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The CAFE regulations are not causing this, in fact they are acting in the opposite direction, making vehicles safer. More aerodynamic vehicles are more fuel eff
by hristov 3y ago
The CAFE regulations are not causing this, in fact they are acting in the opposite direction, making vehicles safer. More aerodynamic vehicles are more fuel efficient and more likely to have lower and more sloped fronts and thus are also safer for pedestrians.
Furthermore, vehicles with higher fuel efficiency tend to have smaller engines and thus also have shorter noses and more sloped hoods which make them safer for pedestrians.
The only connection with the CAFE regulations you can make is that they are obviously not strict enough. Especially when it comes to trucks and SUVs. And I fully agree with this. Stricter CAFE regulations would help not only with emissions but with pedestrian safety.
The main reason for the difference between a 1990s f150 and 2020s f150 is that people have been preferring to buy bigger trucks and Ford has catered to that preference by making the trucks bigger CAFE regulations be dammed. To their credit Ford has done some very good r&d work, trying to keep their ever larger trucks relatively fuel efficient, such as by their very well publicized conversion to aluminum. But they could and should be doing more and the government should be doing more to force them to do more.
- baggy_trough 3y agoLeaving a giant loophole for trucks and very heavy vehicles is why they are causing this, by incentivizing a class of vehicles to get heavier than they otherwise would.
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- paulgerhardt 3y agoThey are not making trucks bigger despite CAFE regulations. They are making trucks bigger because of CAFE regulations. This video details why: https://youtu.be/azI3nqrHEXM https://youtu.be/azI3nqrHEXM The short version is there is an exploit to meet standards by increasing footprint that is easier to implement than to make vehicles more fuel efficient. That exploit needs to be nerfed.
- sjburt 3y agoStarting in 2014, trucks with a larger size were subject to less strict fuel efficiency requirements. This was because American automakers (who sell a lot more trucks) were unable to compete with foreign automakers that sold a lot of passenger cars that could bring their CAFE down. However, the government screwed up the scaling factor and it basically became impossible to build a small truck, while larger trucks had much easier-to-meet requirements. That led to automakers basically abandoning the passenger car market, and upsizing trucks significantly.
- raydev 3y ago> However, the government screwed up the scaling factor and it basically became impossible to build a small truck Ford left the third generation Ranger to rot for nearly 15 years because people kept choosing the ever-increasing-in-size F-150. Chevy discontined the S10 back in 2004 in favor of the larger Colorado. Customer preferences were already clear.
- weaksauce 3y agono, the regulations are to blame in a lot of the way. I'd love to have a tacoma that was the size of a small truck than the size of the tundra of the same era. the new tundras are absolute behemoths. there's a curve that the auto manufacturers are having to hit and the curve tightens every year and the requirements are also tied to the sqft of the truck. so larger footprint == less stringent mpg requirement. 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...
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