7 ms·
Wonder how much of this is just due to how massive the us is and how far we drive. I have kids so drive a minivan. It's got 3 rows of seats and storage behind.
by wonderwonder 3y ago
Wonder how much of this is just due to how massive the us is and how far we drive. I have kids so drive a minivan. It's got 3 rows of seats and storage behind. I genuinely use all the rows fairly often or if not in use I fold them down for larger space in the back. Space I often use.
Not saying I couldn't make due with a smaller car but it would definitely make things more complicated.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Y_Y 3y agoIf it's so big maybe you shouldn't drive across it so much
- vorpalhex 3y agoPeople want to visit family, go interesting places and live their lives. Any solution that requires people to live like it's the 1500s is probably a nonstarter.
- makapuf 3y agoAgreed, especially if those people are my grand grandchildren, its my responsibility. And if I need to live in the 70s for some aspects of my life well so be it. I don't want future generations role-playing Fallout. So I try my best to reduce the emissions. Bike, have less and smaller cars. Its not the middle ages and you still can have a quality life.
- frumper 3y agoPeople took a lot of road trips in the 70s...probably in a fairly inefficient station wagon.
- makapuf 3y agoExactly my point, it was not the middle ages, and yet: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/trfvolusm227nfwa https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/trfvolusm227nfwa (better if those are done is less polluting vehicles) and in the country of cars, other countries were not living on dirt roads
- ryneandal 3y agoBesides, modern engines get pretty incredible gas efficiency on the highway. A lot of the minivans these days run a 10-speed automatic with a well-tuned V6, netting nearly 300bhp and pushing 30 mpg on the Interstate. The occasional family road trip shouldn't be a cause for disdain, families with children shouldn't be shunned for wanting to travel and enjoy the various things their region has to offer.
- knowledge-clay 3y ago80% of people in manhattan have no personal vehicle and I would not say they are "living like it's the 1500s". The problem is that most of America has car-dependent infrastructure.
- beej71 3y agoI'm not sure a minivan even counts as a huge car any longer. :)
- rexreed 3y agoRemember Station Wagons?
- wonderwonder 3y agoI would definitely consider a modern version of those big wood paneled ones
- psd1 3y agoIt's mad that the US forgot about those. I drive an estate with a sportspack - it's no sports car, but it handles nicely; it has low drag, so it sips fuel on the motorway; and it carries more than a 4x4 because the load space is a better shape. Between the car and the trailer, I've hauled a metric tonne. Every third car around here used to be an estate, until the shitty crossovers invaded and destroyed all the advantages.
- all2 3y agoI once put the back seats down in my station wagon and loaded 0.75T of soil in 40lb bags. My suspension didn't like that, but the car did just fine.
- rglullis 3y agoIn Europe we still have station wagons. They are better than SUVs and these stupid american trucks in the overwhelming majority of cases.
- Lendal 3y agoI often wonder how construction gets done in Europe. Everyone in the US who works construction or even has the possibility of maybe one day needing to carry a shovel claims they absolutely must drive a truck with a 3-ton curb weight everywhere they go. How does Europe build anything, without these massive trucks everywhere?
- redox99 3y agoAnecdotally I think it's much more common for people in the US to do some work on their house by themselves than in the EU.
- tomtheelder 3y agoEven if that’s true, it’s an absurd reason to own a truck.
- mattashii 3y agoAny option of the following: Truck rentals, At-home delivery of building materials and hardware, Actual trucks with drivers licensed for trucking, Using a car with fold-down back seats
- kzrdude 3y agoHere's what they drive: https://www.byggnadsarbetaren.se/test/har-ar-bilarna-som-visar-var-skapet-ska-sta/ https://www.byggnadsarbetaren.se/test/har-ar-bilarna-som-vis... Seems like these weigh 1.8-2.0 tons
- lelandbatey 3y agoI realize you're being sarcastic, but taking this a bit seriously: I feel like a minority of "serious working professionals" (in my area, Seattle) ever actually drive "consumer pick-ups" as their working vehicle. The majority of tradespeople I've known all drive vans or specialized trucks, not consumer pickup trucks. It seems to be several reasons: - Few tradespeople are moving large loads of loose material or goods around e.g. debris or lawnmowers. If you do move dirt or lawnmowers around regularly, you're not buying a consumer Ford F150 for the purpose, you're going to buy something like an F250 with what's called a "work body" or "landscape body" (hilariously, strongly implying an off-the-shelf F250 is not equipped for work): https://cmtruckbeds.com/truck-beds/lb-landscape-body/ https://cmtruckbeds.com/truck-beds/lb-landscape-body/ - A fully enclosed van means less risk of casual stealing, and less concern for tying down every little thing during transport - Vans are generally a bit narrower than the big trucks so you can squeeze them into the strange city job sites much easier. - They don't have to worry about protecting their cargo from the elements - If you get the right van, you can stand up inside that van - A van is going to have a pretty low floor that you can generally step into and out of. A large pickup you may need to literally climb into. A tradesperson is going to have to do that like 10+ times a day It always seems like the foreman or project manager is the one you see driving the pickup truck, all the other working stiffs choose vans though.
- bombcar 3y agoThere are many factors. The minivan itself is dying, and it's almost a "perfect" car for many use cases - can hold 8, can get car-like mileage, can hold as much as an SUV, is easier to get into. But they're dying because people ain't buying, because the costs are so high and those with the money to buy new vehicles don't like them. There is NOTHING preventing small SUVs that hold 5 people and cargo, get really good mileage, and are cheap(ish) - but they don't exist used because they don't exist new. (It's sad, because I'm buying a new minivan, and I could not make the PHEV Pacifica make sense no matter how I finagled the financial numbers, the Sienna is simply unavailable at reasonable trim levels, and nobody makes an EV minivan.)
- MisterBastahrd 3y agoMinivans are mostly dying because the designs all look like they came from junior designers who hope to one day grow up and work on a real car. Not that it's their fault. They manufacture these things on set platforms and none of them do any justice to the shape of the vehicle.
- bombcar 3y agoThey're half-heartedly trying - the Kia Carnival kind of looks like an SUV from a decent distance. The Toyota Highlander is just a minivan with SUV doors.
- jhawk28 3y agoVW is coming out with the EV. Honda and Toyota are the only minivans worth buying, but good luck finding anything.
- bombcar 3y agoKia's coming in fast and is what we went with. Everyone's promising hybrid and EV but that doesn't help when the baby arrives sooner than the vehicle can ship. Honda's really dated now and needs a strong refresh. Toyota's king of the market and it shows they know, I wish someone would light a fire under them a bit.
- lkbm 3y agoTo the extent that large SUVs were a thing in the early 2000s, perhaps, but the US isn't bigger than twenty years ago, yet our cars are. Emissions standards changed in a way that benefits larger vehicles, and the size of cars exploded.
- unyttigfjelltol 3y agoFunnily enough, actual seating capacity maxes out in the minivan class and all the bloated SUVs out there walk that metric back. SUVs are purely about status and, for many people I've asked, a feeling of greater security at high speed on secondary roads from being higher off the ground. It's pretty problematic that people seek out a vehicle specifically so they can falsely feel more secure driving in a less-safe manner.
- stcroixx 3y agoMany roads in rural areas are unimproved and the extra clearance is a necessity. Towing moderately heavy stuff like boats also work better with the higher frame of an suv. So, about the same internal size plus these benefits makes it the best choice for me. Mine is 20 years old though, so I suppose I’m in negative status territory.
- unyttigfjelltol 3y agoNear-zero chance of SUVs in my city being used for towing or on unimproved roads. We must live different places. Like the difference between a Hummer in NYC on the one hand, and in War Zone XYZ. Different contexts.
- all2 3y agoFunny enough, the modern consumer Hummers were built on Chevy Suburban chassis for a long time. I have no clue what they're using now, but for the H2 (and I think the H3?) its just an uglier suburban.
- tomtheelder 3y agoWhile that’s true, a relatively small portion of Americans live in an area where that’s a serious concern. Yet go to any suburb and you’ll see huge numbers of SUVs.
- stcroixx 3y agoOnce upon a time I lived in the suburbs, but on the weekend I’d head up to the north woods and need the clearance and towing ability. Hard to understand someone’s use case unless you know them and their lifestyle.
- thesuitonym 3y ago>Wonder how much of this is just due to how massive the us is It has nothing to do with this. The US was settled, and most cities were developed before the introduction of the automobile. It's just that after WWII we bulldozed most of the country for highways and decided that cars were the only way to move around.
- all2 3y ago> most of the country I invite you to visit N. Montana or either of the Dakotas, or that stretch of highway in Nebraska that seems to go in a straight line for several hundred miles.
- bullfightonmars 3y agoWhy is the Montana strawman always an example here? Almost no one lives in Montana and no one cares about vehical sizes in Montana, except _maybe_ in Bozeman proper. Let it go, no one is talking about Montana or the Dakotas.
- all2 3y agoI figured the statement "most of the country" applied to most of the country. If we mean "the most population dense parts of the country" I'd gladly concede the point.
- frumper 3y agoMost of the population density of the country doesn't live in dense areas either.
- bullfightonmars 3y ago> most of the country The negative effects of vehicle size and dependence on infrastructure and society are intimately tied to where people live. > Urban areas make up only 3 percent of the entire land area of the country but are home to more than 80 percent of the population. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/rural-america.html#:~:text=Urban%20areas%20make%20up%20only,80%20percent%20of%20the%20population https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/rural-america....
- caconym_ 3y agoIf you need a bigger 3-row vehicle for carrying people, a minivan is by far the most reasonable choice since they tend to have good visibility and crash-compatibility with other vehicles. Low hood height also means they can have pedestrian safety features that are impossible to implement on e.g. pickups with 5+ foot hood heights.
- LucasBrandt 3y agoA minivan is a lot better for society than an SUV! It's a far more efficient use of space and weight, and isn't unnecessarily lifted so your visibility is better and your vehicle is less dangerous in a pedestrian collision. You have a practical vehicle for your situation and location. We would all be better off if a lot of urban/suburban SUV purchases were minivan purchases instead - like they were 20 years ago, and like your more recent purchase was.