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The reckless policies that helped fill our streets with large cars
- Scaevolus 2y agoEVs aren't zero emission on the road, either; roughly half of the pollution of an ICE car is not from the exhaust, but from the tires breaking down and releasing tiny (likely carcinogenic) particles, and heavy electric vehicles wear down their tires faster than a lighter car.
- 0_____0 2y agoThe conversation around microplastics rarely includes this info - a significant fraction of microplastics in an urban environment are from car tires, potentially the single largest source IIRC.
- uoaei 2y agoAt a rate proportional to the fourth power of the weight per-axle[1]. So considering how much more EVs weigh compared to their ICE counterparts, we can only hope that compact and lightweight EVs become more prominent. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoEVs don't weigh that much more than ICE cars, e.g. Tesla Model 3 weighs around the same as a Ford Taurus. Moreover, EV or not is the irrelevant part of the equation. Model Y is ~4300 lbs, Ford Explorer is ~4500, Ford Excursion is ~7000, so which one do you want your neighbors driving? "Everyone should ride a 100 lb motorcycle" is the sort of hypothetical alternative that the people currently driving a big SUV are just going to scoff at and vote out anyone who attempts to force it. You'd be much more likely to succeed by e.g. trying to find a different tire composition that reduces particulates.
- redwall_hp 2y agoI drive a 3000lb Honda Fit. A 2002 Camry, which is a perfectly reasonable family sedan, tops out at about 3300lb. The 2024 is up to a beefy 3600. The answer is none of your options, emphatically. I want to see extreme taxation (to the tune of the fourth-power of axle weight) and increases in liability for operating a vehicle over 3999lb.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoThen all the cars will weigh exactly 3999 lbs, which is about what they do right now (average new car is within 100 lbs of that), and everything will cost more because your tax will hit all the small businesses that use light trucks for legitimate needs instead of grocery runs. Also, it's a de facto ban on long-range EVs (EV battery weight is proportional to range), which seems counterproductive if you care anything about climate change, because then the vehicles that see the highest number of miles continue to run on petroleum. Stop trying to regulate random indirect metrics and concentrate on the actual problems. Is it traffic and too many vehicle miles? Then build higher density housing and subways. Is it air quality? Then address particulate emissions using general rules rather than specific ones -- regulate rate at which car tires can expel particulates. If they have to reduce the weight of the car to reduce the cost, fine, but if they can find another way, that's good too. If you don't like the status quo, identify why and address that, don't just pick some isolated aspect of it and try to ban it without contemplating what incentives the rules are going to create. That's how we got into this mess.
- Filligree 2y agoWould it be unreasonable to put a third axle on?
- cagenut 2y agothats not what the word emissions means
- tomjakubowski 2y ago"zero emission" usually refers to greenhouse gases
- tmountain 2y agoWhich is unfortunate because any metric in a vacuum can be misleading regarding contribution to the aggregate.
- IshKebab 2y agoParticulates are only a local air quality issue. They don't cause global warming. This barely-an-issue is only ever brought up by people trying to naysay EVs. I've never once heard it mentioned before EVs became popular, despite heavy ICE cars being extremely common.
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- simonjgreen 2y agoAs someone who travels to the US a lot, I’ve wondered what drives this phenomenon for a long time now as it’s unlike anywhere else in the world for the vehicles you see. My assumption had been a snowballing macro edition of one-upmanship that was in the car makers favour so they leaned in with marketing, I had no idea it was legislatively beneficial to go bigger. 4 out of 5 vehicles sold being SUV or Truck is crazy though, no way does 4 out of 5 of the population need that surely.
- travisb 2y agoThe road to hell is paved with good intentions. You are right that most trips don't need SUVs and pickups, but many families need large-ish, relatively powerful vehicles like the now dead station wagon. But it is uneconomical for car builders to make station wagons, so they don't. Instead everybody who can't fit into an economy car is pushed into an SUV or pickup by practical concerns. On the other side, large and powerful luxury cars are also not economic for car makers to build, so instead car makers add luxury to large utility models. From there it's a trickle-down of cachet so owning a sedan or hatchback is insufficient for those who need or want to fit in with a higher economic class.
- redwall_hp 2y agoMy recommendation to fix the problem is a federal highway tax based on the fourth power of axle weight. This also solves the problem of heavy EVs not paying gas tax. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law Maybe couple that with a requirement for a higher license tier with more liability to drive "light trucks," based on the licensing and taxation systems other countries use.
- mitthrowaway2 2y agoAbsolutely. Alberta implemented a $200 tax on EVs this year, in part "because they're heavier" and create more road wear; if they cared about that they could have simply taxed weight in proportion to the wear it creates. That puts the user fees and incentives all in the right place, and doesn't let heavy IC vehicles off the hook either.
- cebert 2y agoThere are several great examples of factors that contribute to vehicle size bloat in this article. One factor I don’t see mentioned often is the increased rates of obesity in the US. We’re nearing 40% of the population being obese [1]. Perhaps there’s several Americans who are so large they need larger vehicles in order to comfortably fit inside? [1] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html
- 0_____0 2y agoMore true for people above a certain height. There are many countries with a higher obesity rate than the U.S. but none who sell 80% trucks and SUVs. Edit: if the above hypothesis is true, we would expect average car size to correlate with obesity after controlling for factors like proximity to a dense urban area. Could be true. If you gots data let's go
- simonjgreen 2y agoWith US ranking 10th, there really aren’t many https://data.worldobesity.org/rankings/ https://data.worldobesity.org/rankings/
- happypumpkin 2y agoAnd all of the ones above the US are seemingly small island nations, with #1 being a US territory :|
- ronnier 2y agoVery few and those that do, can they afford larger cars like those in the USA can?
- rfrec0n 2y agoCars of all sizes are usually much cheaper outside the US, so I don't think it's a price thing. Maybe just because they don't spend as much time in the car or something?
- nisa 2y agoNot only in the USA. Germany also has a growing number of big SUVs. What's interesting is that it was possible 25 years ago to build a 3 litre/100km car. The Audi A2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_A2 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_A2 Now a modern SUV has at least double the weight and a worse wind resistance value and uses 6l/100km of fuel. And while there are limits what physics will allow it seems it was possible to reduce fuel consumption and emissions by at least 50% 25 years ago. With modern computer simulations and technical progress over the last 25 years something like this should be at least possible? Yet it's difficult to buy a car like this today. Somewhere something went really wrong.
- namdnay 2y agoThere was also dieselgate :)
- nisa 2y agoDieselgate was about NOx emissions and avoiding using so much AdBlue. I'm not sure that a bigger tank for that would have a big impact. As it's happening in the exhaust system there shouldn't be an impact on fuel consumption.
- WirelessGigabit 2y agoThere is regeneration that happens to burn the soot from the filter, which increases fuel consumption a little bit, but I will still take a BMW M340d xDrive station wagon over a BMW X3 M40i any day. Except I can't get the diesel here. Nor can I get a station wagon here.
- speedgoose 2y agoYou could buy the hybrid fossil i3 for many years, which was kinda the successor of the Audi a2, but better. Or also the electric i3 which was arguably better than the hybrid version if you have a charging network where you live. I think it’s trivial to buy a better car than the Audi A2 nowadays. But not with an ICE.
- ZenThereWere0 2y agoInvert this point ("SUV or a pickup colliding with a smaller car was 28 percent and 159 percent, respectively, more likely to kill that car’s driver.") to get that one is less likely to die in a big vehicle. It is in your interest to buy and drive the biggest car you can afford, due to the presence of other large cars on the road. See [1] 12 black swans to avoid, YouTube video from ER physician Dr. McGuff. First thirty seconds. Force equals mass x acceleration. [1] https://youtu.be/xoPCIUwc4zY?si=wUvR7bhkBthiTsU_ https://youtu.be/xoPCIUwc4zY?si=wUvR7bhkBthiTsU_
- trgn 2y agoPerfect illustration of the tragedy of the commons. Until there is top down intervention, people choose to be either part of the problem, or choose to be part of the solution.
- arbuge 2y agoReally interesting video that one.
- wepple 2y agoYeah, we had a very compact car. Drove my firstborn home from the hospital in it, surrounded by monster vehicles. Then traded it for a (smallish) SUV. I may wish it weren’t that way, but I’m playing the game.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago> Invert this point ("SUV or a pickup colliding with a smaller car was 28 percent and 159 percent, respectively, more likely to kill that car’s driver.") to get that one is less likely to die in a big vehicle. That's not how inversions work. If you're in a small car and get into a collision with a large truck, you're likely to die. But if you're in a truck and get into a collision with another large truck, you're still likely to die, because you still got hit by a truck. Meanwhile truck collisions are more likely given the same drivers because they have more surface area which provides less margin to avoid an impact.
- saxelsen 2y agoThis is the reason my wife insisted that we get an SUV: Concern that if she were to be in a crash with another SUV/truck, they'd obliterate her in a small car.
- politelemon 2y agoAny insight as to what happened in the UK? We seem to have caught the same bug, despite our streets being ill equipped to handle them.
- ejensler 2y agoUK just seems to be cargo-culting bad US policies at this point.
- userbinator 2y agoMid-century cars were very large too, but they had much better visibility.
- openrisk 2y agoThe fact that fuel prices is the US are like 2.5x lower than Europe may also have contributed to the oversizing trend. You would think twice about gratuitously moving around a multi-ton behemoth if it actually hurt you economically.
- gregwebs 2y agoMany Americans seem to have been told they need to drive a tank-like car to be safe. I point out that the tank is safer in a crash, but a smaller car may be able to stop in half the distance and avoid the crash altogether. I am assuming that its safer to focus on avoiding a crash than surviving it, but maybe I am wrong. Certainly it would depend on the driver. If you want to text on your phone and not maintain distance with the car in front than the tank approach is probably safer for you (but dangerous for everyone else).
- 10000truths 2y agoIt also fails to take into consideration that once everyone else gets a larger vehicle, you're less safe because two large vehicles colliding does far more damage than two small vehicles colliding at the same speed.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago> I point out that the tank is safer in a crash, but a smaller car may be able to stop in half the distance and avoid the crash altogether. The problem there is that they're not actually correlated. A BMW M5 has a shorter stopping distance than a Mazda Miata even though it weighs almost twice as much.
- gregwebs 2y agoGood point, when buying a car, one can try to buy good stopping distance. Still, all things being equal bigger classes of cars take longer to stop: https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-safety/best-and-worst-braking-distances-a2960086475/ https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-safety/best-and-wor... I also wonder what happens in real world non-ideal scenarios (including rain and snow) rather than on the perfect test tracks they test stopping distance on. Perhaps the fundamental advantage of a smaller car is increased maneuverability.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoThere isn't really anything fundamental. A heavier car has more momentum but it can also be fitted with larger tires with more contact area and the force of gravity pressing it into the road provides increased traction in proportion to mass. Cars aren't built to meet the theoretical limits of physics, they're built with trade offs against cost and other factors, so in practice things like stopping distance are less related to weight and more related to how much you prioritize it over the competing trade offs. A heavier car with the same stopping distance might cost more, but then there are people willing to pay for that.
- Freedom2 2y agoOne thing that isn't often mentioned is the diversity of the US landscape. For those who go hiking or even straying off the common road, having high ride height is desirable, which suits large SUVs perfectly.
- prmoustache 2y agoPoor excuse. Similar challenges and diversity exist in many countries. Also, only a fraction of the population have that use case, that doesn't account for 80% of the market. Mountains and dirt fireroads/doubletracks exist in every countries. You know which car was the most popular for years until the end of its production in Spain by farmers and people living at the very end of dirt roads in spanish mountains? The citroen C15! I let you google for an image. It was so light that even with only front wheel drive it was much more capable off the road than most SUV.
- FireBeyond 2y agoI would estimate that the percentage of the US population who goes off road even once in their truck or SUV is in the single digits at most (by which I mean anything more serious than parking in a grass field at the County Fair).
- Zpalmtree 2y agoWhat's wrong with letting people drive the cars they want to
- happypumpkin 2y agoI'm normally on board with variations of this argument for things that don't significantly affect other people, but cars very much affect other people. Larger cars are more likely to kill other drivers, and especially bikers and pedestrians. The damage they do to the road is also a LOT more [1] so people who drive smaller vehicles and/or walk/bike are effectively subsidizing people who drive larger vehicles. They also cause more emissions meaning more medical issues and accelerated climate change. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
- blibble 2y agobecause cars have gigantic externalities heavier cars are deadlier in accidents, they cause more damage to road surfaces, they require wider roads and parking spaces which consumes land, they require more resources to produce, they require more energy to operate, they produce more pollution, and so-on
- sniggers 2y agoThe concepts of freedom and being comfortable in your car do not compute for non-Americans (and city-slicker-Americans)
- prmoustache 2y agoThat might be ok if people were responsible and not poorly trained to the task. Also norms exist for a reason and resources on this very planet have to be shared with billions of other human beings.
- pimlottc 2y agoLiterally more road deaths
- asadotzler 2y agoBecause cars have an impact on all of us, not just those driving them. These impacts range from tens of thousands of auto deaths every year to trillions of dollars in environmental damage that we will need to clean up eventually. Your libertarian fantasies are a poor match for the actual world.
- dumbaccount123 2y ago[dead]
- User23 2y ago> Carmakers from China, an emerging automaking behemoth, face a 25 percent tariff enacted by Donald Trump. As a result, Americans cannot buy small Chinese EV sedans like the BYD Seagull that cost around $10,000, barely a fifth the price of an average American car. Uhhh? So pay the tariff and get a $12,500 electric car? Still sounds like a pretty good deal plus the government gets some revenue. Where is the problem? Where is this “cannot” coming from?
- kccqzy 2y agoIt's because BYD (rightly IMO) predicts that if they sell such a vehicle, the government will immediately react by increasing the tariff. (Also the $10,000 cost doesn't include shipping.)
- barronli 2y agoPursuit of luxury is an important factor like for bigger houses.
- newsclues 2y agoLocal parking laws are a great tool. Limit the amount of parking required, sizes, etc. invest in transit and bike infrastructure. Just make cars/drivers pay for the real costs on urban society for car storage.
- j-bos 2y agoI drive a small car, and my family has had SUVs ever since they could afford them. Were it not for cost, I would also drive an SUV or a big truck. A small car is a pain to carry people, luggage, furniture, plants, tool boxes, or anything beyond common commute items. I suspect most people with SUVs would agree. Small cars are great, until the days when they're not.
- mitthrowaway2 2y agoHave you considered a minivan?
- prmoustache 2y agoSUV do not carry more stuff than lighter passenger cars of similar interior size. Actually I found out there are use cases where an SUV is worse than a convertible or even a bicycle with a trailer. I once carried home a small tree from my kids bicycle trailer and was amused to see peopme struggling to put large plants inside their SUV without spilling dirt all over the trunk carpet. Those with a pickup truck fared a bit better yet still had a harder time than I did because their truck bed height. The only guy who was as comfortable as I was putting a large plant in his car was the guy who put the pot on the passenger seat of his convertible.
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- snapplebobapple 2y agoSo get rid of cafe standards and import duties/blocks and add a federal gas tax to price the increased pollution and fatalities of larger vehicles. This is a policy that would actually work and let us fire a lot of beaurocrats to save even more money
- throwaway22032 2y agoIf I look back at how the UK has evolved over my lifetime the main issue is essentially that we are just wealthier and therefore do more. Either that or some sort of Jevons Paradox e.g. people spend less on basic necessities and more on luxuries. There are far more cars on the roads now, and there are far more people who can simply afford to own a car that gets 20-30mpg instead of 50-70mpg. I don't really know how we can "solve" this. The main route being taken at the moment is basically to try to reduce living standards, but to code it (e.g. "reduce car journeys") in such a way that everyone doesn't revolt.