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US carmakers say proposed EU rules could block large pickup trucks from Europe
- andrepd 6mo agoIt's disgusting that they were ever allowed in the first place. Cars have extremely high externalities, the bare minimum is that people pay for them. An EU directive implementing vehicle tax proportional to weight is urgent. Heavier cars pollute more, damage the road more, are much more dangerous for pedestrians and bicycles.
- downrightmike 6mo agoUS: Makes personal city trucks larger to skirt US regulations EU: Bans those trucks because they were created skirting regulations to the extreme
- linksnapzz 6mo agoThe trucks are fully conformant w/ EPA & FMVSS regs. That you don't like how those have been implemented isn't the fault of a manufacturer.
- digitalPhonix 6mo agoThe loophole is to classify them as “light” commercial vehicles. I’m fine with that if US regulation was consistent with that commercial classification and they required a CDL to drive (and all the associated annual medical checks and zero BAC etc.) If that consistency was there every manufacturer would immediately drop the commercial classification and figure out how to make their trucks satisfy the passenger classification in FMVSS.
- linksnapzz 6mo ago>The loophole is to classify them as “light” commercial vehicles. Not a loophole. There are (broadly) eight different FMCSA classifications; and a CDL is usually required only when the GVWR is at or over ...26,000lbs. Everything below that is medium or light duty. Heavy-duty is the upper end of class 6 (think school busses), class 7 ( garbage trucks & cement mixers ) and class 8 (18-wheel semis).
- digitalPhonix 6mo agoI know all that (I have a class A). That’s why I am calling out the inconsistency as a loophole. One part of the regulatory/legislative system allows a vehicle to be classified as commercial (to get the benefits of looser regulation) but another part does not consider it a commercial vehicle (and it benefits from the looser regulations of a passenger vehicle).
- linksnapzz 6mo agoAh, I see. Yes, there's too much ambiguity in the adjective 'commercial' used in multiple contexts in legislation.
- cbeach 6mo agoIf we cared about reducing road casualties, then objectively speaking, we should ban bikes. Roads are designed for cars (people in protective metal boxes with hundreds of sophisticated safety features). Roads were never intended for people on flimsy two wheeled contraptions with nothing more than a polystyrene cap to protect them.
- digitalPhonix 6mo agoSeems about 5x as many pedestrians die on the roads than cyclists, so by that logic pedestrians are banned from roads too? No more pedestrian accessible roadside shops? https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-pedestrians-and-cyclists-are-killed-by-cars-in-america/ https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-pedestrians-and-cycli...
- Mobius01 6mo agoI will take a wild risk here and say that… it’s probably by design.
- dlcarrier 6mo agoYeah, it's pretty normal with automotive regulation to promote whatever domestic manufacturers make over imports. In the US, EPA regulations so heavily favored domestic trucks that that PT Cruiser was somewhat famously classified as a truck.
- hkpack 6mo agoIt is not only about domestic manufacturing. The trend is that roads are becoming more dangerous in the US, with the cars being bigger as a major contributor. People in US are fine with increasing casualties for some reason, and I’m glad that in EU the general consensus is to continue with keeping roads safer.
- m463 6mo agoMight be road design. I think european roads are generally narrower than US roads which have 12' wide lanes. I remember the F-150 raptor was > 7' wide (without mirrors).
- ErroneousBosh 6mo agoAnd nothing of value was lost. What's the point of these things? They're not useful for anything. They're horrible to drive, get through fuel like a burning oil well, can't tow, and can't carry anything. If you need something to haul building materials around, get a van.
- soupbowl 6mo agoCan't tow and can't carry anything, "get a van". Yeah, vans are known for their amazing tow capacity.
- ErroneousBosh 6mo agoIt's what all the builders round here use. Full-size Ford Transit and if they need to carry more than about three tonnes, a trailer on the back.
- ebbi 6mo agoOne of the downsides to using a van for these heavy duty use cases (speaking from experience) is that they're typically not equipped with powerful enough engines. So you end up straining the engine when towing heavy loads, which reduces the life of it considerably. Also for a lot of vehicles, a GVM/GCM upgrade is needed to be able to tow certain loads. Not defending these large american trucks. I think there are valid use cases for them (in smaller bodies), but the majority of the ones I see driving around are just for peoples pleasure and not utility.
- linksnapzz 6mo agoNot only the engine, but also the transmissions and suspensions on commercial vans in the US aren't rated for duty past a certain gross weight.
- ErroneousBosh 6mo agoWell, not really. The biggest size Transits have a 2.4 or 3.2 litre diesel which will pull hell up a high wall. Compare that to these pickups which have neither the power nor the grip to get out of their own way.
- Glawen 6mo ago7000 sales per year, come on. They are too big and unpractical for Europe.
- mrlonglong 6mo agoOur UK roads are not designed for oversized pickups.
- lschueller 6mo agoThere is absolutely no reason for this cars to be available in Europe. The demand is so extremly low, that you couldn't even call it a niche in a niche. If there would be a market and demand, car importers would already have created a foothold for this cars in Europe. It's like arguing, no one buys surfboards in central sahara because of hostile regulations.
- cbeach 6mo ago[flagged]
- gljiva 6mo agoFreedoms are removed either way. I'd rather have everyone be _free_ to participate in traffic on safer, more observable streets, where air quality, maneuverability and parking space is decreased only for a good reason, than have a small minority who like the arms race or "bigger and meaner = better for my ego" cars be free to buy (and normalize) such cars (regardless of the car maker's nationality). And I'd bet that's the real reason others cheer this on, too, not what you chose to assume in this unnecessarily inflammatory comment. The easiest way to feel better about oneself is to make up negative assumptions about others. Introspection time
- linksnapzz 6mo agoYou first. HN fulminating against US pickups is as predictable as it is tedious.
- SR2Z 6mo agoYou are a European who drives an EV, so you might not be intimately familiar with just how absurdly large these trucks are. I was recently driving and pulled up at a red light next to one; the top of the hood neatly lined with with the top of the hair of a woman crossing the street directly in front of it. If it had been someone short or a child, the truck driver might have literally been incapable of seeing them. These things are tolerable on American suburban roads, which are sized generously with even more generous parking. They're an utter disaster for pedestrians because their front profile is more "brick wall" than "gentle slope." It would be fine if they were driven slowly, but the machismo that leads people to buy them also means that they are all absurdly quick.
- lemontheme 6mo agoGood. They’re fuel-inefficient, low visibility murder machines that do not belong in Europe, where city roads and parking spaces tend to be narrower. Not once in the last few years have I seen a pickup truck bed in use. Average number of occupants: one, male. And it’s always the same kind of person. Like with cybertruck owners, there’s an air of overcompensation. Where they’re not compensating, unfortunately: road taxes, where they’re taxed as a non-commercial vehicle, despite polluting and weighing as much as a small van, while being driven by some of the least road safety conscious, tailgating assholes I’ve encountered. (/rant. Pickup trucks have a purpose, such as in low density rural areas. That’s not the case in Belgium, for instance. Either you need a van because it’s for work, or you rent a lightweight van on the few occasions you actually need to transport a lot of stuff.)