6 ms·

"What do you get in the place for this lower efficiency? Are American cars that much heavier? More comfortable? Faster?" I cannot speak for everyone, but as so

by rsync 9y ago

"What do you get in the place for this lower efficiency? Are American cars that much heavier? More comfortable? Faster?" I cannot speak for everyone, but as someone who lives in the US and also spends a lot of time in Europe, there is a very big lifestyle difference at play here. First, I have a five person family (wife and three kids) and you[1], statistically, as a European, have 1.6 children - and as a highly educated HN reader, probably less (on average). Second, Americans move around a lot more than most europeans do. On the occasions that I have lived in Europe, I always spoke of how interesting it was that we could just "drive to St. Petersburg" or "just drive to Transylvania" or whatever, and otherwise smart and interesting european friends would look at me like I was a crazy person. It is very, very rare to meet Europeans who drive across multiple countries for leisure.[2] So when I drive five people, weighing over 500 lbs total and accompanying luggage the equivalent of one Europe away and over two mountain ranges[3] I am going to need something more than a lawnmower engine. This is not an edge-case - this is something we do multiple times per year. That being said, there are some very interesting cultural differences in the other direction ... once while in Denmark I saw a decent sized horse trailer being hauled by a nice, new Audi A8. Basically 100% of the driving public in the US would have considered this a gaping tear in the fabric of reality. [1] Not you, but you on average. [2] Zurich to Transylvania is 1800km - about the same as SF to Denver which is ~2000 km. [3] CA to MN, for instance, over the Sierras and then the Rockies.

paganel 9y ago
> On the occasions that I have lived in Europe, I always spoke of how interesting it was that we could just "drive to St. Petersburg" or "just drive to Transylvania" or whatever, and otherwise smart and interesting european friends would look at me like I was a crazy person. It is very, very rare to meet Europeans who drive across multiple countries for leisure. Me and my gf did a Bucharest-to-Geneva and back car-trip last year and it was wonderful. There's something to be said about getting up to 2,000 meters in the Swiss Alps using a 1.4l gasoline engine car with 86bhp (probably less now, as the car is already 10 years old), all in third gear. Plus riding on the Austrian and German autobahns, as a car-lover that's pure bliss. Or riding on the Autostrade of Northern Italy in the middle of the night and stopping for an 1-euro ristretto at a gas station which was better-tasting than the majority of coffee-drinks that I had ever had. But you're of course correct, ours was an isolated experience. I think my car was the only Romania (or Eastern-Europe)-licensed plate on the streets of Geneva (and Lausanne). If only gasoline were less expensive...
- rsync 9y ago
  "But you're of course correct, ours was an isolated experience. I think my car was the only Romania (or Eastern-Europe)-licensed plate on the streets of Geneva (and Lausanne). If only gasoline were less expensive..." Good for you! I love to do these trips. It is so baffling how uninterested most Europeans are in just getting out and driving to parts unknown. It's tremendously rewarding.
  - ljf 9y ago
    Uninterested in doing it by car maybe, but not uninterested. Just that we have good(ish) train, plane, ferry and coach services - most people I know (I'm British) will have traveled a lot in Europe. Also, don't forget that doing it by car is pricey for us - another comment above quoted $2.50 or something a gallon in parts of the US - here we pay about £1.20 a litre currently - so for example the cost to my brother of driving his van from the UK to northern Portugal (which he does to take his tools with him) can cost about £360 - where as he could fly and then hire a car there for a week or two for less money (if having his tools to do up his house there wasn't the reason for visiting!)
oblio 9y ago
The Audi A8 thing, is that because A8 is an expensive car? Or because it is comparatively smaller? If it's the second one, I've seen horse trailers pulled by smaller cars (even Golf, I think).
- rsync 9y ago
  No, you see - in the United States it is assumed that any towing or work activities must be done with a truck. I am not exaggerating at all when I tell you that the minimum acceptable size for this truck is larger than most freight/delivery trucks in European cities. Here is a completely normal, totally average truck that millions of people in the US use as a daily driver and have on-hand because they occasionally buy some boards at the hardware store: http://blog.sfgate.com/topdown/files/2015/09/the-14-most-affordable-extended-cab-pickups.jpg http://blog.sfgate.com/topdown/files/2015/09/the-14-most-aff...
  - exclusiv 9y ago
    I don't own a pickup but they are quite fun to drive. Gaffigan has a related joke:: "why are they called a pickup? I'm pretty sure everyone that owns them aren't picking ANYTHING up". haha. So true.
  - wtallis 9y ago
    And the scary thing is how many large trucks and SUVs are sold without the hardware necessary to tow a trailer. It's absurd to buy something like a Suburban with a V8 that doesn't even have the potential to be burdened with the kind of load that would differentiate it from a van.
  - henrikschroder 9y ago
    > No, you see - in the United States it is assumed that any towing or work activities must be done with a truck. I love subtle cultural differences like this where two sides are completely unaware that life could be any other way than it is. :-D In the 80's and 90's in Sweden, I remember that every single car had a trailer hitch with a tow ball. And if you needed to buy something bulky at a hardware store, you borrowed or rented a small trailer. Every single hardware store has trailers for rent! Most large gas stations has trailers for rent! The only people who own pickups are farmers! Why would anyone want to buy a pickup? Meanwhile, in the US, tow balls are extremely uncommon, and I don't think I've ever seen small trailers for rent anywhere. Another funny difference is what camping looks like. In Europe, it looks like this: http://www.widlundshusvagnar.se/valj-dragbil-och-husvagn-med-omsorg/ http://www.widlundshusvagnar.se/valj-dragbil-och-husvagn-med... In the US, it looks like this: http://www.rv-camping.org/towing-a-vehicle/ http://www.rv-camping.org/towing-a-vehicle/ The first time I saw an RV towing a pickup I was completely dumbfounded.. It's on backwards! The car goes in front! Whyyyy?!?
kartan 9y ago
> It is very, very rare to meet Europeans who drive across multiple countries for leisure. I don't have statistical data, but I have that experience. I have never heard of anyone doing that in Europe. Long car travels are avoided as much as possible. I heard of a guy that did a really long trip by car because was relocating and didn't want - or was too expensive - to move his dogs in any other way. He was not happy about it. I always see going by car as painful, while using trains is a good experience (https://visitsweden.com/getting-around-sweden-train/ https://visitsweden.com/getting-around-sweden-train/) and by plane is just fast. But when people wants to visit the USA, to travel long distances by car looks like something you want to do. I know Europeans that have done that, in the USA. So maybe it is not just a matter of taste, but it is geography or you just want to do what you see in the movies.
- ghaff 9y ago
  >But when people wants to visit the USA, to travel long distances by car looks like something you want to do. Especially out West, for vast areas of the US, there really are no good alternatives to driving. For example, there's very limited ability to visit most National Parks without a car. And most of the cities are too far apart to reasonably take trains between them. So you're left with flying which gets expensive and a hassle, especially for a family. If you want to visit cities in the Northeast you probably don't need (or want a car). But elsewhere it's between convenient and necessary.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    I don't understand this comment: >too far apart to reasonably take trains between them // It's way nicer IMO doing inter city travel by train. One of my favourite journeys ever was from Wales, via England to South France. Aren't railways one of the main ways to do long journeys between cities?
    - irixusr 9y ago
      Too far apart does mean that A to B is so much further than A to B in Europe. It means that there's nothing in between them, so it would be insane to build a passenger rail line (i.e. high speeds, high priority on the queue, locomotives, ect). A 1000 km length of track in Europe serves 10, 15 cities. In the American west it serves the passengers of 2.
zzleeper 9y ago
> Second, Americans move around a lot more than most europeans do. I think it's just because flying is so inconvenient/expensive in the US. Sure, I could drive 10 hours from Lisbon to Barcelona, easily spending $100+ in gas and tolls. Or I could pay 50-100 to fly and be there in 2 hours. When I was in Europe, flying could be a weekly opportunity to visit other countries (with the cheap 20eur tickets). Now instead, I try to drive to avoid all the hassle.
- ensignavenger 9y ago
  Sure, but if you were taking a family of 5, suddenly your $100 plane ticket turns into $500. Driving becomes much more competitive as soon as you start adding passengers to the vehicle.
adekok 9y ago
> It is very, very rare to meet Europeans who drive across multiple countries for leisure Then you've never been to the south of France in the summer. It's filled with license plates from all over the EU. Mainly Dutch, UK, German. I've even seen Estonian plates. It's ~1200Km from the Netherlands to the south of France. People do it in camper vans all of the time.
- taejo 9y ago
  Indeed. There are places in Croatia where you see more German plates than Croatian in the summer.
- molf 9y ago
  Also Italy, north Spain, Croatia. And Germany/Austria/Switzerland in winter season. It might not be as widespread to travel long distances by car as it is in the US, but it is definitely not "very, very rare". I would even say it's common for many Dutch, Danish, German, Belgian, Polish (from what I can observe).
exclusiv 9y ago
I witnessed that as well in Europe. They don't like driving any distances and they have some great countryside and fun roads. In London - people seemingly stay really tight to where they live and work. They have no problem flying to other countries, but exploring their own city and country or even neighboring country is a chore to them. I think a lot of it is because there are so many different and interesting countries nearby combined with super cheap flights. And many have good public transportation and don't own a car, or if they do - they own an Urkel-mobile which does the job for short trips and fits into tiny parking spots where they live and around town. And gas/diesel is a lot more over there too. So it's a lot of things that sway travel choices to the tube or trains and planes over cars. Regarding car size - yes you lose something like 7 HP for every 100 pounds. So if you do have a bunch of passengers and gear you need something with more power and you also need something with more comfort/room which leans towards vans and SUVs.
- ljf 9y ago
  I'd say it is the cost of fuel vs the cost of public transport. I've taken the train London-Paris for £58 return, or flown to Spain or Greece for less than £50 return with easyjet or similar. Even with 2 or three of us travelling it would cost far more than that to do it by car (plus have to sort out European insurance and breakdown cover), and then struggle to find places to park in Paris, and pay through the nose for it. Instead I can get on a train to Paris for just over 2 hours, or I loved leaving work one day at 5pm, getting the plane to Amsterdam for £27 each way, and arriving there at 8pm UK time (9pm Dutch time), and was in the city centre drinking by 10.15. If I'd tried to do that by car...
falsedan 9y ago
> we could just "drive to St. Petersburg" or "just drive to Transylvania" or whatever, and otherwise smart and interesting european friends would look at me like I was a crazy person Well, yeah, do you know what the roads are like? There are no interstate or federal highway funding. And a train or a flight is faster… I would compare your US story to AU; I did multiple Adelaide <-> Nowra trips with my parents as a kid, and at uni we'd think nothing of driving 2 hours to a party (4 for a 21st). Why? Because driving was way cheaper than flying, and way faster than trains; and because we'd still need a car at the other end to get around Nowra since the public transport there was non-existent.
kabes 9y ago
As a guy from Belgium, who lives half the year in the bay area, I can confirm. Maybe because Belgium is so small, but when I'm in the US I have no problem driving an hour just to get to a walmart. In Belgium, this crosses half the country and I only do it on very select occasions. In the US I even drive from SF to LA and back every month, when in Europe I wouldn't even consider driving that far. Each time I spend some time in the US, I'm thinking: 'I should drive to more places in Europe', but as soon as I'm back, my European stay-at-home mood kicks in.
pif 9y ago
> Zurich to Transylvania is 1800km You forgot to mention: 4 different languages (Swiss dialect, German, Hungarian and Romanian) and one border (Swiss - EU).
torrent-of-ions 9y ago
This lifestyle is not unique to the US, but the big, inefficient car thing seems to be. South Africa is on a similar scale to the US and probably much more mountainous in general. Yet most of the cars there are European sized. And it's not just because they can't afford bigger ones; many of them can. It just seems that if they are going to choose one vehicle they choose the one that makes sense for every day of the week, not the few times a year they drive for 8 hours across multiple mountain ranges. I live in the UK and I'd been told by Americans "you just don't understand" many times. But I can tell you now that it's perfectly fine to make day long road trips across mountain ranges in something like a VW Golf. You don't need a 3L+ monstrosity.

by rsync 9y ago

paganel 9y ago

> On the occasions that I have lived in Europe, I always spoke of how interesting it was that we could just "drive to St. Petersburg" or "just drive to Transylvania" or whatever, and otherwise smart and interesting european friends would look at me like I was a crazy person. It is very, very rare to meet Europeans who drive across multiple countries for leisure. Me and my gf did a Bucharest-to-Geneva and back car-trip last year and it was wonderful. There's something to be said about getting up to 2,000 meters in the Swiss Alps using a 1.4l gasoline engine car with 86bhp (probably less now, as the car is already 10 years old), all in third gear. Plus riding on the Austrian and German autobahns, as a car-lover that's pure bliss. Or riding on the Autostrade of Northern Italy in the middle of the night and stopping for an 1-euro ristretto at a gas station which was better-tasting than the majority of coffee-drinks that I had ever had. But you're of course correct, ours was an isolated experience. I think my car was the only Romania (or Eastern-Europe)-licensed plate on the streets of Geneva (and Lausanne). If only gasoline were less expensive...

rsync 9y ago
"But you're of course correct, ours was an isolated experience. I think my car was the only Romania (or Eastern-Europe)-licensed plate on the streets of Geneva (and Lausanne). If only gasoline were less expensive..." Good for you! I love to do these trips. It is so baffling how uninterested most Europeans are in just getting out and driving to parts unknown. It's tremendously rewarding.
- ljf 9y ago
  Uninterested in doing it by car maybe, but not uninterested. Just that we have good(ish) train, plane, ferry and coach services - most people I know (I'm British) will have traveled a lot in Europe. Also, don't forget that doing it by car is pricey for us - another comment above quoted $2.50 or something a gallon in parts of the US - here we pay about £1.20 a litre currently - so for example the cost to my brother of driving his van from the UK to northern Portugal (which he does to take his tools with him) can cost about £360 - where as he could fly and then hire a car there for a week or two for less money (if having his tools to do up his house there wasn't the reason for visiting!)

oblio 9y ago

The Audi A8 thing, is that because A8 is an expensive car? Or because it is comparatively smaller? If it's the second one, I've seen horse trailers pulled by smaller cars (even Golf, I think).

rsync 9y ago
No, you see - in the United States it is assumed that any towing or work activities must be done with a truck. I am not exaggerating at all when I tell you that the minimum acceptable size for this truck is larger than most freight/delivery trucks in European cities. Here is a completely normal, totally average truck that millions of people in the US use as a daily driver and have on-hand because they occasionally buy some boards at the hardware store: http://blog.sfgate.com/topdown/files/2015/09/the-14-most-affordable-extended-cab-pickups.jpg http://blog.sfgate.com/topdown/files/2015/09/the-14-most-aff...
- exclusiv 9y ago
  I don't own a pickup but they are quite fun to drive. Gaffigan has a related joke:: "why are they called a pickup? I'm pretty sure everyone that owns them aren't picking ANYTHING up". haha. So true.
- wtallis 9y ago
  And the scary thing is how many large trucks and SUVs are sold without the hardware necessary to tow a trailer. It's absurd to buy something like a Suburban with a V8 that doesn't even have the potential to be burdened with the kind of load that would differentiate it from a van.
- henrikschroder 9y ago
  > No, you see - in the United States it is assumed that any towing or work activities must be done with a truck. I love subtle cultural differences like this where two sides are completely unaware that life could be any other way than it is. :-D In the 80's and 90's in Sweden, I remember that every single car had a trailer hitch with a tow ball. And if you needed to buy something bulky at a hardware store, you borrowed or rented a small trailer. Every single hardware store has trailers for rent! Most large gas stations has trailers for rent! The only people who own pickups are farmers! Why would anyone want to buy a pickup? Meanwhile, in the US, tow balls are extremely uncommon, and I don't think I've ever seen small trailers for rent anywhere. Another funny difference is what camping looks like. In Europe, it looks like this: http://www.widlundshusvagnar.se/valj-dragbil-och-husvagn-med-omsorg/ http://www.widlundshusvagnar.se/valj-dragbil-och-husvagn-med... In the US, it looks like this: http://www.rv-camping.org/towing-a-vehicle/ http://www.rv-camping.org/towing-a-vehicle/ The first time I saw an RV towing a pickup I was completely dumbfounded.. It's on backwards! The car goes in front! Whyyyy?!?

kartan 9y ago

> It is very, very rare to meet Europeans who drive across multiple countries for leisure. I don't have statistical data, but I have that experience. I have never heard of anyone doing that in Europe. Long car travels are avoided as much as possible. I heard of a guy that did a really long trip by car because was relocating and didn't want - or was too expensive - to move his dogs in any other way. He was not happy about it. I always see going by car as painful, while using trains is a good experience (https://visitsweden.com/getting-around-sweden-train/ https://visitsweden.com/getting-around-sweden-train/) and by plane is just fast. But when people wants to visit the USA, to travel long distances by car looks like something you want to do. I know Europeans that have done that, in the USA. So maybe it is not just a matter of taste, but it is geography or you just want to do what you see in the movies.

ghaff 9y ago
>But when people wants to visit the USA, to travel long distances by car looks like something you want to do. Especially out West, for vast areas of the US, there really are no good alternatives to driving. For example, there's very limited ability to visit most National Parks without a car. And most of the cities are too far apart to reasonably take trains between them. So you're left with flying which gets expensive and a hassle, especially for a family. If you want to visit cities in the Northeast you probably don't need (or want a car). But elsewhere it's between convenient and necessary.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  I don't understand this comment: >too far apart to reasonably take trains between them // It's way nicer IMO doing inter city travel by train. One of my favourite journeys ever was from Wales, via England to South France. Aren't railways one of the main ways to do long journeys between cities?
  - irixusr 9y ago
    Too far apart does mean that A to B is so much further than A to B in Europe. It means that there's nothing in between them, so it would be insane to build a passenger rail line (i.e. high speeds, high priority on the queue, locomotives, ect). A 1000 km length of track in Europe serves 10, 15 cities. In the American west it serves the passengers of 2.

zzleeper 9y ago

> Second, Americans move around a lot more than most europeans do. I think it's just because flying is so inconvenient/expensive in the US. Sure, I could drive 10 hours from Lisbon to Barcelona, easily spending $100+ in gas and tolls. Or I could pay 50-100 to fly and be there in 2 hours. When I was in Europe, flying could be a weekly opportunity to visit other countries (with the cheap 20eur tickets). Now instead, I try to drive to avoid all the hassle.

ensignavenger 9y ago
Sure, but if you were taking a family of 5, suddenly your $100 plane ticket turns into $500. Driving becomes much more competitive as soon as you start adding passengers to the vehicle.

adekok 9y ago

> It is very, very rare to meet Europeans who drive across multiple countries for leisure Then you've never been to the south of France in the summer. It's filled with license plates from all over the EU. Mainly Dutch, UK, German. I've even seen Estonian plates. It's ~1200Km from the Netherlands to the south of France. People do it in camper vans all of the time.

taejo 9y ago
Indeed. There are places in Croatia where you see more German plates than Croatian in the summer.
molf 9y ago
Also Italy, north Spain, Croatia. And Germany/Austria/Switzerland in winter season. It might not be as widespread to travel long distances by car as it is in the US, but it is definitely not "very, very rare". I would even say it's common for many Dutch, Danish, German, Belgian, Polish (from what I can observe).

exclusiv 9y ago

I witnessed that as well in Europe. They don't like driving any distances and they have some great countryside and fun roads. In London - people seemingly stay really tight to where they live and work. They have no problem flying to other countries, but exploring their own city and country or even neighboring country is a chore to them. I think a lot of it is because there are so many different and interesting countries nearby combined with super cheap flights. And many have good public transportation and don't own a car, or if they do - they own an Urkel-mobile which does the job for short trips and fits into tiny parking spots where they live and around town. And gas/diesel is a lot more over there too. So it's a lot of things that sway travel choices to the tube or trains and planes over cars. Regarding car size - yes you lose something like 7 HP for every 100 pounds. So if you do have a bunch of passengers and gear you need something with more power and you also need something with more comfort/room which leans towards vans and SUVs.

ljf 9y ago
I'd say it is the cost of fuel vs the cost of public transport. I've taken the train London-Paris for £58 return, or flown to Spain or Greece for less than £50 return with easyjet or similar. Even with 2 or three of us travelling it would cost far more than that to do it by car (plus have to sort out European insurance and breakdown cover), and then struggle to find places to park in Paris, and pay through the nose for it. Instead I can get on a train to Paris for just over 2 hours, or I loved leaving work one day at 5pm, getting the plane to Amsterdam for £27 each way, and arriving there at 8pm UK time (9pm Dutch time), and was in the city centre drinking by 10.15. If I'd tried to do that by car...

falsedan 9y ago

> we could just "drive to St. Petersburg" or "just drive to Transylvania" or whatever, and otherwise smart and interesting european friends would look at me like I was a crazy person Well, yeah, do you know what the roads are like? There are no interstate or federal highway funding. And a train or a flight is faster… I would compare your US story to AU; I did multiple Adelaide <-> Nowra trips with my parents as a kid, and at uni we'd think nothing of driving 2 hours to a party (4 for a 21st). Why? Because driving was way cheaper than flying, and way faster than trains; and because we'd still need a car at the other end to get around Nowra since the public transport there was non-existent.

kabes 9y ago

As a guy from Belgium, who lives half the year in the bay area, I can confirm. Maybe because Belgium is so small, but when I'm in the US I have no problem driving an hour just to get to a walmart. In Belgium, this crosses half the country and I only do it on very select occasions. In the US I even drive from SF to LA and back every month, when in Europe I wouldn't even consider driving that far. Each time I spend some time in the US, I'm thinking: 'I should drive to more places in Europe', but as soon as I'm back, my European stay-at-home mood kicks in.

pif 9y ago

> Zurich to Transylvania is 1800km You forgot to mention: 4 different languages (Swiss dialect, German, Hungarian and Romanian) and one border (Swiss - EU).

torrent-of-ions 9y ago

This lifestyle is not unique to the US, but the big, inefficient car thing seems to be. South Africa is on a similar scale to the US and probably much more mountainous in general. Yet most of the cars there are European sized. And it's not just because they can't afford bigger ones; many of them can. It just seems that if they are going to choose one vehicle they choose the one that makes sense for every day of the week, not the few times a year they drive for 8 hours across multiple mountain ranges. I live in the UK and I'd been told by Americans "you just don't understand" many times. But I can tell you now that it's perfectly fine to make day long road trips across mountain ranges in something like a VW Golf. You don't need a 3L+ monstrosity.