6 ms·
New cars are getting 1.2cm longer and 0.5cm taller each year
- HughParry 3mo agoThe new Audi Q9 is absurd - https://www.topgear.com/car-news/suvs/gargantuan-new-audi-q9-officially-too-large-london https://www.topgear.com/car-news/suvs/gargantuan-new-audi-q9...
- pseudohadamard 3mo ago[flagged]
- lotsofpulp 3mo agoThat kind of discourse is welcome to stay on Reddit.
- crote 3mo agoDon't like a comment? No need to complain, just downvote or flag. > Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- chrystalkey 3mo agoOh Look, there is a tree sized pole that sticks out of your rear side, might want to have a doctor look at it
- bitwize 3mo agoAnd yet still in the standard "Jeep Grand Cherokee melted in the sun" shape. I wouldn't mind so much if the popular land yachts of decades past like the 1957 Cadillac Eldorado were revived, but today's most common passenger vehicles are still being made in the same boring sad-beige-mom shapes.
- cpursley 3mo agoWhat’s even more absurd is the Chinese vehicles in the same class have better tech and prices. German auto manufacturing is cooked unless they manage to legally block the Chinese in their primary markets.
- shiandow 3mo agoThat could be tricky because I think one of those markets was China.
- wackget 3mo agoI'd happily drive a Chinese car but I've yet to see one which has physical buttons for controls. They all seem to have gigantic tablet displays. I categorically refuse to buy a car where I can't adjust the climate controls while keeping my eyes on the road.
- wolvoleo 3mo agoWell of course they are cheaper because China has much lower labour costs and they prop up their own industry. The same way they did with solar panels which killed the local EU industry for those. However we can get one back at China and help our own climate goals more by not buying cars at all
- cpursley 3mo agoHow do lower labor costs explain the better tech?
- wolvoleo 2mo agoEngineers are also cheaper, and electronics are cheaper so you can throw more at the problem. You have much less pressure to design towards a price if your costs are lower.
- cpursley 2mo agoWell, of course this does not check out. Apple trounces Chinese phone manufacturers at all levels and their costs are astronomical.
- vel0city 3mo agoEh. Old American sedans were often longer. A '77 Ford LTD was almost 5.5M in length, while this is only 5.3. I guess I do agree those were insane monsters of vehicles. I couldn't imagine driving one of those today in urban areas.
- frollogaston 3mo agoApparently my 2009 Crown Vic is slightly longer than this Audi. I get more annoyed at how tall modern cars are.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- netsharc 3mo agoSheesh! > 5.31m long, 2.21m wide and 1.81m tall vs. the Humvee, according to Wikipedia: - 4.57m long, 2.15m wide and 1.83m tall
- dexihand 3mo agoCafe standards.
- brudgers 3mo agoThe height of hoods is at least in part because of pedestrian safety standards. I believe these originated in Europe, but I could be wrong.
- jerlam 3mo agoHigher hoods are worse, not better, for pedestrians.
- bobthepanda 3mo agoto put this in perspective; a lower hood will strike somewhere lower on the body like the legs, and bounce them off the hood (absorbing some impact) a higher hood will strike somewhere closer to the head and torso, causing substantially more damage, and cause you to go under and get crushed by the wheels, so at a minimum level damage is much more severe. and this is for adults. they're basically death sentences for shorter people and children.
- Havoc 3mo ago>I believe these originated in Europe Not this kind of higher. The EU stuff was about lifting the hood's sheet metal off the engine block so that there is more of a crumple zone instead of pedestrian's head kissing engine block
- cosmic_cheese 3mo agoThat’s part of the picture, but the US also has a considerable “my vehicle is an extension of myself” or “my vehicle is a major pillar of my identity” thing going on. That’s how we ended up with so many pavement princess trucks and SUVs shoehorned in where a minivan or hatchback would’ve been a better fit.
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- mulderc 3mo agoCars have become absurd. We have an older car, and I occasionally look at what we could replace it with, and everything is huge and expensive. Literally, the only car I have been interested in is from BYD and will never be available in my country.
- moltar 3mo agoHow about Yaris hybrid? It’s quite small, great performance, and very reliable.
- Thlom 3mo agoBYD also have some humongus cars. I have the BYD Tang and it's too big for some parking spaces.
- chrystalkey 3mo agoHey so, why would you even buy that? Was that some external requirement?
- Thlom 3mo agoBecause it's one of few cars with some space left in the trunk with the third seat row up. Luckily our need for the last two seats has been reduced, so the next car wil be smaller. :-)
- mulderc 3mo agoBYD also has very reasonably sized cars like the Dolphin.
- moffkalast 3mo agoFrom what I've ridden in the newer models it seems like internal cabin space remains the same or is genuinely getting smaller, but crumple zones keep increasing in size. There has to be some kind of ever increasing safety bar that keeps rising every year and this is the malicious compliance they're getting in response. In 2100 every car will have a total of 1 person of internal space, span the size of a city block and will be made entirely of cotton balls to achieve a 4 star safety rating. For the 5 star rating you also have to make sure the driver is immortal so they can't die of old age.
- cherioo 3mo agoI hate this because my parking space, both at the company and at home, are not getting any wider or taller. I chose to purchase my EV6 over the Equinox EV, despite the Equinox being significantly cheaper, mainly because latter was too big (and also worse driving experience).
- volkk 3mo agowe're slowly moving towards a world where people can't afford homes so they'll just be living out of their cars. guarantee that some car manufacturers are already considering/getting ready for this.
- testing22321 3mo agoTowards? You need to see how many people are doing vanlife, not by choice.
- inigyou 3mo agoHow do they navigate the legal minefield?
- xboxnolifes 3mo agoMove the van when a police officer knocks on the window.
- inigyou 3mo agoIf only that wasn't illegal.
- trickypr 3mo agoAustralia has a similar issue, in part because we import a lot of US domestic vehicles and advertising, and in part because the ato has tax exemptions that only apply to overbuilt utes[1]. [1]: https://www.drive.com.au/caradvice/ute-tax-breaks-exemptions/ https://www.drive.com.au/caradvice/ute-tax-breaks-exemptions...
- the_mitsuhiko 3mo agoThe wild thing for me is that we just recently bought an XC90 and an American friend asked me how we're managing with three kids in a "compact SUV". That car is about as large as cars get over here for the most part.
- frollogaston 3mo agoWeird, XC90 wouldn't normally be considered a compact SUV here in the US
- the_mitsuhiko 3mo agoI guess they might have said mid-size? But definitely not large SUV.
- frollogaston 3mo agoYeah, that's midsize here, maybe on the upper end of that. It has a third row but no room behind it. Full-size would be a Tahoe, then there are yuge ones like the Suburban.
- OptionOfT 2mo agoIn the USA the X5 is a Mid-sized SUV. Very weird. The X7 is just... too large.
- oatmeal1 3mo agoWe need a pigouvian tax based on vehicle weight to address the increased deaths due to noise pollution, collisions, and increased wear to roads.
- kiddico 3mo agoDeaths from noise pollution?
- inigyou 3mo agoStress, and so on. No individual death would be attributable, only a statistical increase.
- astrospective 3mo agoAir pollution would be easier to quantify brake and tire dust are big urban air pollutants.
- trgn 3mo agoweight is the easiest measure. wear&tear on road, mpg, damage in accident all scale with weight
- avidiax 3mo ago> scale with weight Road damage scales with axle weight to the fourth power (w^4). So if a 500lbs motorcycle is the unit of damage, a 4,000 lbs sedan does 4,096 units of damage (4096x as much), a 6,000 lbs SUV/pickup does 20,736x, a 14,000 lbs delivery van does 614,000x, and the 80,000 lbs US federal limit 5 axle semi-trailer does 90,800,000x the damage of the motorcycle. So probably shipping stuff in trucks doesn't cost enough, and SUVs/pickups should cost 5x for road tax what sedans do.
- TacticalCoder 3mo ago> So probably shipping stuff in trucks doesn't cost enough, and SUVs/pickups should cost 5x for road tax what sedans do. Nope because the numbers you just posted exemplify what every knows: road cars don't even register on the radar compared to semi-trailers. The tax for "road damage" should be approximately zero for cars, any cars, and way more expensive for semis. But people who hate on cars don't want to hear the truth: they're all too happy to take their bicycle to go buy the milk the semis brought to their city.
- anonym29 3mo agohttps://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/aEqW3Ze_700b.jpg https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/aEqW3Ze_700b.jpg
- rplnt 3mo agoThere's little to no incentive to buy human sized cars usually. Parking costs the same, tolls can cost the same, insurance I have no idea but I don't think size matters, and perhaps more. All of these should be more expensive, much more expensive, for bigger and heavier cars.
- theodric 3mo agoPerhaps in the United States, but in a number of European countries, weight is a primary factor in determining annual road tax costs, which can reach into the thousands of Euros. If they keep making cars bigger, they will inevitably become heavier.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- ElProlactin 3mo agoThe people are getting bigger.
- consp 3mo agoGood then that all vehicles over 6m length and 2.05m wide are not allowed to park in my city. It's good most pickups have custom wide tires, as it makes them too wide.
- rwyinuse 3mo agoMeanwhile the size of residential parking slots usually stays the same for decades after being built. I had "fun" of living in an apartment complex built in the 60's, one could only barely fit modern cars to the designated spots.
- wolvoleo 3mo agoAnd this is in EU, not even America where cars have always been tanks. I do think we will see fewer on the road though. In my city more and more streets are being pedestrianised. And unlimited public transport is only 24€ and amazing quality. Most of the people who still drive are rich foreigners that don't know any better. And also still view them as a status symbol. Outside cities public transport isn't great though but it would be amazing if we would see car ownership decline by say 50% by 2040. Even electric cars aren't exactly good for the environment and cities become a lot more livable without cars. The Germans will be pissed but they'll have to find new things to sell :)
- fakedang 3mo agoA rising trend in the EU has been new buyers going for SUVs. People, especially those with families, have been buying them as sort of an insurance against accidents. You're far less likely to die in an SUV than in a sedan. Although that does mean that you become a much bigger risk for those who drive sedans.
- wolvoleo 3mo agoYes I know, I've seen that in some countries which are still very car-centric like Holland and others too. My ex's sister immediately went from a Yaris to this tank of an SUV when she got a baby. However it is very much status symbol as well. The most expensive car they own must always be prominently displayed in the driveway with the front forward, and she's always fussy about the child making a mess in the livingroom because it functions more as a museum for the expensive furniture and neighbour-approved family life that she loves to display to the neighbours in her conservative-rich street. I'm pretty sure the SUV wasn't actually for protection but rather for wealth flaunting and virtue signalling (this lady is also very much 'family values'). So she instructed her sister several times to not have any pride stuff lying around which we had lots of lol. I drove a 12 year old Volvo and she always hated that and wanted me to park far away. And all my furniture was IKEA when I lived there (and still is where I live now). I haven't owned a car for 9 years now. I really hated her but my ex was a bit of the black sheep in the family, very hippie and happy-go-lucky like me. But anyway, I just want to point out, the SUV is to certain Europeans as the Pick-Up is to certain Americans.
- kettlez 3mo agoA Tacoma is now the size of an F-150, they used to be the size of a Ford Ranger. It's ridiculous.
- aimor 3mo agoAnd the windows keep getting smaller, the beltlines higher, the seats more cramped, though I don't have statistics to back up any of that.
- zqna 3mo agoLike the bellies, bigger is better
- KingMachiavelli 3mo agoAs much as I like to hate on larger cars. In reality, I use my SUV (3 row, Subaru Ascent) all the time for camping and outdoor activities (80% of weekends or so). I just took out the middle seats to build a full-size bed platform (75x45” or so). My wife also drives a smaller Forester that we realize could have been an EV or hybrid. Although in CA, electricity is so expensive that it’s not much improvement over gas especially if you spend more on the car itself. Really, just a same model year but more fuel efficient sedan or one of those old 100-mile range EV cars is what you have to “downgrade” too. Of course, it’s silly seeing all the oversized, sparkling clean massive trucks and SUVs on my commute while I’m driving my heavily scratched glorified minivan (since that’s what SUVs are now days).