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> the US went to the other extreme and is only slowly turning around. US car manufacturers are doubling down on large trucks and SUVs and the current administr

> the US went to the other extreme and is only slowly turning around. US car manufacturers are doubling down on large trucks and SUVs and the current administration continues to thwart progress on tackling climate change and other societal concerns. I would say the US, at least on a macro level, is still on the "other extreme" path.

RickJWagner 8y ago
I don't believe there is a nefarious scheme in play. People who live in cities don't need cars. People who live outside cities still need cars. The manufacturers try to fill that need. The manufacturers, sellers, etc. make the economy go 'round. It will all change if/when economic forces bring it about. Directly forcing it through politics probably isn't the right approach.
- bogle 8y ago
  I don't think too many trust the market to make their decisions for them. The purpose of politics is to represent the people and, ideally, do what is best for them. That's definitely not what the market is for! Get involved in politics if you want to bring about change in the world because companies whose job it is to sell more cars certainly aren't going to be helping improve the environment.
  - lsniddy 8y ago
    This is the logic that produced the green new deal.
    - benj111 8y ago
      Could you expand? I'm not sure if you agree with the parent, or against the new deal.
      - kortilla 8y ago
        The green new deal comes from a place completely detached from reality rather than anything remotely feasible. Remember, the green new deal not only included destruction of all fossil fuel industries (aviation, non electric cars, trucks, trains, etc) but it also included provisions for people who weren’t willing to work (used to be in the FAQ). It started as a plan to completely restructure the US into the most socialist country on the planet with an energy economy based on technology that doesn’t exist all in the next ten years. Politics is not about foisting your vision onto everyone else, despite the current rhetoric in the US.
        benj111 8y ago
        How does anyone get that from what Bogle said?
        josinalvo 8y ago
        > Politics is not about foisting your vision onto everyone else, despite the current rhetoric in the US. The only paragraph I agree with. But I agree strongly! Politics is about consensus and horse-trading, and they are much superior to winning and making the other side miserable (for a short while, until they get the chance to do the same)
        francisofascii 8y ago
        So you don't think 100% from renewable energy is feasible? If not, then, shouldn't we be creating policies to preserve more fossil fuel to give us more time? It is finite, after all. What exactly is your plan?
        kortilla 8y ago
        Nuclear is the only answer that works based on existing technology. Build it, subsidize it, whatever. It’s a trivial solution that doesn’t require a fundamental restructure of the economy. It’s just not popular with the left precisely because it is too compatible with our current economic structure. Australia alone has enough coal under it to burn for a hundred years+. Any policy that doesn’t include nuclear for base load is a policy to burn that coal.
- crispyambulance 8y ago
  > I don't believe there is a nefarious scheme in play. I don't either but I do see it a sad lack of imagination and resignation to out-of-date mythologies about individualism. There's no defensible reason why work-home-school-retail structures rural places can't nucleate closer together into walkable "main street" towns. Much of the design of fly-over states is dictated by developers. It starts when a farmer who wants to retires sells a huge tract of land to a development company. The land eventually gets populated with a mind-numbing matrix of boring mcmansions, without regard to utilities, tax base, schooling, or distance. People then buy into to the facade of rural living but then end up driving 10's of miles for each and every errand and activity. They even take vacations in Europe and marvel at how delightful it is to sit in a town square and be able to walk to everything. When they get back to their ex-burban strip mall hellscapes in the USA, the vast majority just fail to make the connection that it doesn't have to be that way.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    It is about trade offs though. I moved from a 10 acre lot to a small city recently. I love that my son and I went for an hour walk to a park (we passed a different park on the way because we played in that one yesterday) and back. I love that my work is only a few minutes drive away (now that the weather is warmer I need to get my bike working). I miss other things about my rural lot though. There is no space to drive my tractor collection around. I can't see anywhere near as many stars at night. It is about trade offs, I was happy in the rural area. I'm happy in town. Some think I like to do are better/easier, some things are worse/harder.
    - matthewwiese 8y ago
      > There is no space to drive my tractor collection around. I am glad to see a comment like this on HN, despite the impression that everyone here is an SV-focused tech bro. Sometimes it feels good to read about somebody's tractors whilst I gaze out at the soybean field in my backyard. :)
      - josinalvo 8y ago
- francisofascii 8y ago
  > It will all change if/when economic forces bring it about. I agree, but I also think political policy decisions created the rules of the market, which in the case of the US, incentivized individual car ownsership. For example, creating a highway or creating a bus only lane, are political decisions that directly affect the market forces.
- JTbane 8y ago
  >People who live outside cities still need cars. The manufacturers try to fill that need. The manufacturers, sellers, etc. make the economy go 'round. Sometimes I wonder if it has to be that way- how much more does a light rail or bus line cost than a highway does to connect smaller towns?
  - nybble41 8y ago
    "Smaller towns" are one thing, but there are a lot of people who live outside any city limits. You're not going to link up every rural farmhouse with busses and light rail. Even those who do live in town are likely to have friends and relatives who don't, and they're unlikely to want to rent a vehicle every time they leave town to visit them.
lr4444lr 8y ago
But those vehicles aren't necessarily being bought by urban consumers. Cities already have several disincentives toward large vehicle ownership.
- gatherhunterer 8y ago
  Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and many more cities that are not New York or San Francisco are still filled with trucks and SUVs carrying no passengers and no cargo. Urban economies in the US are largely commuter-based and parking a large vehicle is not a problem for those who go back and forth between a driveway and a parking garage.
ataturk 8y ago
It's all Trump's fault, eh? Except that isn't even remotely true. Anyways, all this climate science stuff is a giant scam for scientists to get grants to study and review each other's work and have a huge echo chamber and be used by the Marxists to promote yet more collectivism which ultimately leads to mass starvation and mass death. But for the sake of the argument, why not come to the Midwest and see what a travesty our cities are? Also, you have really no idea the distances involved out here or you would not be promoting such nonsense.
ptero 8y ago
> US car manufacturers are doubling down on large trucks and SUVs Manufacturers are building lots of SUVs because this is what people in the US prefer to buy. If manufacturers build tons of subcompacts instead they would have to drop prices and probably sell those subcompacts at a loss. If you wanted to sell more small cars instead you should convince consumers to buy them (e.g., via end user incentives), which would make it profitable for car companies to build lots of them.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  The deck is stacked, though. CUV's are considered trucks for the purposes of CAFE regulation. If they were considered the cars that they really are, they would be more fuel efficient, more expensive and manufacturers would be pushing small cars a lot harder to bring those averages down.
  - ambicapter 8y ago
    Serious question, are you saying trucks have more lenient CAFE regulations than cars?
    - bryanlarsen 8y ago
      Yes, "passenger cars" and "light trucks" are different categories in the regulations, and have different formulas for their target fuel economy.
- mtberatwork 8y ago
  Yes, that's the point. It's a signal that the US, as a whole, is still very much in the mindset of building infrastructure and communities centered around the car (in fact, centered around bigger, less efficient vehicles). Sure, you have pockets that are trying to do things differently, but again, on a macro level, the US is still very much "auto oriented" and doesn't appear to be turning much around at any kind of pace of other Western countries.
bpyne 8y ago
I'm curious to see how it plays out with the 20-somethings in the US. They've been brought up on more civic-mindedness and their trend is back to urban areas for living. They'll be a better bellweather.
- rfrey 8y ago
  I’m not sure 20-somethings are more civic minded. They voted in the last election at participation rates consistent with the last 40 years for that age group. Participation rates will probably increase as they age. Unfortunately priorities tend to change as people age too.
  - bpyne 8y ago
    The participation rate for the next election is where I hope to see a jump for that age group. The last presidential election hopefully scared them into understanding the importance of voting.
  - isostatic 8y ago
    And they'll move out of the cities into suburbia in their 30s, as they always do. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47529562 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47529562 Over the past decade, about 550,000 more Britons left London than moved to it. This trend is not unique to London; it is seen in many big US cities, including New York, Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles. ... People arrive in their 20s looking for jobs, then retreat in their 30s. Although it seems more likely they they only retreat to "commuter" distance -- in London that's about 40-60 minutes from a main rail terminal, which of course leads to increased pollution. ... The vibrancy and job opportunities offered by our biggest cities appeal to students and young professionals. This shapes these cities in terms of the shops, bars and other facilities they offer. But among older residents, the desire for things like more space and a less urban environment grows, and many move out.
    - bpyne 8y ago
      I think it depends on your idea of suburbia. We tend to have smaller cities surrounding our major city. These smaller cities have mixed use neighborhoods - commercial and residential - and lots of multi-family homes. I grew up in such a city in a multi-family home (locally, we knew them as tenements). An article appeared recently about the trend toward purchasing multi-families again due to their cost-effectiveness. So, I'm not certain of the 30-somthings move to the burbs trend yet.
wozniacki 8y ago
And yet not a pip when the new governor of California, Gavin Newsom announced that the high speed rail projects there will be scaled back, markedly.[1] [2] Between Los Angeles and San Francisco, no less ! Atleast not from these pro high-density living and pro urban transit folks. I don't get how you pick and choose what you'd like to criticize and what you'd like to champion on one side and what you conveniently ignore when it suits you, on the other. I'm sure we can all agree that the LA-SF corridor could badly use a high speed rail line to alleviate the traffic on the I-5, right? [1] Gov. Newsom Puts Brakes On California’s High-Speed Rail Plan https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/02/12/gavin-newsom-brakes-california-high-speed-rail-plan/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/02/12/gavin-newsom-br... [2] California's Newsom Scales Back Plans for High-Speed Rail Line https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-12/california-governor-says-he-s-dropping-high-speed-rail-plan https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-12/californi...
- magduf 8y ago
  Unfortunately, he was right here, because that project was hopelessly overpriced. Yes, we badly need HSR in America, but the prices they're talking about are completely ridiculous. What we really need to do is just hire the Japanese to build HSR for us, because we obviously can't do it ourselves.
  - asdff 8y ago
    The Japanese will come here and also have to deal with the hugely inflated prices of land and material acquisition. Everyone in the path of this project or a potential vendor all up and down the line is eager to profiteer and jack up the cost no matter who is engineering it. We need to keep large government projects far away from contractors because like every large government project involved with the private sector in history, costs will rise and rise and rise until people have had enough and the project is scaled back and/or killed. Otherwise, costs will rise until they hit that point, because as a contractor for the government, you have zero incentive not to profiteer.
- bluGill 8y ago
  That rail would do little for density. It might (at a more reasonable cost) be a good thing, but density is about things close to home, high speed rail is about getting people far from home.
at-fates-hands 8y ago
Actually its a cycle. The cost of gas goes up, and people scramble to get more fuel efficient cars. Gas does down and they want larger utility vehicles. Toyota made out like crazy when gas prices went through the roof in the early 2000's. They were already manufacturing the Prius and once gas prices went over $3-$4/gallon, people suddenly started buying motorcycles, started biking more and started buying Prius' in droves. Now that gas has stabilized for the most part to around $2.20/gallon, you're seeing more people not really care either way and I have friends who have sold their Prius' to get more snow friendly vehicles like a Subaru or a Toyota AWD SUV. Their decisions are based nothing on social concerns, it's all about how expensive it is to own the cars they currently have. Make fuel expensive and its painful to own a large SUV and they'll switch. When fuel is cheap and they're going to buy whatever suit their needs.
- magduf 8y ago
  Yep, and in a democratic nation, anyone who tries to add high taxes causing their large cars to be much more expensive to own and operate will be voted out, so the only thing that can really stop them is when the price of fuel is forced up by sheer lack of supply.
  - bryanlarsen 8y ago
    Lack of supply is not sufficient to raise the price enough. To keep climate change below a 2 degree rise, we must leave 4/5ths of our current oil reserves in the ground. And not only that, once oil reaches ~$80 / bbl, vast amounts of tar sands become viable, increasing our oil reserves massively.
    - magduf 8y ago
      So I guess that means that they won't be stopped until some other external force I didn't account for stops them.

RickJWagner 8y ago

I don't believe there is a nefarious scheme in play. People who live in cities don't need cars. People who live outside cities still need cars. The manufacturers try to fill that need. The manufacturers, sellers, etc. make the economy go 'round. It will all change if/when economic forces bring it about. Directly forcing it through politics probably isn't the right approach.

bogle 8y ago
I don't think too many trust the market to make their decisions for them. The purpose of politics is to represent the people and, ideally, do what is best for them. That's definitely not what the market is for! Get involved in politics if you want to bring about change in the world because companies whose job it is to sell more cars certainly aren't going to be helping improve the environment.
- lsniddy 8y ago
  This is the logic that produced the green new deal.
  - benj111 8y ago
    Could you expand? I'm not sure if you agree with the parent, or against the new deal.
    - kortilla 8y ago
      The green new deal comes from a place completely detached from reality rather than anything remotely feasible. Remember, the green new deal not only included destruction of all fossil fuel industries (aviation, non electric cars, trucks, trains, etc) but it also included provisions for people who weren’t willing to work (used to be in the FAQ). It started as a plan to completely restructure the US into the most socialist country on the planet with an energy economy based on technology that doesn’t exist all in the next ten years. Politics is not about foisting your vision onto everyone else, despite the current rhetoric in the US.
      - benj111 8y ago
        How does anyone get that from what Bogle said?
      - josinalvo 8y ago
        > Politics is not about foisting your vision onto everyone else, despite the current rhetoric in the US. The only paragraph I agree with. But I agree strongly! Politics is about consensus and horse-trading, and they are much superior to winning and making the other side miserable (for a short while, until they get the chance to do the same)
      - francisofascii 8y ago
        So you don't think 100% from renewable energy is feasible? If not, then, shouldn't we be creating policies to preserve more fossil fuel to give us more time? It is finite, after all. What exactly is your plan?
        kortilla 8y ago
        Nuclear is the only answer that works based on existing technology. Build it, subsidize it, whatever. It’s a trivial solution that doesn’t require a fundamental restructure of the economy. It’s just not popular with the left precisely because it is too compatible with our current economic structure. Australia alone has enough coal under it to burn for a hundred years+. Any policy that doesn’t include nuclear for base load is a policy to burn that coal.
crispyambulance 8y ago
> I don't believe there is a nefarious scheme in play. I don't either but I do see it a sad lack of imagination and resignation to out-of-date mythologies about individualism. There's no defensible reason why work-home-school-retail structures rural places can't nucleate closer together into walkable "main street" towns. Much of the design of fly-over states is dictated by developers. It starts when a farmer who wants to retires sells a huge tract of land to a development company. The land eventually gets populated with a mind-numbing matrix of boring mcmansions, without regard to utilities, tax base, schooling, or distance. People then buy into to the facade of rural living but then end up driving 10's of miles for each and every errand and activity. They even take vacations in Europe and marvel at how delightful it is to sit in a town square and be able to walk to everything. When they get back to their ex-burban strip mall hellscapes in the USA, the vast majority just fail to make the connection that it doesn't have to be that way.
- bluGill 8y ago
  It is about trade offs though. I moved from a 10 acre lot to a small city recently. I love that my son and I went for an hour walk to a park (we passed a different park on the way because we played in that one yesterday) and back. I love that my work is only a few minutes drive away (now that the weather is warmer I need to get my bike working). I miss other things about my rural lot though. There is no space to drive my tractor collection around. I can't see anywhere near as many stars at night. It is about trade offs, I was happy in the rural area. I'm happy in town. Some think I like to do are better/easier, some things are worse/harder.
  - matthewwiese 8y ago
    > There is no space to drive my tractor collection around. I am glad to see a comment like this on HN, despite the impression that everyone here is an SV-focused tech bro. Sometimes it feels good to read about somebody's tractors whilst I gaze out at the soybean field in my backyard. :)
    - josinalvo 8y ago
francisofascii 8y ago
> It will all change if/when economic forces bring it about. I agree, but I also think political policy decisions created the rules of the market, which in the case of the US, incentivized individual car ownsership. For example, creating a highway or creating a bus only lane, are political decisions that directly affect the market forces.
JTbane 8y ago
>People who live outside cities still need cars. The manufacturers try to fill that need. The manufacturers, sellers, etc. make the economy go 'round. Sometimes I wonder if it has to be that way- how much more does a light rail or bus line cost than a highway does to connect smaller towns?
- nybble41 8y ago
  "Smaller towns" are one thing, but there are a lot of people who live outside any city limits. You're not going to link up every rural farmhouse with busses and light rail. Even those who do live in town are likely to have friends and relatives who don't, and they're unlikely to want to rent a vehicle every time they leave town to visit them.

lr4444lr 8y ago

But those vehicles aren't necessarily being bought by urban consumers. Cities already have several disincentives toward large vehicle ownership.

gatherhunterer 8y ago
Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and many more cities that are not New York or San Francisco are still filled with trucks and SUVs carrying no passengers and no cargo. Urban economies in the US are largely commuter-based and parking a large vehicle is not a problem for those who go back and forth between a driveway and a parking garage.

ataturk 8y ago

It's all Trump's fault, eh? Except that isn't even remotely true. Anyways, all this climate science stuff is a giant scam for scientists to get grants to study and review each other's work and have a huge echo chamber and be used by the Marxists to promote yet more collectivism which ultimately leads to mass starvation and mass death. But for the sake of the argument, why not come to the Midwest and see what a travesty our cities are? Also, you have really no idea the distances involved out here or you would not be promoting such nonsense.

ptero 8y ago

> US car manufacturers are doubling down on large trucks and SUVs Manufacturers are building lots of SUVs because this is what people in the US prefer to buy. If manufacturers build tons of subcompacts instead they would have to drop prices and probably sell those subcompacts at a loss. If you wanted to sell more small cars instead you should convince consumers to buy them (e.g., via end user incentives), which would make it profitable for car companies to build lots of them.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bryanlarsen 8y ago
The deck is stacked, though. CUV's are considered trucks for the purposes of CAFE regulation. If they were considered the cars that they really are, they would be more fuel efficient, more expensive and manufacturers would be pushing small cars a lot harder to bring those averages down.
- ambicapter 8y ago
  Serious question, are you saying trucks have more lenient CAFE regulations than cars?
  - bryanlarsen 8y ago
    Yes, "passenger cars" and "light trucks" are different categories in the regulations, and have different formulas for their target fuel economy.
mtberatwork 8y ago
Yes, that's the point. It's a signal that the US, as a whole, is still very much in the mindset of building infrastructure and communities centered around the car (in fact, centered around bigger, less efficient vehicles). Sure, you have pockets that are trying to do things differently, but again, on a macro level, the US is still very much "auto oriented" and doesn't appear to be turning much around at any kind of pace of other Western countries.

bpyne 8y ago

I'm curious to see how it plays out with the 20-somethings in the US. They've been brought up on more civic-mindedness and their trend is back to urban areas for living. They'll be a better bellweather.

rfrey 8y ago
I’m not sure 20-somethings are more civic minded. They voted in the last election at participation rates consistent with the last 40 years for that age group. Participation rates will probably increase as they age. Unfortunately priorities tend to change as people age too.
- bpyne 8y ago
  The participation rate for the next election is where I hope to see a jump for that age group. The last presidential election hopefully scared them into understanding the importance of voting.
- isostatic 8y ago
  And they'll move out of the cities into suburbia in their 30s, as they always do. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47529562 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47529562 Over the past decade, about 550,000 more Britons left London than moved to it. This trend is not unique to London; it is seen in many big US cities, including New York, Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles. ... People arrive in their 20s looking for jobs, then retreat in their 30s. Although it seems more likely they they only retreat to "commuter" distance -- in London that's about 40-60 minutes from a main rail terminal, which of course leads to increased pollution. ... The vibrancy and job opportunities offered by our biggest cities appeal to students and young professionals. This shapes these cities in terms of the shops, bars and other facilities they offer. But among older residents, the desire for things like more space and a less urban environment grows, and many move out.
  - bpyne 8y ago
    I think it depends on your idea of suburbia. We tend to have smaller cities surrounding our major city. These smaller cities have mixed use neighborhoods - commercial and residential - and lots of multi-family homes. I grew up in such a city in a multi-family home (locally, we knew them as tenements). An article appeared recently about the trend toward purchasing multi-families again due to their cost-effectiveness. So, I'm not certain of the 30-somthings move to the burbs trend yet.

wozniacki 8y ago

And yet not a pip when the new governor of California, Gavin Newsom announced that the high speed rail projects there will be scaled back, markedly.[1] [2] Between Los Angeles and San Francisco, no less ! Atleast not from these pro high-density living and pro urban transit folks. I don't get how you pick and choose what you'd like to criticize and what you'd like to champion on one side and what you conveniently ignore when it suits you, on the other. I'm sure we can all agree that the LA-SF corridor could badly use a high speed rail line to alleviate the traffic on the I-5, right? [1] Gov. Newsom Puts Brakes On California’s High-Speed Rail Plan https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/02/12/gavin-newsom-brakes-california-high-speed-rail-plan/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/02/12/gavin-newsom-br... [2] California's Newsom Scales Back Plans for High-Speed Rail Line https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-12/california-governor-says-he-s-dropping-high-speed-rail-plan https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-12/californi...

magduf 8y ago
Unfortunately, he was right here, because that project was hopelessly overpriced. Yes, we badly need HSR in America, but the prices they're talking about are completely ridiculous. What we really need to do is just hire the Japanese to build HSR for us, because we obviously can't do it ourselves.
- asdff 8y ago
  The Japanese will come here and also have to deal with the hugely inflated prices of land and material acquisition. Everyone in the path of this project or a potential vendor all up and down the line is eager to profiteer and jack up the cost no matter who is engineering it. We need to keep large government projects far away from contractors because like every large government project involved with the private sector in history, costs will rise and rise and rise until people have had enough and the project is scaled back and/or killed. Otherwise, costs will rise until they hit that point, because as a contractor for the government, you have zero incentive not to profiteer.
bluGill 8y ago
That rail would do little for density. It might (at a more reasonable cost) be a good thing, but density is about things close to home, high speed rail is about getting people far from home.

at-fates-hands 8y ago

Actually its a cycle. The cost of gas goes up, and people scramble to get more fuel efficient cars. Gas does down and they want larger utility vehicles. Toyota made out like crazy when gas prices went through the roof in the early 2000's. They were already manufacturing the Prius and once gas prices went over $3-$4/gallon, people suddenly started buying motorcycles, started biking more and started buying Prius' in droves. Now that gas has stabilized for the most part to around $2.20/gallon, you're seeing more people not really care either way and I have friends who have sold their Prius' to get more snow friendly vehicles like a Subaru or a Toyota AWD SUV. Their decisions are based nothing on social concerns, it's all about how expensive it is to own the cars they currently have. Make fuel expensive and its painful to own a large SUV and they'll switch. When fuel is cheap and they're going to buy whatever suit their needs.

magduf 8y ago
Yep, and in a democratic nation, anyone who tries to add high taxes causing their large cars to be much more expensive to own and operate will be voted out, so the only thing that can really stop them is when the price of fuel is forced up by sheer lack of supply.
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  Lack of supply is not sufficient to raise the price enough. To keep climate change below a 2 degree rise, we must leave 4/5ths of our current oil reserves in the ground. And not only that, once oil reaches ~$80 / bbl, vast amounts of tar sands become viable, increasing our oil reserves massively.
  - magduf 8y ago
    So I guess that means that they won't be stopped until some other external force I didn't account for stops them.