The hoods on trucks are so massive now if you put a 6 year old in front of one you wouldn't be able to see them at all. Like seriously wtf are we doing here?
Regulators badly need to reign the car makers in.
Regulators badly need to reign the car makers in.
The CAFE regulations specify a target fuel economy based on the "footprint" of a truck [1], which is the wheelbase times the width between the tires. Trucks with larger footprints have less stringent fuel economy requirements. Unfortunately, the formula they use to determine this makes compact trucks practically impossible. A truly compact truck like a 90s Ford Ranger or Chevy S10 is supposed to achieve 44 MPG, while a full sized truck only needs to get 27.
The irony is that many people would prefer to buy a smaller, easier to park, less expensive, safer, and more fuel efficient truck, but these regulations make them unavailable.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...
The big 3 and Toyota all used to make compact pickup trucks. Ford has the new compact Maverick coming out next year, but even that is still 6 inches wider, 4 inches taller, and 23 inches longer than the Ranger of 30 years ago. If you look at today's Ranger, it's 11 inches wider, 7 inches taller, and 35 inches longer than the Ranger of 1991.
Most of the weight shedding after 1975 happened in the 1980s in the immediate wake of peak oil prices. [2] Vehicle weight is just now catching up to what it was just before the ~1980 oil crisis, and current gains are far offset by fuel economy and horsepower ( there is a relationship between power, weight, and acceleration/speed available to the vehicle).
The extra 4% in outlay could very well be explained by a combination of consumer and regulatory demands for safety (all else equal, it is easier to engineer something bigger with cushion room to be safer than it is something smaller).
Ultimately it is difficult to explain away the lack of small trucks and smaller cars without accounting for the large play of regulation (safety testing, poorly constructed CAFE standards, and tariffs).
One can readily see from operators of the 125cc motorcycles like honda Grom, illegal street operators of ATV/dirtbikes, and mopeds that there is considerable demand for minimal footprint transportation. Tiny cars like the Suzuki Alto are in demand in other less regulated markets.
Our criticism should not be the presence of large SUVs and cars, who have legitimate use for large families who live off of dirt roads and those with a low risk tolerance that demands monster sized cars full of safety features and crumple zones. Rather our criticism should be aimed at questioning why the guy riding his ATV down the residential street is a criminal while the well to do person riding newly constructed 4,500 lb Tesla full of toxic metals recharged by the local coal plant is not.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s_oil_glut#/media/File:Nom...
Which is why they’re now patching it with front cameras. I saw a video from inside the cab of a big pickup truck (like an F250), where they’re at a stoplight and there’s a Corvette in front of them that can’t be seen from the driver’s seat, so they only see it on the dashboard screen.
Electric cars are something we must do to halt climate change, but we need to recognize it's an example of doing the same broken thing, just better.
At the end of the day we will have a more green version of what we have now, carrying over all the existing flaws of automobile oriented infrastructure (ie. pedestrian deaths, traffic).
In the context of a conversation of how trucks are getting bigger and bigger, it's worth noting that the size gains are having implications on traffic too!
The point being though that electric cars will be just as space inefficient as ICE cars. If we want to move more people, more efficiently and avoid traffic jams and new highway construction, we'll have to opt for different solutions.
It used to be people bought trucks because they were the tool they needed but they are a status symbol now. For gods sake can we please go back to small sporty BMW status symbol?
How many a large car is turning, say right (via a dedicated lane), but 10-20% of the vehicle is still in the other lane? Hundred times every week probably... This is just driving me crazy because they are not a bus or a very large delivery truck! They are just an Audi, Volvo, BMW, Mercedes, etc ...
There is no shortage of small trucks internationally. If you want smaller trucks, you seek deregulation (removal of fuel efficiency standards and the chicken tax).
This is a false equivalency.
This is a false statement. Unless you are oblivious to the current regulations, and the fact that one must remove (deregulate) CAFE as it stands before small trucks are economically feasible.
That being said,
* better to see the child and not hit them
* people should get training in how to drive trucks. They are not cars. Requiring a special license will make the lazier ones think twice at least
Do you have any studies that back up that claim?