The reckless policies that helped fill our streets with large cars

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24139147/suvs-trucks-popularity-federal-policy-pollution

by NaOH • 2 years ago

144 115 2 years ago

Scaevolus• 2 years ago

EVs 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_____02• 2 years ago

The 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• 2 years ago

At 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

AnthonyMouse6• 2 years ago

EVs 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.

Filligree• 2 years ago

Would it be unreasonable to put a third axle on?

cagenut• 2 years ago

thats not what the word emissions means

tomjakubowski• 2 years ago

"zero emission" usually refers to greenhouse gases

tmountain• 2 years ago

Which is unfortunate because any metric in a vacuum can be misleading regarding contribution to the aggregate.

IshKebab• 2 years ago

Particulates 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.

simonjgreen2• 2 years ago

As 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• 2 years ago

The 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_hp4• 2 years ago

My 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

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.

mitthrowaway25• 2 years ago

Absolutely. 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.

toast0• 2 years ago

Well, we can just add more axles, I guess.

quantum_state• 2 years ago

Would like to second this … heavier vehicles tend to cause road damage more …

KevinMS• 2 years ago

The "station wagon" (estate in other countries) and smaller hatchbacks have gotten trashed by american popular culture. But americans still need them, so they replaced them with "tall" wagons, aka, the SUV/CUV, which can also be marketed as being "rugged" because "freedom" sells in america. It really is a tragedy since wagons and hatchbacks are the most practical cars.

cebert• 2 years ago

There 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

0_____02• 2 years ago

More 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

simonjgreen2• 2 years ago

With US ranking 10th, there really aren’t many https://data.worldobesity.org/rankings/

ronnier• 2 years ago

Very few and those that do, can they afford larger cars like those in the USA can?

readthenotes1• 2 years ago

Observed this, including both size of seat and difficulty in getting in and out of normal-height cars

hollywood_court4• 2 years ago

I’m not obese but I’m a big guy at 6’3” ~290lbs. I daily drive a Land Cruiser and I don’t think I’ll ever drive anything much different. I also have a full size 2500 pick up and even that is a little small for me. Driving my wife’s cars has become a burden. Even the Land Cruiser is a bit tricky to get in and out of without hitting my head on the door.

Edit: I’m not fat guys. I power lift 3 to 5 times per week and wear a size 36 in blue jeans. I’m no Tom Haviland (I can only dream) but I’m not some porky bastard either. Abs are still slightly visible although I don’t lift for aesthetics. I’m simply trying to hit 1750lbs combined on the big 3 before I turn 45.

sniggers3• 2 years ago

You are medically obese, with a BMI of 36.2: https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmi...

kccqzy3• 2 years ago

You are obese, but you don't want to admit it. Or more likely perhaps you are used to seeing so many other people being far more visibly obese than you that you honestly don't see yourself as obese. Regardless, it's a big problem in America.

crazygringo2• 2 years ago

Larger cars are predominantly taller and longer, not wider.

Except in extreme cases, obesity is not playing a major factor here.

It's more a question of being tall. I'd love to be able to drive sporty cars, but I generally just don't physically fit. I fit fine in an SUV. A regular sedan I can fit, but because of the length of my legs, I have to slide the seat back if I'm in the front, or ask the person in front to slide their seat forwards if I'm in the back. Obviously it doesn't work if someone else as tall as me is in the seat behind/ahead.

Also sedans are terrible for my posture because I have to slouch so that my head isn't hitting the roof. My lower back and neck hurt so bad after a long drive because of the forced slouching.

Fortunately I use public transportation for 99% of my needs and none of this is an issue usually.

mitthrowaway25• 2 years ago

The 1966 Ford Thunderbird was not a narrow car, at 1963 mm (210 mm wider than my Civic). But it's still narrow compared with the 2123 mm wide F-150 Raptor parked on my street, which sticks out so far into the road that makes it almost impossible for Amazon delivery trucks to navigate.

Of course it does that while also being extremely tall, making it impossible for many pedestrians to look past its hood to spot oncoming traffic on the road, or for passing drivers to spot people stepping out behind it.

https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/ford-thunderbird-19...

Apreche• 2 years ago

You've got it backwards. The cars caused the obesity by creating suburbs where people drive everywhere.

aimor• 2 years ago

I think it's entirely possible that car interiors are getting more cramped. High center consoles between the front seats stop me from spreading my legs, deep glovebox stops me from stretching them, even the headrest juts forward now making it that much more difficult to recline. There about a hundred things like this getting in my way, add in a carseat or two and I'm not even comfortable driving.

harambae• 2 years ago

add in a carseat or two

Adding in modern car seats absolutely blows up the amount of space you need. With 2 young kids I can barely fit both of the carseats in the back of my Range Rover.

As a kid, 5 of us would pack into one 2-door sedan without shoulder restraints, just waist seat-belts. I'm not proposing we go back to less safe conditions for children, just saying it does clearly makes a difference. (And I've lived in some parts of the world where entire families fit onto one moped, so this American level of safety is not universal)

nisa4• 2 years ago

Not 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

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• 2 years ago

There was also dieselgate :)

nisa4• 2 years ago

Dieselgate 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.

speedgoose2• 2 years ago

You 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.

nisa4• 2 years ago

Sure but that's not the point. Reduced fuel consumption using hybrid technology works in the city. EVs are even better.

It's just fascinating that the technology was there and wasn't improved upon in 25 years. We could drive non-hybrid ICE cars were a big chunk of cars is using 50% less fuel now if we would have avoided that SUV trend.

mytailorisrich5• 2 years ago

Carmakers build what sells.

So what went "wrong" is that people prefer powerful cars with plenty of space, comfort, and bells and whistles rather than "3l/100km"...

lionkor• 2 years ago

This is the drug dealer argument; if it wasn't me, someone else would

korhojoa• 2 years ago

Conveniently forgetting that the SUV trend started due to a shitty workaround to fuel economy requirements. There are so many unnecessarily large cars around nowadays.

aporetics• 2 years ago

As though marketing never influences what people want.

ethbr1• 2 years ago

Carmakers build what sells.

Eh, they build what makes them the most profit.

That's a much more complicated can of worms than what sells. It includes tax policy, rebates, financing rates, mileage standards, engine technology costs, etc.

OtherShrezzing• 2 years ago

That's not the case in Europe though. Lots of people in Europe have exactly two preferences when purchasing a vehicle: low price, and good fuel economy. All of Europe's best selling cars in 2022[1] fit either or both of those criteria. Europe has a strongly revealed culturally-ingrained preference towards economical cars.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1127929/best-selling-car...

mitthrowaway25• 2 years ago

Are you saying that the reasons in the article are incorrect, and what happened was a change in customer preferences?

voisin3• 2 years ago

Carmakers build what sells.

This is only true when carmakers are sufficiently experimenting and letting customers decide what sells, but when they all make extremely similar products in each category, it isn’t true. For examples look at the truck category - in North America at least, there is effectively no way to get a truck that is not loaded with electronics and silly features as the makers stopped competing on anything else. There is no “light weight, utilitarian build” truck that can be bought. And magically they all have super high hoods and massive interiors.

The same is true in every category I have looked at.

Zpalmtree2• 2 years ago

Exactly. This article is all over the place.

It's the tariffs making americans buy SUVs, european cars are too expensive!

Then they complain that a tax increase on SUV owners in DC was opposed?

They clearly don't want Americans to have cheaper cars - just force people to use the cars they think are 'correct'. Gotta save the environment, who cares about the consumer?

eddd-ddde• 2 years ago

Drugs sell really good yet we have laws against that. Maybe some regulation on what a car company can sell would be good.

ZenThereWere0• 2 years 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.

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_

trgn• 2 years ago

Perfect 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• 2 years ago

Really interesting video that one.

wepple• 2 years ago

Yeah, 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.

AnthonyMouse6• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

This 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.

mitthrowaway25• 2 years ago

It sounds like it's also in your interest to legislate safety standards that ensure other peoples' vehicles are less likely to kill you when they crash into your own.

jasonladuke0311• 2 years ago

Yep it’s very much a prisoner’s dilemma. If I choose a smaller car then my family is in greater danger.

politelemon• 2 years ago

Any 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• 2 years ago

UK just seems to be cargo-culting bad US policies at this point.

userbinator• 2 years ago

Mid-century cars were very large too, but they had much better visibility.

openrisk• 2 years ago

The 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.

gregwebs2• 2 years ago

Many 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• 2 years ago

It 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.

AnthonyMouse6• 2 years 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.

gregwebs2• 2 years ago

Good 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-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.

FireBeyond2• 2 years ago

That's a little contrived, no?

I don't compare my RS 5 with a Corolla, either. The Audi and BMW have brakes like that because they also are literally designed to spend some time on the track (mine has integrated laptimers and speed calculators for 0-60 times, etc., and shows me individual tire temperatures not just pressure, as well as component temperatures for drive train, transmission, differential).

crazygringo2• 2 years ago

But smaller cars tend to have weaker brakes, and less weight that means less friction against the road in braking.

Brakes are "sized" for the car they're in. Bigger cars have more powerful brakes.

It would be a major safety issue if heavier cars couldn't brake as quickly as safety required.

So no, smaller cars don't have any general advantage in being able to stop earlier and therefore avoid accidents.

peoplefromibiza• 2 years ago

That's true but only in perfect conditions.

A not perfect breaking system or imperfect road conditions in a lighter car will cause a much smaller mass to not break as quickly as safety requires.

Freedom22• 2 years ago

One 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.

prmoustache3• 2 years ago

Poor 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.

FireBeyond2• 2 years ago

I 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).

Zpalmtree2• 2 years ago

What's wrong with letting people drive the cars they want to

happypumpkin2• 2 years ago

I'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

blibble2• 2 years ago

because 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

sniggers3• 2 years ago

The concepts of freedom and being comfortable in your car do not compute for non-Americans (and city-slicker-Americans)

prmoustache3• 2 years ago

That 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• 2 years ago

Literally more road deaths

asadotzler• 2 years ago

Because 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.

User23• 2 years 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?

kccqzy3• 2 years ago

It'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• 2 years ago

Pursuit of luxury is an important factor like for bigger houses.

newsclues• 2 years ago

Local 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• 2 years ago

I 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.

mitthrowaway25• 2 years ago

Have you considered a minivan?

prmoustache3• 2 years ago

SUV 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.

snapplebobapple• 2 years ago

So 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• 2 years ago

If 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.

The reckless policies that helped fill our streets with large cars

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