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Small cars are getting larger – are fuel economy regulations to blame?

60 points by aarghh 4y ago

antisinguIarity 4y ago
Yes. The EURO emissions regulations will make it essentially impossible to sell a new, purely ICE-powered car in the near future (in Europe). Every new car will be a bloated hybrid, designed entirely to scrape through the emissions and efficiency requirements.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Or electric. Which is good.
  - antisinguIarity 4y ago
    Hybrids have a much smaller battery, which will make them cheaper.
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      They are the worst of both worlds: anemic, still burning fuel, hybrid complexity and combustion maintenance. BEVs or bust, anything else is window dressing on tech we’re leaving behind. BEVs will get cheaper faster as battery manufacturing ramps. No need to waste any more effort on combustion technology and infra.
      - twblalock 4y ago
        They are also the only practical solution for many people until the EV charging infrastructure is far more developed. EVs don’t make sense for people who don't have reserved parking spaces with charging. Until that problem is solved, hybrids are a pretty good idea.
        hedgehog 4y ago
        I used to think this but on reflection my driving pattern would be served fine if I plugged in once a week while grocery shopping.
        antisinguIarity 4y ago
        If you're doing ~30 EV miles per week, sounds like a bicycle would be a fantastic addition to your personal transportation plan.
      - noahtallen 4y ago
        Actually disagree, plug-in hybrids will run on battery for most short trips in the city. It’s cutting out all the low hanging fruit for pollution. Most of your trips on 20/30mph roads where fuel efficiency is poor. Stop and go traffic. Sitting at a stoplight. If you’re running on battery in those scenarios, I’d say you’re making a huge improvement. And then you still have gas for a longer trip somewhere with no charging infra. But those trips will hopefully be rarer. And when you’re going 60+ mph on these longer trips, you’re only ever burning fuel at the engine’s better efficiency. I think there’s a good place for this tech in some lifestyles. EVs are obviously the future, but intermediate vehicles to help people get into EVs aren’t bad. If someone chooses a plugin-hybrid over gas, but would have chosen gas over EV for range and charging reasons, it’s a good improvement
        chki 4y ago
        > Actually disagree, plug-in hybrids will run on battery for most short trips in the city. It’s cutting out all the low hanging fruit for pollution. That's true in theory. Unfortunately in practice - at least where I live - Hybrids don't get charged at home. People buy hybrids for the tax/other benefits but just park them on public roads. Which means that you get the worst possible state where you have pseudo-green ICE vehicles that run with a lot of extra weight in the form of a basically useless electric motor. (Except for recuperating but that's not worth it)
        pandaman 4y ago
        Perhaps these people don't have means to charge their vehicles so they would not be able to charge a BEV too? I cannot imagine why anybody who has access to a charger would intentionally leave a PHEV uncharged, what is the point? Are you in an area where hybrid is cheaper to run on gas?
        danhor 4y ago
        Often these are company cars (with private use allowed), where gas is paid for by the company
      - rsynnott 4y ago
        They work fairly well for some use cases. I know a few people who have plugin hybrids with maybe 50km battery range; they typically commute entirely on the battery (short urban commutes) and use the petrol engine maybe once or twice a year for long journeys. The plug-in hybrid is, of course, much cheaper than an electric car that could handle the occasional long trips, but most of their driving is on electric. If you live in a city and mostly use the car for commuting/shopping, this can make a lot of sense, and that's not a small market. One problem with this usage mode is that it can leave the petrol engine unused for very long periods, which will ultimately lead to problems (I think some hybrids will now deliberately periodically run it for a bit to deal with this).
        antisinguIarity 4y ago
        How does that make any sense? What those people need is a cheap EV with 50km range, and then rent a lnog-range vehicle for those few annual long trips. Why load your EV with several 100kg of ICE gear?
        rsynnott 4y ago
        I mean, possibly that's the case, but in reality, I think you'd have trouble selling an EV with 50km range (and in practice manufacturers don't try). People would feel very insecure about that.
      - TacticalCoder 4y ago
        Disagreeing too... Neighbors here both have plug-in hybrids. 50 km autonomy officially, when they actually do 40. Thing is: when your daily commute is 20 kilometers or less, this means you don't need the ICE. But you have it when you need to do more than 40 kilometers and there's no "range anxiety". They can go for weeks without turning the ICE on. I do also think it's not a bad stepping stone to bring people towards full electric cars: they get used to a car that you charge at home. Meanwhile the charging network gets better and better and cities/countries get the time to adapt too (there's no way everybody can charge a full electric car at home without changes to the current grids). I don't see what's wrong with ICE -> plug-in hybrid -> full electric.
      - bittercynic 4y ago
        I thought so too, and bought a cheap EV, but also kept a raggedy old civic for taking longer trips. Caring for 2 cars got old quick. Sold both and bought a cheap used plug-in hybrid and haven't looked back. Even a non-plug hybrid isn't really the worst of both worlds. The battery replacement is relatively cheap when it eventually needs it, it's gentler on the gas engine that and ICE car, and won't waste gas running the engine while you're not moving. As for anemic/not exciting to drive, yeah, true. It's not that important for me to have an exciting car, and I think most people don't see that as a top priority.
      - twobitshifter 4y ago
        Disagree. It’s the 80/20 rule, the PHEV will get you to 80% of your destinations on electricity. Paying $20,000 more for a battery for the added range to make those last 20% or trips isn’t worth it. (And with the state of charging, there are probably trips your EV can’t make that a PHEV can)
        sitkack 4y ago
        I'd rather see those KWHr distributed to as many vehicles as possible, able to prevent 80% of the CO2 emissions that they would generate, then hoard that capacity in a single high end vehicle that won't even tap into it. Hybrid gas engines should be sized to only operate the vehicle on flat ground at highway speeds, so around 10-15KW tops.
        hedgehog 4y ago
        The gas engine should be able to handle a mountain pass in hot or cold weather, closer to 150KW. That avoids needing to carry enough battery for that use case.
        sitkack 4y ago
        That is a ridiculous amount of power. You realize you just said that a car needs a 200Hp motor. A 1990 Toyota Corolla (as new) has a 100Hp motor. Battery plus a 10KW ICE can get you over a mountain pass. Going slower is always an option.
        hedgehog 4y ago
        Not ridiculous, I had a 130HP / 100KW car that could do it only with protest, and modern cars are heavier. To do the same drive mostly on battery you'd need something like 50KWh which is much more than any of the current plug in hybrids I'm aware of. There's not that much weight or cost penalty going from 100HP to 200HP but quite a bit going from 15KWh to 50.
        4y ago
      - manmal 4y ago
        I own an EV (Ioniq) and believe this is the future. But Toyota Hybrids have been known to drive 400k miles without major hiccups. There exist use cases that EVs just can’t fulfill right now. So why not save 30-40% fuel while battery production is ramping, which will take a few more years.
      - sitkack 4y ago
        > They are the worst of both worlds: anemic, still burning fuel You should back up these strong opinions with some facts. Hybrid batteries which minuscule compared to EVs, put out 25kw+ instantaneous power. More than enough to beat ICE cars across the intersection.
        antisinguIarity 4y ago
        >Hybrid batteries which minuscule compared to EVs, put out 25kw+ instantaneous power. Which is exactly the problem with hybrid batteries - the peak power demanded from them is about the same as a pure EV, but each cell is put under much greater load because there are fewer of them. Those tiny, over-stressed hybrid batteries will not last very long. Not that many people will notice, as they just want a car that can take them where they want to go.
      - toast0 4y ago
        I drive a PHEV (Ford C-Max) and I don't get the claim that it's anemic. It spins the tires just fine taking off, and I've never felt it was short of power except the couple times I tried to quickly get up to highway speeds in 'EV Only' mode. But running in EV Only mode at highway speeds uses the battery too fast anyway. It's better to use gasoline to go fast and electricity to go slow unless I was expecting to have enough electricity to do the whole trip. You can still put it in 'EV Now' which will mostly use the battery but turn on the engine when you need it for acceleration. Combustion maintenance intervals are doubled on the PHEV vs a conventional gas only vehicle. And the transaxle shouldn't require any service (although Ford had some manufacturing defects and a recently got a new one under warranty). Battery manufacturing improvements would improve a PHEV too. Smaller batteries would take up less storage space (C-Max design is suboptimal) or allow for a bigger EV range with the same volume.
      - throw0101a 4y ago
        > They are the worst of both worlds: anemic, still burning fuel, hybrid complexity and combustion maintenance. As someone who has neither a garage, nor a driveway, I have to park on the street. So I have no convenient place to charge a vehicle at home. And probably neither does anyone else in a community built pre-WW2: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb
  - kyrra 4y ago
    Only if the power charging the battery is cleaner than petroleum based fuels. If we had nuclear everywhere, I'd totally agree with you. But if you in get your power from coal power plants, you will cause more emissions charging an electric car compared to petrol car. You're also assuming the electric grids around the world can handle this increase in load.
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      False. A petrol car burns petrol it’s entire life. An EV is already cleaner burning coal than a petrol vehicle, and the electric grid will only get cleaner over time. You can Google “well to wheel efficiency” to confirm. With regards to charging infra, yes, I assume at the current global production rate of ~2 million EVs/year built and sold, the electric grid can absorb these new distributed loads (which are roughly the same draw as a large central heat pump, 20-40amps). There are already systems to orchestrate vehicle charging when there is excess clean energy on a local grid (“DER”). Tesla supports this today with a Scandinavian utility, no different then your Nest thermostat shedding AC load during peak power demand but the inverse. Below is a list of jurisdictions banning new fossil fuel vehicle sales and when the bans go into effect. Everyone has plenty of notice to prepare. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehicles#Places_with_planned_fossil-fuel_vehicle_restrictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...
      - kyrra 4y ago
        Many people will be charging their vehicles in the evening after being out for the day. In the US, this time of day is already a large power draw just as solar power starts to wane for the day. If the cars delays charging until after this peak, solar and wind won't be as prevalent either. Your heat pump comment makes my point for me. This is additional draw on top of what homes already draw today. Yes, it's just a 20-50amp draw, but this is a new draw and will be there year around, along when a heat pump may also be running. And while you point out that there is regulation around the sale of electric vehicles, is there regulation around the production of clean energy? What to expect to happen with Russia cutting off natural gas, and the US slowing down or stopping the permitting of new drilling locations of natural gas. Where do you expect all of the energy to charge these electric vehicles to come from as the world seems to push back against fossil fuels for powering our grid. World leaders are still hesitant about nuclear. But they're also fighting fossil fuels at the same time. Solar, wind, and hydro will not be enough to cover this increase demand plus normal growth.
  - adolph 4y ago
    It is good for now, given battery powered vehicles' advantage in terms of regulation. My guess is that as they become the majority of vehicles over time there will be an interest in efficiency regulation similar to fuel economy for ICE engines. There is already an interest in taxing electric vehicles differently given the eroding base of road-building taxes based on hydrocarbon fuels.
- mtgx 4y ago
- diebeforei485 4y ago
  This is a good thing. I am not sure why any new passenger vehicle should be purely ICE powered.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    Unless it's a plugin hybrid, a hybrid is still powered by an internal combustion engine.
    - nixass 4y ago
      There was a market research in Germany and plug ins are mostly owned by upper class, using it for cheaper/free parking and (ab)using government incentives for co2 grants. Funniest thing is there's very low percentage of owners who drive them in EV mode, they barely bother to charge them, it's being ran in ICE mode all the time. It's purely for playing the system, catch few benefits (parking) and not giving a shit about the environment. Beat me for source, read it few months back
      - tecleandor 4y ago
        When you can get a 455hp (317 ICE + 145 Electric) Volvo XC90 Recharge T8, and qualifies as "zero emission" and gets free parking all around the city... you understand the classification is quite a joke. Of course, it's absurdly huge (2300Kg, 5 metes long...) and its price is almost 100K€. It's not precisely popular.
        sidewndr46 4y ago
        Why is such a vehicle considered zero emissions?
        tecleandor 4y ago
        At least on Spain, they give that category to Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicles with a range of more than 40km in full electric mode. https://www.dgt.es/nuestros-servicios/tu-vehiculo/tus-vehiculos/distintivo-ambiental/etiqueta-cero/ https://www.dgt.es/nuestros-servicios/tu-vehiculo/tus-vehicu...
- justoreply 4y ago
  > bloated hybrid not necessary, Toyota hybrids don't have a clutch or gears, so they have a comparable complexity to a purely ICE powered car
  - antisinguIarity 4y ago
    Doesn't save much space or weight - the car will still be larger and heavier.
mpol 4y ago
I think the same model gets larger each generation because of marketing reasons. And since all the manufacturers are doing this, no manufacturer can escape from this. At the top of the line models disappear, at the bottom of the line new models get added. Where it goes wrong is at the bottom of the line. There are now so many safety regulations (I am looking at you, EU), that these cars get heavier and more costly to make. Many manufacturers decide to step out or up their game. 10 years ago, the cheapest model of a manufacturer would maybe be 10 thousand Euro. Now it easily starts at 15 thousand Euro, and it will mostly be a model of some years ago. New models at the low and small end are priced heavier, because of all these safety regulations.
- bjourne 4y ago
  Which safety regulations have caused cars to get heavier?
  - xyzzyz 4y ago
    The ones involving hitting obstacles and not crushing the passengers. Bigger and heavier vehicles are at an obvious advantage here, due to longer crumple zones, stronger frames etc.
  - prepend 4y ago
    Airbags, crumple zones in frame. Here’s a whole list of US safety regulations and the weight they added through 2012, https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/812354 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/8123...
    - bjourne 4y ago
      Thanks. The report says that 5% of the weight of new cars can be linked to safety features. So safety features can't be the main reasons cars have gotten heavier.
  - invalidator 4y ago
    Off the top of my head, airbags, anti-intrusion beams, ABS, pedestrian protection (the hood has to be higher, which makes the whole car taller), rollover protection (the pillars are much thicker to prevent the roof from collapsing). They're sensible things, but each adds weight. Most of them scale sub-linearly with vehicle size, so the burden literally weighs heavier on small cars.
gnicholas 4y ago
Unintended consequences are real.
Animats 4y ago
The fuel economy regulations don't apply to electric cars, so this may decrease as a problem as the fleet goes electric.
adolph 4y ago
The article has a pretty interesting argument and seems logical. If a vehicle has some minimum set of vertexes and safety equipment that are held constant despite size, then faced with higher fuel economy standards the automaker can choose between lengthening edges (cheap and certain) or changing engine technology (expensive and risky). "Generally, the larger the vehicle footprint, the lower the corresponding vehicle fuel economy target. Footprint-based standards help to distribute the burden of compliance across all vehicles and all manufacturers. Manufacturers are not compelled to build vehicles of any particular size or type (nor does the proposed rule create an incentive to do so), and each manufacturer will have its own fleet-wide production-weighted standard that reflects the vehicles it chooses to produce." [0] "CAFE standards signaled the end of the traditional long station wagon, but Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca developed the idea of marketing the minivan as a station wagon alternative, while certifying it in the separate truck category to allow compliance with less-strict CAFE standards." 0. https://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rulemaking/pdf/cafe/2017-25_CAFE_NPRM_Factsheet.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rulemaking/pdf/cafe/2017-2... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy#SUVs_and_Minivans_created_due_to_original_mandate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  Subaru was able to hack this by making their Legacy station wagon a truck since Chrysler was able to game the system with the PT Cruiser "truck".
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
I'd like to commend TFA for being (a) well written (b) full of numerically based explanations of a numerical phenomenon (c) providing plenty of links to dive in a bit deeper (d) properly considering the complexity and broader context of the question in its closing paragraphs. It feels rare to me to read articles that manage to do all four of these, no matter what the topic is.
newaccount2021 4y ago
legitster 4y ago
CAFE is not a particularly good law, but the arms race for crash safety is clearly to blame. The majority of difference between a 1990 Golf and a 2022 Golf is in the size and complexity of the body. And if you need a 30% bigger and more expensive frame to keep up your crash safety rating, you may as well add a few inches of passenger room. We also cannot flatly ignore consumer preference. Two door car options used to be incredibly popular. But ask a new car buyer today if they are willing to part with rear passenger doors to save $1500 on their car and they will look at you like you are crazy.
- Markoff 4y ago
  good luck with resale of two door car, while you can ignore extra two doors while using it, nobody who needs them (and that will be vast majority of buyers) will even look at your car
- fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago
  I suspect there’s something a bit like the “small phone” problem: there’s almost certainly a market for smaller sedans and coupes, but for whatever reason companies have decided that it’s not worth their time to make cars for that market. (There’s a similar issue for families with 6+ kids, where there’s just not a lot of good options in the “more seats than a minivan” space)
  - deadmutex 4y ago
    Ehn, didn't Apple over estimate the small phone market? It seemed like a good idea on paper, and there were many vocal supporters on the internet.. but at the end of the day, it missed expectations.
    - deadmutex 4y ago
      Adding to that, I think there are tradeoffs you typically make with small phones. E.g. worse battery life or slower phones. Given these tradeoffs, people end up not choosing small phones. If you could have same specs as an ultra or a pro in a smaller body, that is a different story.
noobermin 4y ago
The fix is easy but politically difficult, remove the distinction for light trucks or at least severely increase the standard for them, then the benefit for crossovers will disappear. The industry responded to regulations and they can respond again.
nradov 4y ago
The whole notion of fuel economy regulations is so stupid. If we want people to burn less fuel then just increase the tax on fuel and let the market sort it out. Which is worse, a Chevrolet Tahoe driven 3K miles per year or a Toyota Prius driven 25K miles per year?
- burlesona 4y ago
  Agreed. There’s profound value in simple rules that we can actually reason about. Yet it seems that governments are only capable of adding complexity on top of the existing mountain of regulatory tech debt.
- noobermin 4y ago
  Why not do both?
- dlp211 4y ago
  I agree with you in concept but in reality go ahead and try passing a gas tax in the US. You will end your political career and you won't get your tax.
  - nradov 4y ago
    We already have a federal gas tax in the US. Most states also impose their own gas taxes. Increasing the gas tax would be politically difficult, which is why most serious proposals call for coupling it to a cut in income taxes in order to make the overall net change revenue neutral. The tax increase would also have to be gradually phased in over 10+ years in order to give consumers time to adjust.
    - massysett 4y ago
      Yikes that’s a great recipe for a regressive tax hike. The poor and working class feel the pinch every time gas prices inch up. Those with higher incomes only notice at all if they pay attention to the sign at the gas station—and many don’t and won’t even bother to cross the road to save money on gas.
NikolaNovak 4y ago
I feel this is completely and ignorantly misstating reality. Yes, e.g. Golf has grown over last few decades. I assume this is so each and every year they can say in marketing materials that it's a bit bigger and better, or that it's biggest and best in its category, however that category is conveniently defined. But now there are two more cars underneath it in vw range - Lupo and Polo! Same for any other car mentioned - sure Honda Civic is bigger. But Honda fit now occupies it's previous spot. And so on for all manufacturers - any given name plate gets bigger and better but something slots underneath. Tuscon is what Santa fe was 20 years ago. Etc etc. I find the premise deeply flawed and whole content of article a sloppy p0st hoc rationalization based on flawed premise.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Since this article is about American regulations, the existence of the Lupo, Polo, and Fit are irrelevant. None of those cars are sold in the U.S.
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    But they ARE made. I don't think golf grew because of usa regulations. I think golf grew for other reasons - and then consumer preference , profit margins, safety, and fuel regulations combined to guide what is feasible to sell in USA. Article's premise of cause and effect (these models grew because of usa fuel regulations) is I believe thusly easily disproven. Don't get me wrong, I personally love small economic hatchbacks. But my values and politics and environmental thoughts are irrelevant - golf grew across the world for reasons many and various outside of usa laws... And other small models replaced it. This appears to be a multi decade strategy across the board.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    The Honda Fit was sold in the US for a least 13 years. Honda EOL'ed it last year for the NA market.
- aczerepinski 4y ago
  I've never heard of the VW Lupo or Polo so I looked them up. No mention of either on vw.com. Wikipedia says the Lupo was discontinued on 2005. The Polo has never been sold in the US and its popularity is steadily declining in Europe (as measured by sales figures). The Honda Fit was discontinued in the US in 2020.
twobitshifter 4y ago
Although crossovers are mentioned what’s not called out is the platform sharing between crossovers and sedans. The platform will be built for the high volume crossover and the sedan adapted to it. I also don’t understand how the crosstrek gets to be a light truck since it doesn’t meet the first requirements of open bed/3 rows/10 pass. Maybe in this sentence the author meant “may instead” instead of “must also”? > Perhaps most crucially, however, light trucks must also meet a set of measured requirements that deem them capable of "off-highway operation." Finally, I’d really like a full-size sedan but there’s a lack of options in the market right now. This used to be something that dominated sales. The Civic is “growing” but it is still 20 inches shorter than an 80s Olds 88? Even the extra long Audi a8 is five inches shorter. Stretching a car in the middle should do little to harm the fuel economy, all the heavy parts are already dealt with, but it appears that available car lengths are being squeezed at both ends. The subcompacts are vanishing but so are the full size models.
- dahdum 4y ago
  Guidelines read to me like just having the off-road capability is sufficient, which makes sense as it’s referring to non-passenger automobiles in general. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/part-523/section-523.5 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/p...
jeffbee 4y ago
There is nothing you can change in the CAFE regs that will be as simple, easy, and effective as a $5/gallon fuel tax. By the way, one car that the article doesn't mention, which bucks all these trends, is the Mazda MX-5 Miata. The 2022 model is very similar in every dimension to the 1990 model, and uses 25% less fuel despite having 50% more power. The later model weighs only 10% more even though it meets 30 more years worth of crash standards.
Zak 4y ago
It seems to me the problem with the footprint model is much the same as the previous model holding "trucks" to a different standard: it's treating size as a good reason for people to buy less efficient cars. Size is occasionally a good reason. Someone who needs to carry 15 passengers needs a van, and someone with a heavy load to haul needs a truck. The trend in the US, however has been for people who only need cars to drive trucks and large SUVs. Outright telling people what to drive seems like government overreach to me, but there may be another way: adjust the standards so that large vehicles don't get special treatment. Selling too many large vehicles would then hurt a car manufacturer's average and they would be incentivized to stop making such vehicles as appealing for everyday use, e.g. by removing luxury options.

60 points by aarghh 4y ago

Yes. The EURO emissions regulations will make it essentially impossible to sell a new, purely ICE-powered car in the near future (in Europe). Every new car will be a bloated hybrid, designed entirely to scrape through the emissions and efficiency requirements.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
Or electric. Which is good.
- antisinguIarity 4y ago
  Hybrids have a much smaller battery, which will make them cheaper.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    They are the worst of both worlds: anemic, still burning fuel, hybrid complexity and combustion maintenance. BEVs or bust, anything else is window dressing on tech we’re leaving behind. BEVs will get cheaper faster as battery manufacturing ramps. No need to waste any more effort on combustion technology and infra.
    - twblalock 4y ago
      They are also the only practical solution for many people until the EV charging infrastructure is far more developed. EVs don’t make sense for people who don't have reserved parking spaces with charging. Until that problem is solved, hybrids are a pretty good idea.
      - hedgehog 4y ago
        I used to think this but on reflection my driving pattern would be served fine if I plugged in once a week while grocery shopping.
        antisinguIarity 4y ago
        If you're doing ~30 EV miles per week, sounds like a bicycle would be a fantastic addition to your personal transportation plan.
    - noahtallen 4y ago
      Actually disagree, plug-in hybrids will run on battery for most short trips in the city. It’s cutting out all the low hanging fruit for pollution. Most of your trips on 20/30mph roads where fuel efficiency is poor. Stop and go traffic. Sitting at a stoplight. If you’re running on battery in those scenarios, I’d say you’re making a huge improvement. And then you still have gas for a longer trip somewhere with no charging infra. But those trips will hopefully be rarer. And when you’re going 60+ mph on these longer trips, you’re only ever burning fuel at the engine’s better efficiency. I think there’s a good place for this tech in some lifestyles. EVs are obviously the future, but intermediate vehicles to help people get into EVs aren’t bad. If someone chooses a plugin-hybrid over gas, but would have chosen gas over EV for range and charging reasons, it’s a good improvement
      - chki 4y ago
        > Actually disagree, plug-in hybrids will run on battery for most short trips in the city. It’s cutting out all the low hanging fruit for pollution. That's true in theory. Unfortunately in practice - at least where I live - Hybrids don't get charged at home. People buy hybrids for the tax/other benefits but just park them on public roads. Which means that you get the worst possible state where you have pseudo-green ICE vehicles that run with a lot of extra weight in the form of a basically useless electric motor. (Except for recuperating but that's not worth it)
        pandaman 4y ago
        Perhaps these people don't have means to charge their vehicles so they would not be able to charge a BEV too? I cannot imagine why anybody who has access to a charger would intentionally leave a PHEV uncharged, what is the point? Are you in an area where hybrid is cheaper to run on gas?
        danhor 4y ago
        Often these are company cars (with private use allowed), where gas is paid for by the company
    - rsynnott 4y ago
      They work fairly well for some use cases. I know a few people who have plugin hybrids with maybe 50km battery range; they typically commute entirely on the battery (short urban commutes) and use the petrol engine maybe once or twice a year for long journeys. The plug-in hybrid is, of course, much cheaper than an electric car that could handle the occasional long trips, but most of their driving is on electric. If you live in a city and mostly use the car for commuting/shopping, this can make a lot of sense, and that's not a small market. One problem with this usage mode is that it can leave the petrol engine unused for very long periods, which will ultimately lead to problems (I think some hybrids will now deliberately periodically run it for a bit to deal with this).
      - antisinguIarity 4y ago
        How does that make any sense? What those people need is a cheap EV with 50km range, and then rent a lnog-range vehicle for those few annual long trips. Why load your EV with several 100kg of ICE gear?
        rsynnott 4y ago
        I mean, possibly that's the case, but in reality, I think you'd have trouble selling an EV with 50km range (and in practice manufacturers don't try). People would feel very insecure about that.
    - TacticalCoder 4y ago
      Disagreeing too... Neighbors here both have plug-in hybrids. 50 km autonomy officially, when they actually do 40. Thing is: when your daily commute is 20 kilometers or less, this means you don't need the ICE. But you have it when you need to do more than 40 kilometers and there's no "range anxiety". They can go for weeks without turning the ICE on. I do also think it's not a bad stepping stone to bring people towards full electric cars: they get used to a car that you charge at home. Meanwhile the charging network gets better and better and cities/countries get the time to adapt too (there's no way everybody can charge a full electric car at home without changes to the current grids). I don't see what's wrong with ICE -> plug-in hybrid -> full electric.
    - bittercynic 4y ago
      I thought so too, and bought a cheap EV, but also kept a raggedy old civic for taking longer trips. Caring for 2 cars got old quick. Sold both and bought a cheap used plug-in hybrid and haven't looked back. Even a non-plug hybrid isn't really the worst of both worlds. The battery replacement is relatively cheap when it eventually needs it, it's gentler on the gas engine that and ICE car, and won't waste gas running the engine while you're not moving. As for anemic/not exciting to drive, yeah, true. It's not that important for me to have an exciting car, and I think most people don't see that as a top priority.
    - twobitshifter 4y ago
      Disagree. It’s the 80/20 rule, the PHEV will get you to 80% of your destinations on electricity. Paying $20,000 more for a battery for the added range to make those last 20% or trips isn’t worth it. (And with the state of charging, there are probably trips your EV can’t make that a PHEV can)
      - sitkack 4y ago
        I'd rather see those KWHr distributed to as many vehicles as possible, able to prevent 80% of the CO2 emissions that they would generate, then hoard that capacity in a single high end vehicle that won't even tap into it. Hybrid gas engines should be sized to only operate the vehicle on flat ground at highway speeds, so around 10-15KW tops.
        hedgehog 4y ago
        The gas engine should be able to handle a mountain pass in hot or cold weather, closer to 150KW. That avoids needing to carry enough battery for that use case.
        sitkack 4y ago
        That is a ridiculous amount of power. You realize you just said that a car needs a 200Hp motor. A 1990 Toyota Corolla (as new) has a 100Hp motor. Battery plus a 10KW ICE can get you over a mountain pass. Going slower is always an option.
        hedgehog 4y ago
        Not ridiculous, I had a 130HP / 100KW car that could do it only with protest, and modern cars are heavier. To do the same drive mostly on battery you'd need something like 50KWh which is much more than any of the current plug in hybrids I'm aware of. There's not that much weight or cost penalty going from 100HP to 200HP but quite a bit going from 15KWh to 50.
        4y ago
    - manmal 4y ago
      I own an EV (Ioniq) and believe this is the future. But Toyota Hybrids have been known to drive 400k miles without major hiccups. There exist use cases that EVs just can’t fulfill right now. So why not save 30-40% fuel while battery production is ramping, which will take a few more years.
    - sitkack 4y ago
      > They are the worst of both worlds: anemic, still burning fuel You should back up these strong opinions with some facts. Hybrid batteries which minuscule compared to EVs, put out 25kw+ instantaneous power. More than enough to beat ICE cars across the intersection.
      - antisinguIarity 4y ago
        >Hybrid batteries which minuscule compared to EVs, put out 25kw+ instantaneous power. Which is exactly the problem with hybrid batteries - the peak power demanded from them is about the same as a pure EV, but each cell is put under much greater load because there are fewer of them. Those tiny, over-stressed hybrid batteries will not last very long. Not that many people will notice, as they just want a car that can take them where they want to go.
    - toast0 4y ago
      I drive a PHEV (Ford C-Max) and I don't get the claim that it's anemic. It spins the tires just fine taking off, and I've never felt it was short of power except the couple times I tried to quickly get up to highway speeds in 'EV Only' mode. But running in EV Only mode at highway speeds uses the battery too fast anyway. It's better to use gasoline to go fast and electricity to go slow unless I was expecting to have enough electricity to do the whole trip. You can still put it in 'EV Now' which will mostly use the battery but turn on the engine when you need it for acceleration. Combustion maintenance intervals are doubled on the PHEV vs a conventional gas only vehicle. And the transaxle shouldn't require any service (although Ford had some manufacturing defects and a recently got a new one under warranty). Battery manufacturing improvements would improve a PHEV too. Smaller batteries would take up less storage space (C-Max design is suboptimal) or allow for a bigger EV range with the same volume.
    - throw0101a 4y ago
      > They are the worst of both worlds: anemic, still burning fuel, hybrid complexity and combustion maintenance. As someone who has neither a garage, nor a driveway, I have to park on the street. So I have no convenient place to charge a vehicle at home. And probably neither does anyone else in a community built pre-WW2: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb
- kyrra 4y ago
  Only if the power charging the battery is cleaner than petroleum based fuels. If we had nuclear everywhere, I'd totally agree with you. But if you in get your power from coal power plants, you will cause more emissions charging an electric car compared to petrol car. You're also assuming the electric grids around the world can handle this increase in load.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    False. A petrol car burns petrol it’s entire life. An EV is already cleaner burning coal than a petrol vehicle, and the electric grid will only get cleaner over time. You can Google “well to wheel efficiency” to confirm. With regards to charging infra, yes, I assume at the current global production rate of ~2 million EVs/year built and sold, the electric grid can absorb these new distributed loads (which are roughly the same draw as a large central heat pump, 20-40amps). There are already systems to orchestrate vehicle charging when there is excess clean energy on a local grid (“DER”). Tesla supports this today with a Scandinavian utility, no different then your Nest thermostat shedding AC load during peak power demand but the inverse. Below is a list of jurisdictions banning new fossil fuel vehicle sales and when the bans go into effect. Everyone has plenty of notice to prepare. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehicles#Places_with_planned_fossil-fuel_vehicle_restrictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...
    - kyrra 4y ago
      Many people will be charging their vehicles in the evening after being out for the day. In the US, this time of day is already a large power draw just as solar power starts to wane for the day. If the cars delays charging until after this peak, solar and wind won't be as prevalent either. Your heat pump comment makes my point for me. This is additional draw on top of what homes already draw today. Yes, it's just a 20-50amp draw, but this is a new draw and will be there year around, along when a heat pump may also be running. And while you point out that there is regulation around the sale of electric vehicles, is there regulation around the production of clean energy? What to expect to happen with Russia cutting off natural gas, and the US slowing down or stopping the permitting of new drilling locations of natural gas. Where do you expect all of the energy to charge these electric vehicles to come from as the world seems to push back against fossil fuels for powering our grid. World leaders are still hesitant about nuclear. But they're also fighting fossil fuels at the same time. Solar, wind, and hydro will not be enough to cover this increase demand plus normal growth.
- adolph 4y ago
  It is good for now, given battery powered vehicles' advantage in terms of regulation. My guess is that as they become the majority of vehicles over time there will be an interest in efficiency regulation similar to fuel economy for ICE engines. There is already an interest in taxing electric vehicles differently given the eroding base of road-building taxes based on hydrocarbon fuels.
mtgx 4y ago
diebeforei485 4y ago
This is a good thing. I am not sure why any new passenger vehicle should be purely ICE powered.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  Unless it's a plugin hybrid, a hybrid is still powered by an internal combustion engine.
  - nixass 4y ago
    There was a market research in Germany and plug ins are mostly owned by upper class, using it for cheaper/free parking and (ab)using government incentives for co2 grants. Funniest thing is there's very low percentage of owners who drive them in EV mode, they barely bother to charge them, it's being ran in ICE mode all the time. It's purely for playing the system, catch few benefits (parking) and not giving a shit about the environment. Beat me for source, read it few months back
    - tecleandor 4y ago
      When you can get a 455hp (317 ICE + 145 Electric) Volvo XC90 Recharge T8, and qualifies as "zero emission" and gets free parking all around the city... you understand the classification is quite a joke. Of course, it's absurdly huge (2300Kg, 5 metes long...) and its price is almost 100K€. It's not precisely popular.
      - sidewndr46 4y ago
        Why is such a vehicle considered zero emissions?
        tecleandor 4y ago
        At least on Spain, they give that category to Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicles with a range of more than 40km in full electric mode. https://www.dgt.es/nuestros-servicios/tu-vehiculo/tus-vehiculos/distintivo-ambiental/etiqueta-cero/ https://www.dgt.es/nuestros-servicios/tu-vehiculo/tus-vehicu...
justoreply 4y ago
> bloated hybrid not necessary, Toyota hybrids don't have a clutch or gears, so they have a comparable complexity to a purely ICE powered car
- antisinguIarity 4y ago
  Doesn't save much space or weight - the car will still be larger and heavier.

mpol 4y ago

I think the same model gets larger each generation because of marketing reasons. And since all the manufacturers are doing this, no manufacturer can escape from this. At the top of the line models disappear, at the bottom of the line new models get added. Where it goes wrong is at the bottom of the line. There are now so many safety regulations (I am looking at you, EU), that these cars get heavier and more costly to make. Many manufacturers decide to step out or up their game. 10 years ago, the cheapest model of a manufacturer would maybe be 10 thousand Euro. Now it easily starts at 15 thousand Euro, and it will mostly be a model of some years ago. New models at the low and small end are priced heavier, because of all these safety regulations.

bjourne 4y ago
Which safety regulations have caused cars to get heavier?
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  The ones involving hitting obstacles and not crushing the passengers. Bigger and heavier vehicles are at an obvious advantage here, due to longer crumple zones, stronger frames etc.
- prepend 4y ago
  Airbags, crumple zones in frame. Here’s a whole list of US safety regulations and the weight they added through 2012, https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/812354 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/8123...
  - bjourne 4y ago
    Thanks. The report says that 5% of the weight of new cars can be linked to safety features. So safety features can't be the main reasons cars have gotten heavier.
- invalidator 4y ago
  Off the top of my head, airbags, anti-intrusion beams, ABS, pedestrian protection (the hood has to be higher, which makes the whole car taller), rollover protection (the pillars are much thicker to prevent the roof from collapsing). They're sensible things, but each adds weight. Most of them scale sub-linearly with vehicle size, so the burden literally weighs heavier on small cars.

gnicholas 4y ago

Unintended consequences are real.

Animats 4y ago

The fuel economy regulations don't apply to electric cars, so this may decrease as a problem as the fleet goes electric.

adolph 4y ago

The article has a pretty interesting argument and seems logical. If a vehicle has some minimum set of vertexes and safety equipment that are held constant despite size, then faced with higher fuel economy standards the automaker can choose between lengthening edges (cheap and certain) or changing engine technology (expensive and risky). "Generally, the larger the vehicle footprint, the lower the corresponding vehicle fuel economy target. Footprint-based standards help to distribute the burden of compliance across all vehicles and all manufacturers. Manufacturers are not compelled to build vehicles of any particular size or type (nor does the proposed rule create an incentive to do so), and each manufacturer will have its own fleet-wide production-weighted standard that reflects the vehicles it chooses to produce." [0] "CAFE standards signaled the end of the traditional long station wagon, but Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca developed the idea of marketing the minivan as a station wagon alternative, while certifying it in the separate truck category to allow compliance with less-strict CAFE standards." 0. https://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rulemaking/pdf/cafe/2017-25_CAFE_NPRM_Factsheet.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rulemaking/pdf/cafe/2017-2... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy#SUVs_and_Minivans_created_due_to_original_mandate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
Subaru was able to hack this by making their Legacy station wagon a truck since Chrysler was able to game the system with the PT Cruiser "truck".

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

I'd like to commend TFA for being (a) well written (b) full of numerically based explanations of a numerical phenomenon (c) providing plenty of links to dive in a bit deeper (d) properly considering the complexity and broader context of the question in its closing paragraphs. It feels rare to me to read articles that manage to do all four of these, no matter what the topic is.

newaccount2021 4y ago

legitster 4y ago

CAFE is not a particularly good law, but the arms race for crash safety is clearly to blame. The majority of difference between a 1990 Golf and a 2022 Golf is in the size and complexity of the body. And if you need a 30% bigger and more expensive frame to keep up your crash safety rating, you may as well add a few inches of passenger room. We also cannot flatly ignore consumer preference. Two door car options used to be incredibly popular. But ask a new car buyer today if they are willing to part with rear passenger doors to save $1500 on their car and they will look at you like you are crazy.

Markoff 4y ago
good luck with resale of two door car, while you can ignore extra two doors while using it, nobody who needs them (and that will be vast majority of buyers) will even look at your car
fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago
I suspect there’s something a bit like the “small phone” problem: there’s almost certainly a market for smaller sedans and coupes, but for whatever reason companies have decided that it’s not worth their time to make cars for that market. (There’s a similar issue for families with 6+ kids, where there’s just not a lot of good options in the “more seats than a minivan” space)
- deadmutex 4y ago
  Ehn, didn't Apple over estimate the small phone market? It seemed like a good idea on paper, and there were many vocal supporters on the internet.. but at the end of the day, it missed expectations.
  - deadmutex 4y ago
    Adding to that, I think there are tradeoffs you typically make with small phones. E.g. worse battery life or slower phones. Given these tradeoffs, people end up not choosing small phones. If you could have same specs as an ultra or a pro in a smaller body, that is a different story.

noobermin 4y ago

The fix is easy but politically difficult, remove the distinction for light trucks or at least severely increase the standard for them, then the benefit for crossovers will disappear. The industry responded to regulations and they can respond again.

nradov 4y ago

The whole notion of fuel economy regulations is so stupid. If we want people to burn less fuel then just increase the tax on fuel and let the market sort it out. Which is worse, a Chevrolet Tahoe driven 3K miles per year or a Toyota Prius driven 25K miles per year?

burlesona 4y ago
Agreed. There’s profound value in simple rules that we can actually reason about. Yet it seems that governments are only capable of adding complexity on top of the existing mountain of regulatory tech debt.
noobermin 4y ago
Why not do both?
dlp211 4y ago
I agree with you in concept but in reality go ahead and try passing a gas tax in the US. You will end your political career and you won't get your tax.
- nradov 4y ago
  We already have a federal gas tax in the US. Most states also impose their own gas taxes. Increasing the gas tax would be politically difficult, which is why most serious proposals call for coupling it to a cut in income taxes in order to make the overall net change revenue neutral. The tax increase would also have to be gradually phased in over 10+ years in order to give consumers time to adjust.
  - massysett 4y ago
    Yikes that’s a great recipe for a regressive tax hike. The poor and working class feel the pinch every time gas prices inch up. Those with higher incomes only notice at all if they pay attention to the sign at the gas station—and many don’t and won’t even bother to cross the road to save money on gas.

NikolaNovak 4y ago

I feel this is completely and ignorantly misstating reality. Yes, e.g. Golf has grown over last few decades. I assume this is so each and every year they can say in marketing materials that it's a bit bigger and better, or that it's biggest and best in its category, however that category is conveniently defined. But now there are two more cars underneath it in vw range - Lupo and Polo! Same for any other car mentioned - sure Honda Civic is bigger. But Honda fit now occupies it's previous spot. And so on for all manufacturers - any given name plate gets bigger and better but something slots underneath. Tuscon is what Santa fe was 20 years ago. Etc etc. I find the premise deeply flawed and whole content of article a sloppy p0st hoc rationalization based on flawed premise.

jeffbee 4y ago
Since this article is about American regulations, the existence of the Lupo, Polo, and Fit are irrelevant. None of those cars are sold in the U.S.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  But they ARE made. I don't think golf grew because of usa regulations. I think golf grew for other reasons - and then consumer preference , profit margins, safety, and fuel regulations combined to guide what is feasible to sell in USA. Article's premise of cause and effect (these models grew because of usa fuel regulations) is I believe thusly easily disproven. Don't get me wrong, I personally love small economic hatchbacks. But my values and politics and environmental thoughts are irrelevant - golf grew across the world for reasons many and various outside of usa laws... And other small models replaced it. This appears to be a multi decade strategy across the board.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  The Honda Fit was sold in the US for a least 13 years. Honda EOL'ed it last year for the NA market.
aczerepinski 4y ago
I've never heard of the VW Lupo or Polo so I looked them up. No mention of either on vw.com. Wikipedia says the Lupo was discontinued on 2005. The Polo has never been sold in the US and its popularity is steadily declining in Europe (as measured by sales figures). The Honda Fit was discontinued in the US in 2020.

twobitshifter 4y ago

Although crossovers are mentioned what’s not called out is the platform sharing between crossovers and sedans. The platform will be built for the high volume crossover and the sedan adapted to it. I also don’t understand how the crosstrek gets to be a light truck since it doesn’t meet the first requirements of open bed/3 rows/10 pass. Maybe in this sentence the author meant “may instead” instead of “must also”? > Perhaps most crucially, however, light trucks must also meet a set of measured requirements that deem them capable of "off-highway operation." Finally, I’d really like a full-size sedan but there’s a lack of options in the market right now. This used to be something that dominated sales. The Civic is “growing” but it is still 20 inches shorter than an 80s Olds 88? Even the extra long Audi a8 is five inches shorter. Stretching a car in the middle should do little to harm the fuel economy, all the heavy parts are already dealt with, but it appears that available car lengths are being squeezed at both ends. The subcompacts are vanishing but so are the full size models.

dahdum 4y ago
Guidelines read to me like just having the off-road capability is sufficient, which makes sense as it’s referring to non-passenger automobiles in general. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/part-523/section-523.5 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/p...

jeffbee 4y ago

There is nothing you can change in the CAFE regs that will be as simple, easy, and effective as a $5/gallon fuel tax. By the way, one car that the article doesn't mention, which bucks all these trends, is the Mazda MX-5 Miata. The 2022 model is very similar in every dimension to the 1990 model, and uses 25% less fuel despite having 50% more power. The later model weighs only 10% more even though it meets 30 more years worth of crash standards.

Zak 4y ago

It seems to me the problem with the footprint model is much the same as the previous model holding "trucks" to a different standard: it's treating size as a good reason for people to buy less efficient cars. Size is occasionally a good reason. Someone who needs to carry 15 passengers needs a van, and someone with a heavy load to haul needs a truck. The trend in the US, however has been for people who only need cars to drive trucks and large SUVs. Outright telling people what to drive seems like government overreach to me, but there may be another way: adjust the standards so that large vehicles don't get special treatment. Selling too many large vehicles would then hurt a car manufacturer's average and they would be incentivized to stop making such vehicles as appealing for everyday use, e.g. by removing luxury options.