5 ms·

There's an interesting whack-a-mole dynamic at play here, since, from what I've read, the proliferation of huge trucks is partly driven by regulations in the fi

by dilap 2y ago

There's an interesting whack-a-mole dynamic at play here, since, from what I've read, the proliferation of huge trucks is partly driven by regulations in the first place -- fuel efficiency standards are less stringent for large trucks, the normal existing safety regs (which focus on the people insider the car) are easier to pass in large vehicles, and (tho this probably isn't a huge driver) there are business tax write-offs that only apply to vehicles above a certain weight.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
> fuel efficiency standards are less stringent for large trucks Worth nothing that those standards were begged, pleaded, demanded, cried and shitted for on the part of every major US automaker before they were passed, and it was only after that/because of that that every major automaker began working like hell to sell the American public on SUVs and trucks. Simple fact is that full-size trucks are the only vehicle category that Detroit is able to compete on (less so now than then, but then this was extremely true) after they got their asses roundly handed to them by the various Asian ones that did cars, vans, and MPVs much better. US automakers bet the farm on building ever larger and more ridiculous vehicles for Americans because it was just easier than competing with the Japanese/Koreans on a fair field. I hope like hell this goes somewhere and we can get these stupid things under control. Feels like every Tom, Dick, and Harry around where I live is driving a 3-ton or greater truck that's never seen anything more strenuous than getting a load of fertilizer for mom's garden, and like, that's fine. But their choices in vehicles are putting negative externalities all over the community and risking everyone's safety, including their own children, and it's fucking ridiculous.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  > Feels like every Tom, Dick, and Harry around where I live is driving a 3-ton or greater truck that's never seen anything more strenuous than getting a load of fertilizer for mom's garden, and like, that's fine. Yup. An Audi mid-size SUV has a towing capacity of nearly 8,000lb. Moving your horse from the top paddock to the bottom and back, every six months does not mean you need a dual-wheeled F350 as your daily driver.
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    > An Audi mid-size SUV has a towing capacity of nearly 8,000lb. Moving your horse from the top paddock to the bottom and back, every six months does not mean you need a dual-wheeled F350 as your daily driver. If you’ve done any towing, you would know that Audi SUVs are terrible at it in practice, despite the advertised numbers. There’s a lot to the practical experience of towing that trucks get right in their design and features. Many of the SUVs that show high towing numbers are almost never seen towing on the roads for a reason. Also there are a lot of trucks that are not a dual wheeled F350. I feel like that is a misrepresentation when people are overwhelmingly buying half ton trucks like the F150. Also keep in mind, full size SUVs (like the Yukon) are similar in size to a half ton trucks. People gets lots of use out of them in their daily lives - it’s not just about towing horses or doing farm work, but also just hauling a family and gear around. Like if you’re a family of four going for a day at the beach, you can easily exceed the capacity of mid-size SUVs or small trucks. I say this as someone who doesn’t own any of these but would certainly get use out of one. I think there is lots of room to improve road safety by simply mandating the usual modern features like sensors, automatic braking, blind spot detection, better mirrors, cameras on all sides, etc.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      > Also there are a lot of trucks that are not a dual wheeled F350. I feel like that is a misrepresentation when people are overwhelmingly buying half ton trucks like the F150. Doesn't change the the vast majority of F-150's are not being used for actual truck-appropriate tasks. They're hundred-thousand-dollar grocery getters, and like, I wouldn't give half a shit what other people are buying and running, if not for the fact that we're currently on-pace to boil ourselves to death and a chief cause of that is oversized vehicles that require more energy to move than otherwise, while offering more and larger blind-spots and more aggressive designs that heighten their ability to kill people, so that a middle-aged accountant can feel like "more of a man" than he would in a van. > Also keep in mind, full size SUVs (like the Yukon) are similar in size to a half ton trucks. Yes, which is why they're arguably even worse since you just have a vehicle with the dimensions of a truck, that lacks the capabilities a truck offers. Not that most consumers need EITHER ONE but that's neither here nor there. > but also just hauling a family and gear around Literally any class of vehicle is better than this. For decades prior to SUV's becoming dominant, people accomplished all of this in minivans and station wagons, which offer more carrying capacity than an SUV (thanks to not having so much dead space in the middle behind interior panels and styling) and they offer a lower loading height, which makes them easier to take things in an out of. An SUV is just a van, but worse, and sitting an extra foot off the ground that it doesn't need to, which also thanks to sharing suspension components and engines with the truck it's based on, gets worse fuel economy than it could, so higher fuel costs, and inherits the higher maintenance costs of the truck too. You're literally any way you go as a family man further ahead buying a van, a station wagon, a sedan, or an MPV.
- themaninthedark 2y ago
  Yeah and our politicians are instead of going back and fixing the problem they created deciding to add more on top in the hope we stop getting shit out...
  - dopylitty 2y ago
    Actually the politicians are doing nothing which is forcing the agencies to try to act which is inevitably going to be struck down by a Texas judge with stock in the big 3 auto makers.
    - themaninthedark 2y ago
      CAFE was passed by Congress but implementation details and the actual limits are controlled by the agency. These rules have been changed several times: >Starting in 2011, the CAFE standards are newly expressed as mathematical functions depending on vehicle footprint, a measure of vehicle size determined by multiplying the vehicle's wheelbase by its average track width. A complicated 2011 mathematical formula was replaced starting in 2012 with a simpler inverse-linear formula with cutoff values.[9] CAFE footprint requirements are set up such that a vehicle with a larger footprint has a lower fuel economy requirement than a vehicle with a smaller footprint. For example, the fuel economy target for the 2012 Honda Fit with a footprint of 40 sq ft (3.7 m2) is 36 miles per US gallon (6.5 L/100 km), equivalent to a published fuel economy of 27 miles per US gallon (8.7 L/100 km) (see #Calculations of MPG overestimated for information regarding the difference), and a Ford F-150 with its footprint of 65–75 sq ft (6.0–7.0 m2) has a fuel economy target of 22 miles per US gallon (11 L/100 km), i.e., 17 miles per US gallon (14 L/100 km) published. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/CAFE_performance.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/CAFE_per... The agency has the power to fix this; All they have to do is propose a rule change, do the necessary notice and comment period and then implement. Also it is amazing they are patting themselves on the back for the estimated 67 less deaths given >The report's conclusions include a finding that in the absence of CAFE, and with no other fuel economy regulation substituted, motor vehicle fuel consumption would have been approximately 14 percent higher than it actually was in 2002. However, due to the effect of these standards on the types and weights of vehicles sold, it has increased the costs of vehicles and may have led to an estimated 1,300 to 2,600 increased fatalities in the year 1993 alone
- kelnos 2y ago
  > Simple fact is that full-size trucks are the only vehicle category that Detroit is able to compete on It's telling that, aside from the Mustang, Ford now exclusively makes SUVs, trucks, and a couple transit (not mini) vans.

by dilap 2y ago

ToucanLoucan 2y ago

> fuel efficiency standards are less stringent for large trucks Worth nothing that those standards were begged, pleaded, demanded, cried and shitted for on the part of every major US automaker before they were passed, and it was only after that/because of that that every major automaker began working like hell to sell the American public on SUVs and trucks. Simple fact is that full-size trucks are the only vehicle category that Detroit is able to compete on (less so now than then, but then this was extremely true) after they got their asses roundly handed to them by the various Asian ones that did cars, vans, and MPVs much better. US automakers bet the farm on building ever larger and more ridiculous vehicles for Americans because it was just easier than competing with the Japanese/Koreans on a fair field. I hope like hell this goes somewhere and we can get these stupid things under control. Feels like every Tom, Dick, and Harry around where I live is driving a 3-ton or greater truck that's never seen anything more strenuous than getting a load of fertilizer for mom's garden, and like, that's fine. But their choices in vehicles are putting negative externalities all over the community and risking everyone's safety, including their own children, and it's fucking ridiculous.

FireBeyond 2y ago
> Feels like every Tom, Dick, and Harry around where I live is driving a 3-ton or greater truck that's never seen anything more strenuous than getting a load of fertilizer for mom's garden, and like, that's fine. Yup. An Audi mid-size SUV has a towing capacity of nearly 8,000lb. Moving your horse from the top paddock to the bottom and back, every six months does not mean you need a dual-wheeled F350 as your daily driver.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  > An Audi mid-size SUV has a towing capacity of nearly 8,000lb. Moving your horse from the top paddock to the bottom and back, every six months does not mean you need a dual-wheeled F350 as your daily driver. If you’ve done any towing, you would know that Audi SUVs are terrible at it in practice, despite the advertised numbers. There’s a lot to the practical experience of towing that trucks get right in their design and features. Many of the SUVs that show high towing numbers are almost never seen towing on the roads for a reason. Also there are a lot of trucks that are not a dual wheeled F350. I feel like that is a misrepresentation when people are overwhelmingly buying half ton trucks like the F150. Also keep in mind, full size SUVs (like the Yukon) are similar in size to a half ton trucks. People gets lots of use out of them in their daily lives - it’s not just about towing horses or doing farm work, but also just hauling a family and gear around. Like if you’re a family of four going for a day at the beach, you can easily exceed the capacity of mid-size SUVs or small trucks. I say this as someone who doesn’t own any of these but would certainly get use out of one. I think there is lots of room to improve road safety by simply mandating the usual modern features like sensors, automatic braking, blind spot detection, better mirrors, cameras on all sides, etc.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    > Also there are a lot of trucks that are not a dual wheeled F350. I feel like that is a misrepresentation when people are overwhelmingly buying half ton trucks like the F150. Doesn't change the the vast majority of F-150's are not being used for actual truck-appropriate tasks. They're hundred-thousand-dollar grocery getters, and like, I wouldn't give half a shit what other people are buying and running, if not for the fact that we're currently on-pace to boil ourselves to death and a chief cause of that is oversized vehicles that require more energy to move than otherwise, while offering more and larger blind-spots and more aggressive designs that heighten their ability to kill people, so that a middle-aged accountant can feel like "more of a man" than he would in a van. > Also keep in mind, full size SUVs (like the Yukon) are similar in size to a half ton trucks. Yes, which is why they're arguably even worse since you just have a vehicle with the dimensions of a truck, that lacks the capabilities a truck offers. Not that most consumers need EITHER ONE but that's neither here nor there. > but also just hauling a family and gear around Literally any class of vehicle is better than this. For decades prior to SUV's becoming dominant, people accomplished all of this in minivans and station wagons, which offer more carrying capacity than an SUV (thanks to not having so much dead space in the middle behind interior panels and styling) and they offer a lower loading height, which makes them easier to take things in an out of. An SUV is just a van, but worse, and sitting an extra foot off the ground that it doesn't need to, which also thanks to sharing suspension components and engines with the truck it's based on, gets worse fuel economy than it could, so higher fuel costs, and inherits the higher maintenance costs of the truck too. You're literally any way you go as a family man further ahead buying a van, a station wagon, a sedan, or an MPV.
themaninthedark 2y ago
Yeah and our politicians are instead of going back and fixing the problem they created deciding to add more on top in the hope we stop getting shit out...
- dopylitty 2y ago
  Actually the politicians are doing nothing which is forcing the agencies to try to act which is inevitably going to be struck down by a Texas judge with stock in the big 3 auto makers.
  - themaninthedark 2y ago
    CAFE was passed by Congress but implementation details and the actual limits are controlled by the agency. These rules have been changed several times: >Starting in 2011, the CAFE standards are newly expressed as mathematical functions depending on vehicle footprint, a measure of vehicle size determined by multiplying the vehicle's wheelbase by its average track width. A complicated 2011 mathematical formula was replaced starting in 2012 with a simpler inverse-linear formula with cutoff values.[9] CAFE footprint requirements are set up such that a vehicle with a larger footprint has a lower fuel economy requirement than a vehicle with a smaller footprint. For example, the fuel economy target for the 2012 Honda Fit with a footprint of 40 sq ft (3.7 m2) is 36 miles per US gallon (6.5 L/100 km), equivalent to a published fuel economy of 27 miles per US gallon (8.7 L/100 km) (see #Calculations of MPG overestimated for information regarding the difference), and a Ford F-150 with its footprint of 65–75 sq ft (6.0–7.0 m2) has a fuel economy target of 22 miles per US gallon (11 L/100 km), i.e., 17 miles per US gallon (14 L/100 km) published. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/CAFE_performance.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/CAFE_per... The agency has the power to fix this; All they have to do is propose a rule change, do the necessary notice and comment period and then implement. Also it is amazing they are patting themselves on the back for the estimated 67 less deaths given >The report's conclusions include a finding that in the absence of CAFE, and with no other fuel economy regulation substituted, motor vehicle fuel consumption would have been approximately 14 percent higher than it actually was in 2002. However, due to the effect of these standards on the types and weights of vehicles sold, it has increased the costs of vehicles and may have led to an estimated 1,300 to 2,600 increased fatalities in the year 1993 alone
kelnos 2y ago
> Simple fact is that full-size trucks are the only vehicle category that Detroit is able to compete on It's telling that, aside from the Mustang, Ford now exclusively makes SUVs, trucks, and a couple transit (not mini) vans.