>Car companies (perhaps rightly) assumed that the best way to sell America’s truck-loving population on plug-in power is to electrify a bunch of pickups. This

>Car companies (perhaps rightly) assumed that the best way to sell America’s truck-loving population on plug-in power is to electrify a bunch of pickups. This smacks of revisionist history. American car companies mostly stopped selling cars when the EPA made emissions restrictions for cars and not for trucks (auto lobbyists helped). They based the regulation on something the auto industry gets to define for itself. Since then, vehicles have been getting bigger. Lots of Americans aren't happy about it. Many still buy these because there's an arms race for road visibility. You need a giant vehicle to see around the giant vehicles. Others buy the popular thing because of deals and the increased possibility of getting parts to fix it in several years. It's harder to get parts for a vehicle that was only sold for two years twenty years ago. US customers have been buying large vehicles, but that doesn't mean the customers have been the ones driving the trend.