bigger. It's a stark difference if you see old refurbished cars from the 80s compared to their contemporary counterparts.
I wish. More shitty American pickups in the Netherlands each year, further encouraged by a tax loophole.
I hope the gas prices bleed these fuckers dry…
Ireland and the UK are headed this way, if not there already.
The pickups make everyone look like posers but the SUVs are decent enough. I drove a couple, I wouldn't say there is more space but seeing them on the road so often makes me consider it the safer option for a family car. I don't want to going under one of them in a crash. That said I only think that this is how their popularity explodes.
I dunno about Ireland. I live there and I don't really see people drive that many SUVs.
I'm going to point one that hasn't been mentioned. Infrastructure.
Highways, roads, streets have way too many lanes that are way too wide. This encourages drivers to drive faster. Faster driving makes overall the roads and vehicles to feel more dangerous, because they are. People's response is to want and acquire larger, heavier an faster vehicles that make them feel safer in those hostile roads.
This is what contemporary urbanism is talking about when they say that infrastructure determines behavior. You can alter people's behavior by changing the shape of infrastructure.
The problem in most of the western world is that the answer of authorities (heavily misled by car and oil industry) has been to make more lanes that are wider. In the false belief that this would make roads safer. When in reality the result is the opposite. Other measures like police enforced fines, speed limits, etc. Are also useless to mitigate the lack of safety and carry a huge set of problems with them like systematic discrimination and endemic corruption.
The answer is to make narrower lanes, with fewer lanes in densely populated area, less parking, traffic calmed and car traffic banned zones. Protect bicicles and pedestrians with concrete traffic segregation. Impose aditional fees and taxes for vehicles above a certain weight and parking space take up. Those things will signal people that it's fine to drive a smaller, slower vehicle, it's fine to use public transport instead. Along with more public transport options available.
I get what you're saying, but have you ever driven in Italy? The lanes are terrifyingly narrow compared to the UK, but the drivers are far more reckless!
i just want an EV Honda Acty truck
In Australia you have to pay registration per vehicle even though you can only drive one at a time. This means people will buy a big vehicle that they might need occasionally instead of having a big one and a small one.
US you have to pay an annual registration for each vehicle also, and of course insurance on every vehicle
Same issue then I guess. Makes owning a second car expensive, so you'll just get the biggest one that meets all your needs.
People (Men especially) think their status in life depends on their vehicle. They just can't get over the idea that bigger is not always better. It's how you use it that matters.
In all seriousness, vehicles have been a status signifier ever since they were created and everyone loves to say that they are better(richer) than the Joneses next door. Being bigger and taller than others is viewed as good in society and in vehicles.
I guess that’s what happens if you call everything smaller than a Hummer “death machine”
There is a good Vice video about it on YouTube
TLDR or TLDW: the government did it by making incentives for suvs and trucks. Cars are regulated harsh for efficiency while suvs and trucks are exempt.
This made profit margins for suvs and trucks large, and smaller cars are almost non-existent.
we came willingly and funded it out of our own pockets
