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On the one hand - bad for an EV. On the other hand - yes a big giant EV truck may be less efficient than a sedan. The thing is Americans just do not buy sedans

On the one hand - bad for an EV. On the other hand - yes a big giant EV truck may be less efficient than a sedan. The thing is Americans just do not buy sedans. We can hem & haw and browbeat consumers, but if they want to buy big trucks.. better EV flavored ones than V8 coal rolling polluters. The more form factors are available in EV flavor, and the more price points they can hit.. the better.

CalRobert 4y ago
If they want to buy big trucks, we need to consider those trucks' negative externalities. A bigger, faster, heavier, and more deadly vehicle, imposes costs on everyone around it.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  That is the point. You are showing you are in a position to impose costs on everyone around you, especially with a Hummer.
- xerxex 4y ago
  People are selfish. I keep hearing communism is a nice idea but fails in practice. Well, unchecked capitalism is a nice idea until the world collapses.
  - lliamander 4y ago
  - akomtu 4y ago
    Capitalism is well suitable to people at their current level, which is about developing a strong ego with intelligence and clear boundaries. Communism was appropriate in the past, when people had weak notion of self, is not appropriate now, and will be appropriate in the future when people want to give more and take less. "I think my nature was always one that strove to yield itself to the great whole of which it was such a small part - and by yielding itself, to draw back into it the sustenance of life." - a pretty good allegory on the essense of communism done right.
    - albatross13 4y ago
      > and will be appropriate in the future when people want to give more and take less ..5000 years later... > people still suck > lol guys communism will work eventually just trust me bro, it's not the system it's the people that make up the system
      - akomtu 4y ago
        Way more than 5000 years. People don't change that quickly.
        albatross13 4y ago
        Lol, touche. I hope for all our sake that you are eventually correct, though I fear we'll be extinct before that's ever the case
        pawsforthought 4y ago
        Given that all of recorded history has taken place in the last 10500 years, and that time has seen a huge diversity of social structures in civilizations across the globe, I think your pessimism is unfounded. Yes, people are selfish. People also have a great capacity for cooperation and altruism, given sufficient cause to bind them together. I rather hope that the impending collapse of the biosphere that sustains all life is just such a cause. Then again, we appear to be setting the world on fire at an ever greater pace.
- lliamander 4y ago
  Aren't those negative externalities already factored into things like the cost of fuel and liability insurance?
  - my_usernam3 4y ago
    And registration! I have a large truck for only occasional dirt bike trips and I pay up A LOT of money to the government for it.
- lvass 4y ago
  I too only buy food that reached my town via horseback. Who cares about how useful trucks are when they could kill people?
  - plankers 4y ago
    nobody here is talking about freight vehicles
    - lvass 4y ago
      What are pick-ups used for, then? In my country they're mostly owned by farmers.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - _whiteCaps_ 4y ago
        Around here they're used to drop kids off at elementary schools.
      - corrral 4y ago
        They're popular in the US: 1) As status symbols (because they're expensive, and because their "truck = freedom" advertising has been very successful) that still read as blue-collar / "red"; and, 2) Explicitly because of their size—they're perceived (pretty accurately) as being far more likely to "win" a crash than a smaller car, and they also put you up high, so you have better visibility. Not sure if the latter actually translates to more safety, but it's certainly perceived to. This is also a big reason SUVs sell well. There may be some related "I like to intimidate other drivers" factor here, too (not my uncharitable guess, as I've heard it seriously expressed by truck owners, and I'm also not saying this is extremely common—but it's common enough that I've encountered it several times). For that last part, see again: status symbol. Some portion of the population owns trucks for the same reasons people own trucks in other rich countries, but that's not the reason they're unusually popular here. It's largely a form of class & political signaling ("I'm in your tribe, and also not poor") coupled with some tragedy-of-the-commons personal/family safety concerns. [EDIT] 3) Aspirational purchases and poor cost/benefit analysis. Think: the lettuce you buy then don't eat before it goes bad. "I really want to get into [x activity that is easier with a truck] and I need to buy a vehicle of some kind, so I should get a truck" -> buys truck -> does not actually use truck-specific functionality anywhere near enough to justify purchase vs. use of paid services or rentals.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Insurers aren’t properly internalizing the liability costs and therefore are pricing premiums too low for the risk these vehicles create. Maybe judgements need to be higher for deaths and injuries caused by overweight vehicles? I don’t have enough context to say. If they’re significantly more dangerous, it should be priced accordingly (based on claims data).
  - lliamander 4y ago
    They would certainly be leaving a lot of money on the table if that were true.
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      Right, if big vehicles are more dangerous, where is that uninternalized cost being squeezed out if not the vehicle owner’s premium.
      - slg 4y ago
        Who says more dangerous equals more expensive? Killing a victim can often be cheaper than the medical costs required to treat a severely injured person.
        kube-system 4y ago
        Or more commonly, someone who drives a compact car drunk habitually through a dangerous neighborhood is higher risk than a high-income person with a good driving record who drives a heavy car in a quiet suburb. The people who cause the most insurance losses are often people who really don't have their lives together. They're driving cheap pieces of junk and wrecking them frequently.
        lliamander 4y ago
        > Killing a victim can often be cheaper than the medical costs required to treat a severely injured person. Maybe, but I am rather skeptical of this claim being true under most circumstances. And even if it is true that the payout from insurance is bigger in the case of injury than death, there's potentially lost revenue if the insured goes to jail.
- Swizec 4y ago
  If those externalities were priced correctly, people would stop buying big cars. That’s why they’re not. This is the sort of things governments can be good at if they choose. Otherwise gas/energy prices will eventually do it for us. And it won’t be pretty.
  - lliamander 4y ago
    > If those externalities were priced correctly, people would stop buying big cars. That isn't what it means to "price externalities correctly". Pricing them correctly means that the price covers the cost of the externality. That doesn't stop people who are willing and able to pay the price from doing so. > This is the sort of things governments can be good at if they choose. Otherwise gas/energy prices will eventually do it for us. And it won’t be pretty. This is exactly the sort of thing you want a market to sort out. Rising energy prices would naturally create the market pressure needed to find alternatives. It's the kind of problem firms would see coming a long way off and prepare for.
    - Swizec 4y ago
      > Pricing them correctly means that the price covers the cost of the externality My argument is that current fuel and energy prices do not cover all externalities. And I'm suggesting that maybe they should. > This is exactly the sort of thing you want a market to sort out. Yes and that doesn't work very well when fuel, roads, and the car industry are heavily subsidized in an effort to make car culture more affordable. Part of the problem is that knowing the true price of relevant externalities is currently difficult or impossible. We'll find out eventually one way or another. Through the price of habitable real estate and lower crop yields if nothing else.
- LordDragonfang 4y ago
  Not only only we not pricing in those externalities, the current regulations are structured in a way that actively incentivizes bigger vehicles, above and beyond consumer preferences: https://www.thedrive.com/news/small-cars-are-getting-huge-are-fuel-economy-regulations-to-blame https://www.thedrive.com/news/small-cars-are-getting-huge-ar...
jeffbee 4y ago
This is not because of some innate character of Americans, it is because of specific state policies and subsidies. Fuel prices and registration fees are only slightly higher in California but that small economic nudge is enough to knock trucks completely out of the ranks of best-selling vehicles in that state. The Model 3, Camry, Civic, and Corolla all outsell any pickup truck in California.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jjulius 4y ago
  >Fuel prices and registration fees are only slightly higher in California but that small economic nudge is enough to knock trucks completely out of the ranks of best-selling vehicles in that state. I'd be cautious about blaming it all on fuel prices. I'd argue that the increased wealth of California residents relative to the rest of the country also plays a part in why a vehicle that is too expensive for most people made it so high on that list in California.
  - thfuran 4y ago
    Trucks aren't especially cheap.
    - jjulius 4y ago
      2022 Ford F-150 XL: $30,870[0] Tesla Model 3: $46,990[1] [0]https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/?intcmp=vhp-attribute-modselect-f150 https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/?intcmp=vhp-attribut... [1]https://www.tesla.com/model3/design https://www.tesla.com/model3/design
      - jeffbee 4y ago
        Not sure what you were trying to cherry-pick there, but in general trucks cost more than cars, and this has been the case for decades. The recent new record highs for average new light vehicle price has been largely driven by a continued shift toward trucks and away from cars. https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1168-january-11-2021-average-new-light-truck-price-2019-was-43-higher https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1168-janu...
rascul 4y ago
> The thing is Americans just do not buy sedans. I see more sedans on the road than any other type of vehicle. Crossovers I see almost as much, though.
- jjulius 4y ago
  >Nationally, 80% of the top 10 sellers are either trucks or SUVs (Honda Civic and Toyota Camry are the exceptions). https://www.edmunds.com/most-popular-cars/ https://www.edmunds.com/most-popular-cars/
  - abeppu 4y ago
    I'm more confused by how this seems to be a recent phenomenon. A decade ago non-trucks and light trucks were on roughly even footing, but after about 2015 the distribution shifts meaningfully towards light trucks. What made Americans want trucks more? https://www.statista.com/statistics/199981/us-car-and-truck-sales-since-1951/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/199981/us-car-and-truck-...
    - kube-system 4y ago
      "Light truck" is a problematic term in the US -- it can be defined in multiple ways, often exacerbated by automakers desire to get around fuel economy requirements. Assuming that "light truck" in this context includes SUVs, that may correlated with the introduction of sub-compact SUVs into the US which have been extremely popular with drivers who are intimidated by driving large vehicles and like the confidence of sitting higher than in a traditional car. Many of these are basically just hatchbacks with some stying tweaks a couple inches of extra height. So it may not necessarily be "Americans wanting trucks" that you're seeing in that data, but instead "Automakers styling their vehicles slightly differently, calling it an SUV, and avoiding fines for violating CAFE standards"
    - WorldMaker 4y ago
      Some of it is supply: the manufacturers build more and the dealers find ways to sell them. Those marketing efforts drive what average people "want". (That's the role of marketing.) Some of it is a brinksmanship snowball: If I'm safer in a bigger vehicle when more other people are driving bigger vehicles, I need a bigger vehicle. Some of is budgets: There are a lot of sub-factors here, but one key viewpoint is that there are two very strong markets with very different goals. The new buyer is looking at marketing, and swayed by fashion trends, on average more likely to trade in for the "newest model" for aesthetic or fashion reasons on a regular basis. The used buyer is more budget/maintenance driven, more likely to use a car for utilitarian purposes than treat it as a fashion symbol, more likely to drive the car for longer. Car companies are selling to that first buyer and what they (think) they want, they don't care about the used car market because they don't get their cut of the used car market. There are arguably a lot more used buyers and car companies don't care what they want. To some extent they take what they can get after the "fashionistas" get bored and don't express their wants all that directly. Some of it is maintenance: The average maintenance life for sedans still seems to be much higher than trucks/SUVs. Longer maintenance life is longer life in the used markets and longer life on the road. It's anecdotal data, but have you ever car watched and tried to estimate the average model year of the cars that pass you by? To me SUVs and Trucks almost always look at most five years old, but you'll see all sorts of 10, 15, 20 year old sedans. I think those last two points are especially important asterisk to that "Americans don't buy sedans" from the anecdotal perspective of what you see on the road: Americans don't buy new sedans regularly. Sedans seem to last 20 years on "average". Sedans are rarely "fashionable". Sedan buyers favor good long maintenance life. It was the "lesson" of the 80s wave when Japanese manufacturers proved Americans were desperate for reliable, easily maintained sedans and compacts. It was again the "lesson" of the late 00s wave when Korean manufacturers proved Americans were desperate for reliable, easily maintained sedans and compacts. It seems like a "lesson" doomed to repeat roughly every 20 years as old ones age out of the used market. (I think the current EV manufacturers are ignoring/forgetting the "lesson" at their own peril. It could be someone new and fresh like the Chinese this time taking advantage of the used market's huge desire for reliable, easily maintained EV sedans and compacts.)
NoLinkToMe 4y ago
> We can hem & haw and browbeat consumers, but if they want to buy big trucks.. better EV flavored ones than V8 coal rolling polluters. Yes, or perhaps regulate these tanks that are a disaster for human life in all the years past 2150 (i.e., a time people born in the next twenty years will live to experience)... I mean, I can't just bring a gigantic 500 kilo suitcase on an airplane. There's costs associated to the airplane and other passengers, and thus doing this is priced such that nobody does this for fun or mere convenience, but rather only very rarely out of necessity. In fact, only on the rare occasion when the costs are worth paying because the value is equal or higher than the price. There's rules & conditions to using certain services and infrastructure like an airplane. Roads aren't any different, we just happen to accept rules & conditions that are ridiculously imbalanced, aren't pricing in the costs, and are disastrous on a whole range of categories: from climate change, to environmental pollution, to human health and safety, congestion and geopolitical issues around oil dependence.
- lesuorac 4y ago
  Personally know a few people who drives trucks solely because they have wider seats so they fit comfortably in the vehicle.
  - pawsforthought 4y ago
    Are these people obese? I don’t judge. It’s sad really, the way corporate interests have so profoundly shaped the fabric of North American cities towards car dependence, and hijacked our proclivity for calorific foods to the point of widespread overconsumption.
    - matwood 4y ago
      I'm a taller guy with wide shoulders. Not obese at all. Most cars are uncomfortable to me because the bucket seats aren't wide enough. I own an 2007 Tundra and it's the most comfortable vehicle I've driven. It's also the smallest truck that can tow my boat. I don't think corporate interest shaped my desire for an old truck and even older boat, but who knows.
greenthrow 4y ago
The ubiquity of SUVs is a phenomenon of the last 30 years. I remember when it started taking off in the 90s. It's not an eternal thing that can't be changed.
- steveBK123 4y ago
  Sure, but the idea that we are going to both legislate away ICE and legislate away SUVs in one go.. and not get destroyed in the voting both next cycle is... dubious. If you live in norther climates there are some advantages to SUVs/crossovers in terms of ground clearance. Winter, even with AWD and winter tires can be a problem in my sedan when I bottom out at every poorly plowed intersection. Sedans are also a PITA as soon as you want to haul both people AND stuff at once. Or anything with a dimension wider than 3 feet. SUVs do offer benefits in terms of semi-regular things normies do like moving your kids in/out of college 4x/year with the semester system, taking your family on road trips instead of flying (which is way more polluting!), hauling large dogs, Costco runs, etc. People with various sorts of outdoors enthusiasm also may use them to haul, roof rack or tow more outdoorsy gear. Not everything other people prefer is because they are bad people who are evil and need to be stopped. I'd be curious how exactly you'd legislate away SUVs now that the genie is out of the bottle. What's an SUV, whats a cross over, whats a commercial vehicle, etc. If you go by weight, plenty of sedans violate worse than small SUVs.. In fact if you go by weight class you may ban EVs and allow ICE!
  - yonaguska 4y ago
    I'm the moron that used to do Costco runs on a motorcycle. And that usually included balancing toilet rolls and a pizza on the tank.
  - greenthrow 4y ago
    I live in Michigan. I can do Costco runs in my Nissan Leaf. Families got by fine in the 50s through the 80s without needing to have SUVs.
tootie 4y ago
This is the thing that drives me nuts. Remember the anti-SUV mania of the 90s? It completely failed and SUV consumption skyrocketed and people stopped buying minivans and station wagons. The absolute least, smallest, simplest thing an ordinary consumer can do to decrease emissions is to just buy a smaller car and people just did the opposite. You're right that our only choice is to meet consumers where they are it just makes it such an uphill battle. Everyone complains that elected leaders and corporations are not doing anything to fight climate and it's almost entirely because people are telling them not to.
- jrapdx3 4y ago
  Yeah, that's how I remember it too. Back then I wondered why some people I knew bought SUVs even though they were only needing to commute to/from work. In the early 2000's my own situation changed, I was needing to haul relatively heavy/bulky items. I acquired a Honda Pilot because of its rated 1300 lb payload, better than a small pickup. After a while that need ended, but I kept the Pilot and still drive it. However since then it's used <3000 mi/year, a good thing with price of fuel being what it is now. The Pilot was/is built on the same platform as the Honda minivan, albeit with slightly modified drive train. Pilot and minivan have essentially identical mileage ratings. So with these models switching from minivan to "SUV" makes no difference in fuel usage. Can't disagree that old-style "station wagons" were more fuel-efficient than minivans and similar size vehicles. However, station-wagons seem to have disappeared from the scene at least to my observation. Out of fashion I suppose. And from the fuel usage point of view that's unfortunate. EVs are the future but expense factors will keep ICE in the picture for some years to come. Do you suppose the current increased fuel prices will inspire a resurgence of smaller vehicles for routine transportation? In the interim that would be a good thing.
  - steveBK123 4y ago
    Exactly - its minivan to SUV swaps mostly. And its the same vehicle under the hood. Increased safety standards, crumple zones and side curtain air bags add some girth.. Station wagons I think also partially fell out of fashion because you can't do a 3 row wagon safely anymore as there's no way the rear facing vomit seats are going to survive modern safety tests. Also don't forget how ginormous modern kids seats are in cars, and how many more years kids are legally supposed to sit in safety seats compared to when we grew up. Few sedans are comfortably able to take 2 of these kid seats and still leave you with room for much cargo or a 3rd adult (grandma or grandpa) at the same time. The market for 7 seaters (of which 4-5 may be occupied at any one time) is fairly large.

CalRobert 4y ago

If they want to buy big trucks, we need to consider those trucks' negative externalities. A bigger, faster, heavier, and more deadly vehicle, imposes costs on everyone around it.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
That is the point. You are showing you are in a position to impose costs on everyone around you, especially with a Hummer.
xerxex 4y ago
People are selfish. I keep hearing communism is a nice idea but fails in practice. Well, unchecked capitalism is a nice idea until the world collapses.
- lliamander 4y ago
- akomtu 4y ago
  Capitalism is well suitable to people at their current level, which is about developing a strong ego with intelligence and clear boundaries. Communism was appropriate in the past, when people had weak notion of self, is not appropriate now, and will be appropriate in the future when people want to give more and take less. "I think my nature was always one that strove to yield itself to the great whole of which it was such a small part - and by yielding itself, to draw back into it the sustenance of life." - a pretty good allegory on the essense of communism done right.
  - albatross13 4y ago
    > and will be appropriate in the future when people want to give more and take less ..5000 years later... > people still suck > lol guys communism will work eventually just trust me bro, it's not the system it's the people that make up the system
    - akomtu 4y ago
      Way more than 5000 years. People don't change that quickly.
      - albatross13 4y ago
        Lol, touche. I hope for all our sake that you are eventually correct, though I fear we'll be extinct before that's ever the case
      - pawsforthought 4y ago
        Given that all of recorded history has taken place in the last 10500 years, and that time has seen a huge diversity of social structures in civilizations across the globe, I think your pessimism is unfounded. Yes, people are selfish. People also have a great capacity for cooperation and altruism, given sufficient cause to bind them together. I rather hope that the impending collapse of the biosphere that sustains all life is just such a cause. Then again, we appear to be setting the world on fire at an ever greater pace.
lliamander 4y ago
Aren't those negative externalities already factored into things like the cost of fuel and liability insurance?
- my_usernam3 4y ago
  And registration! I have a large truck for only occasional dirt bike trips and I pay up A LOT of money to the government for it.
lvass 4y ago
I too only buy food that reached my town via horseback. Who cares about how useful trucks are when they could kill people?
- plankers 4y ago
  nobody here is talking about freight vehicles
  - lvass 4y ago
    What are pick-ups used for, then? In my country they're mostly owned by farmers.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - _whiteCaps_ 4y ago
      Around here they're used to drop kids off at elementary schools.
    - corrral 4y ago
      They're popular in the US: 1) As status symbols (because they're expensive, and because their "truck = freedom" advertising has been very successful) that still read as blue-collar / "red"; and, 2) Explicitly because of their size—they're perceived (pretty accurately) as being far more likely to "win" a crash than a smaller car, and they also put you up high, so you have better visibility. Not sure if the latter actually translates to more safety, but it's certainly perceived to. This is also a big reason SUVs sell well. There may be some related "I like to intimidate other drivers" factor here, too (not my uncharitable guess, as I've heard it seriously expressed by truck owners, and I'm also not saying this is extremely common—but it's common enough that I've encountered it several times). For that last part, see again: status symbol. Some portion of the population owns trucks for the same reasons people own trucks in other rich countries, but that's not the reason they're unusually popular here. It's largely a form of class & political signaling ("I'm in your tribe, and also not poor") coupled with some tragedy-of-the-commons personal/family safety concerns. [EDIT] 3) Aspirational purchases and poor cost/benefit analysis. Think: the lettuce you buy then don't eat before it goes bad. "I really want to get into [x activity that is easier with a truck] and I need to buy a vehicle of some kind, so I should get a truck" -> buys truck -> does not actually use truck-specific functionality anywhere near enough to justify purchase vs. use of paid services or rentals.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
Insurers aren’t properly internalizing the liability costs and therefore are pricing premiums too low for the risk these vehicles create. Maybe judgements need to be higher for deaths and injuries caused by overweight vehicles? I don’t have enough context to say. If they’re significantly more dangerous, it should be priced accordingly (based on claims data).
- lliamander 4y ago
  They would certainly be leaving a lot of money on the table if that were true.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Right, if big vehicles are more dangerous, where is that uninternalized cost being squeezed out if not the vehicle owner’s premium.
    - slg 4y ago
      Who says more dangerous equals more expensive? Killing a victim can often be cheaper than the medical costs required to treat a severely injured person.
      - kube-system 4y ago
        Or more commonly, someone who drives a compact car drunk habitually through a dangerous neighborhood is higher risk than a high-income person with a good driving record who drives a heavy car in a quiet suburb. The people who cause the most insurance losses are often people who really don't have their lives together. They're driving cheap pieces of junk and wrecking them frequently.
      - lliamander 4y ago
        > Killing a victim can often be cheaper than the medical costs required to treat a severely injured person. Maybe, but I am rather skeptical of this claim being true under most circumstances. And even if it is true that the payout from insurance is bigger in the case of injury than death, there's potentially lost revenue if the insured goes to jail.
Swizec 4y ago
If those externalities were priced correctly, people would stop buying big cars. That’s why they’re not. This is the sort of things governments can be good at if they choose. Otherwise gas/energy prices will eventually do it for us. And it won’t be pretty.
- lliamander 4y ago
  > If those externalities were priced correctly, people would stop buying big cars. That isn't what it means to "price externalities correctly". Pricing them correctly means that the price covers the cost of the externality. That doesn't stop people who are willing and able to pay the price from doing so. > This is the sort of things governments can be good at if they choose. Otherwise gas/energy prices will eventually do it for us. And it won’t be pretty. This is exactly the sort of thing you want a market to sort out. Rising energy prices would naturally create the market pressure needed to find alternatives. It's the kind of problem firms would see coming a long way off and prepare for.
  - Swizec 4y ago
    > Pricing them correctly means that the price covers the cost of the externality My argument is that current fuel and energy prices do not cover all externalities. And I'm suggesting that maybe they should. > This is exactly the sort of thing you want a market to sort out. Yes and that doesn't work very well when fuel, roads, and the car industry are heavily subsidized in an effort to make car culture more affordable. Part of the problem is that knowing the true price of relevant externalities is currently difficult or impossible. We'll find out eventually one way or another. Through the price of habitable real estate and lower crop yields if nothing else.
LordDragonfang 4y ago
Not only only we not pricing in those externalities, the current regulations are structured in a way that actively incentivizes bigger vehicles, above and beyond consumer preferences: https://www.thedrive.com/news/small-cars-are-getting-huge-are-fuel-economy-regulations-to-blame https://www.thedrive.com/news/small-cars-are-getting-huge-ar...

jeffbee 4y ago

This is not because of some innate character of Americans, it is because of specific state policies and subsidies. Fuel prices and registration fees are only slightly higher in California but that small economic nudge is enough to knock trucks completely out of the ranks of best-selling vehicles in that state. The Model 3, Camry, Civic, and Corolla all outsell any pickup truck in California.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jjulius 4y ago
>Fuel prices and registration fees are only slightly higher in California but that small economic nudge is enough to knock trucks completely out of the ranks of best-selling vehicles in that state. I'd be cautious about blaming it all on fuel prices. I'd argue that the increased wealth of California residents relative to the rest of the country also plays a part in why a vehicle that is too expensive for most people made it so high on that list in California.
- thfuran 4y ago
  Trucks aren't especially cheap.
  - jjulius 4y ago
    2022 Ford F-150 XL: $30,870[0] Tesla Model 3: $46,990[1] [0]https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/?intcmp=vhp-attribute-modselect-f150 https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/?intcmp=vhp-attribut... [1]https://www.tesla.com/model3/design https://www.tesla.com/model3/design
    - jeffbee 4y ago
      Not sure what you were trying to cherry-pick there, but in general trucks cost more than cars, and this has been the case for decades. The recent new record highs for average new light vehicle price has been largely driven by a continued shift toward trucks and away from cars. https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1168-january-11-2021-average-new-light-truck-price-2019-was-43-higher https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1168-janu...

rascul 4y ago

> The thing is Americans just do not buy sedans. I see more sedans on the road than any other type of vehicle. Crossovers I see almost as much, though.

jjulius 4y ago
>Nationally, 80% of the top 10 sellers are either trucks or SUVs (Honda Civic and Toyota Camry are the exceptions). https://www.edmunds.com/most-popular-cars/ https://www.edmunds.com/most-popular-cars/
- abeppu 4y ago
  I'm more confused by how this seems to be a recent phenomenon. A decade ago non-trucks and light trucks were on roughly even footing, but after about 2015 the distribution shifts meaningfully towards light trucks. What made Americans want trucks more? https://www.statista.com/statistics/199981/us-car-and-truck-sales-since-1951/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/199981/us-car-and-truck-...
  - kube-system 4y ago
    "Light truck" is a problematic term in the US -- it can be defined in multiple ways, often exacerbated by automakers desire to get around fuel economy requirements. Assuming that "light truck" in this context includes SUVs, that may correlated with the introduction of sub-compact SUVs into the US which have been extremely popular with drivers who are intimidated by driving large vehicles and like the confidence of sitting higher than in a traditional car. Many of these are basically just hatchbacks with some stying tweaks a couple inches of extra height. So it may not necessarily be "Americans wanting trucks" that you're seeing in that data, but instead "Automakers styling their vehicles slightly differently, calling it an SUV, and avoiding fines for violating CAFE standards"
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    Some of it is supply: the manufacturers build more and the dealers find ways to sell them. Those marketing efforts drive what average people "want". (That's the role of marketing.) Some of it is a brinksmanship snowball: If I'm safer in a bigger vehicle when more other people are driving bigger vehicles, I need a bigger vehicle. Some of is budgets: There are a lot of sub-factors here, but one key viewpoint is that there are two very strong markets with very different goals. The new buyer is looking at marketing, and swayed by fashion trends, on average more likely to trade in for the "newest model" for aesthetic or fashion reasons on a regular basis. The used buyer is more budget/maintenance driven, more likely to use a car for utilitarian purposes than treat it as a fashion symbol, more likely to drive the car for longer. Car companies are selling to that first buyer and what they (think) they want, they don't care about the used car market because they don't get their cut of the used car market. There are arguably a lot more used buyers and car companies don't care what they want. To some extent they take what they can get after the "fashionistas" get bored and don't express their wants all that directly. Some of it is maintenance: The average maintenance life for sedans still seems to be much higher than trucks/SUVs. Longer maintenance life is longer life in the used markets and longer life on the road. It's anecdotal data, but have you ever car watched and tried to estimate the average model year of the cars that pass you by? To me SUVs and Trucks almost always look at most five years old, but you'll see all sorts of 10, 15, 20 year old sedans. I think those last two points are especially important asterisk to that "Americans don't buy sedans" from the anecdotal perspective of what you see on the road: Americans don't buy new sedans regularly. Sedans seem to last 20 years on "average". Sedans are rarely "fashionable". Sedan buyers favor good long maintenance life. It was the "lesson" of the 80s wave when Japanese manufacturers proved Americans were desperate for reliable, easily maintained sedans and compacts. It was again the "lesson" of the late 00s wave when Korean manufacturers proved Americans were desperate for reliable, easily maintained sedans and compacts. It seems like a "lesson" doomed to repeat roughly every 20 years as old ones age out of the used market. (I think the current EV manufacturers are ignoring/forgetting the "lesson" at their own peril. It could be someone new and fresh like the Chinese this time taking advantage of the used market's huge desire for reliable, easily maintained EV sedans and compacts.)

NoLinkToMe 4y ago

> We can hem & haw and browbeat consumers, but if they want to buy big trucks.. better EV flavored ones than V8 coal rolling polluters. Yes, or perhaps regulate these tanks that are a disaster for human life in all the years past 2150 (i.e., a time people born in the next twenty years will live to experience)... I mean, I can't just bring a gigantic 500 kilo suitcase on an airplane. There's costs associated to the airplane and other passengers, and thus doing this is priced such that nobody does this for fun or mere convenience, but rather only very rarely out of necessity. In fact, only on the rare occasion when the costs are worth paying because the value is equal or higher than the price. There's rules & conditions to using certain services and infrastructure like an airplane. Roads aren't any different, we just happen to accept rules & conditions that are ridiculously imbalanced, aren't pricing in the costs, and are disastrous on a whole range of categories: from climate change, to environmental pollution, to human health and safety, congestion and geopolitical issues around oil dependence.

lesuorac 4y ago
Personally know a few people who drives trucks solely because they have wider seats so they fit comfortably in the vehicle.
- pawsforthought 4y ago
  Are these people obese? I don’t judge. It’s sad really, the way corporate interests have so profoundly shaped the fabric of North American cities towards car dependence, and hijacked our proclivity for calorific foods to the point of widespread overconsumption.
  - matwood 4y ago
    I'm a taller guy with wide shoulders. Not obese at all. Most cars are uncomfortable to me because the bucket seats aren't wide enough. I own an 2007 Tundra and it's the most comfortable vehicle I've driven. It's also the smallest truck that can tow my boat. I don't think corporate interest shaped my desire for an old truck and even older boat, but who knows.

greenthrow 4y ago

The ubiquity of SUVs is a phenomenon of the last 30 years. I remember when it started taking off in the 90s. It's not an eternal thing that can't be changed.

steveBK123 4y ago
Sure, but the idea that we are going to both legislate away ICE and legislate away SUVs in one go.. and not get destroyed in the voting both next cycle is... dubious. If you live in norther climates there are some advantages to SUVs/crossovers in terms of ground clearance. Winter, even with AWD and winter tires can be a problem in my sedan when I bottom out at every poorly plowed intersection. Sedans are also a PITA as soon as you want to haul both people AND stuff at once. Or anything with a dimension wider than 3 feet. SUVs do offer benefits in terms of semi-regular things normies do like moving your kids in/out of college 4x/year with the semester system, taking your family on road trips instead of flying (which is way more polluting!), hauling large dogs, Costco runs, etc. People with various sorts of outdoors enthusiasm also may use them to haul, roof rack or tow more outdoorsy gear. Not everything other people prefer is because they are bad people who are evil and need to be stopped. I'd be curious how exactly you'd legislate away SUVs now that the genie is out of the bottle. What's an SUV, whats a cross over, whats a commercial vehicle, etc. If you go by weight, plenty of sedans violate worse than small SUVs.. In fact if you go by weight class you may ban EVs and allow ICE!
- yonaguska 4y ago
  I'm the moron that used to do Costco runs on a motorcycle. And that usually included balancing toilet rolls and a pizza on the tank.
- greenthrow 4y ago
  I live in Michigan. I can do Costco runs in my Nissan Leaf. Families got by fine in the 50s through the 80s without needing to have SUVs.

tootie 4y ago

This is the thing that drives me nuts. Remember the anti-SUV mania of the 90s? It completely failed and SUV consumption skyrocketed and people stopped buying minivans and station wagons. The absolute least, smallest, simplest thing an ordinary consumer can do to decrease emissions is to just buy a smaller car and people just did the opposite. You're right that our only choice is to meet consumers where they are it just makes it such an uphill battle. Everyone complains that elected leaders and corporations are not doing anything to fight climate and it's almost entirely because people are telling them not to.

jrapdx3 4y ago
Yeah, that's how I remember it too. Back then I wondered why some people I knew bought SUVs even though they were only needing to commute to/from work. In the early 2000's my own situation changed, I was needing to haul relatively heavy/bulky items. I acquired a Honda Pilot because of its rated 1300 lb payload, better than a small pickup. After a while that need ended, but I kept the Pilot and still drive it. However since then it's used <3000 mi/year, a good thing with price of fuel being what it is now. The Pilot was/is built on the same platform as the Honda minivan, albeit with slightly modified drive train. Pilot and minivan have essentially identical mileage ratings. So with these models switching from minivan to "SUV" makes no difference in fuel usage. Can't disagree that old-style "station wagons" were more fuel-efficient than minivans and similar size vehicles. However, station-wagons seem to have disappeared from the scene at least to my observation. Out of fashion I suppose. And from the fuel usage point of view that's unfortunate. EVs are the future but expense factors will keep ICE in the picture for some years to come. Do you suppose the current increased fuel prices will inspire a resurgence of smaller vehicles for routine transportation? In the interim that would be a good thing.
- steveBK123 4y ago
  Exactly - its minivan to SUV swaps mostly. And its the same vehicle under the hood. Increased safety standards, crumple zones and side curtain air bags add some girth.. Station wagons I think also partially fell out of fashion because you can't do a 3 row wagon safely anymore as there's no way the rear facing vomit seats are going to survive modern safety tests. Also don't forget how ginormous modern kids seats are in cars, and how many more years kids are legally supposed to sit in safety seats compared to when we grew up. Few sedans are comfortably able to take 2 of these kid seats and still leave you with room for much cargo or a 3rd adult (grandma or grandpa) at the same time. The market for 7 seaters (of which 4-5 may be occupied at any one time) is fairly large.