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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Semi related – I find the fascination with large and heavy vehicles in America incredibly bizarre. At some point SUVs and trucks started being less about utility and more a test of manliness or patriotism or something. Driving around in even a regular sized sedan sometimes feels like you are in a sketch comedy. I have seen people do grocery runs in literal monster trucks.

The average price of a pickup truck sold today is $56K, very far from the "blue collar workhorse" it is advertised as. 70%+ of them will never see a day of off-road or hauling use (https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...).

Aside from the safety problems (for pedestrians & cyclists, not the driver of course), these trucks also wreck city streets, which are not designed for them. It's disappointing that this trend is continuing with EVs as well.

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Registration fees should be based on vehicle weight to match the cost of the damage done to the roads.

And emissions

Currently it's actually the opposite in some ways. Vehicles with a GVWR of at least 6000 lbs (2700kg) that are used for business can be deducted 100% in the first year, no matter what the business use is. This leads to a lot of white collar consultants buying giant luxury trucks or SUVs to drive around town meeting clients rather than luxury sedans.

In Utah, (and possibly other states?) we get to pay an extra yearly fee for driving a hybrid or electric car. :)

I believe the extra yearly fee is to offset the tax on gas used to maintain road infrastructure that all vehicles use.

Nope.

The report produced an extensive list of equations for describing the data collected from the tests, and from those equations was born the Generalized Fourth Power Law. It’s a rule of thumb for comparing the amount of pavement damage caused by vehicles with different weights, in terms of axle loads:

(W1/W2)^4

In the equation, W1 is the weight of an axle on vehicle 1, which we would compare to W2, the weight of an axle on vehicle 2.

Let’s look at some numbers for comparison.

Consider a standard sedan with two axles and a total weight of 2 tons. Assuming an even distribution, each of its axles would bear the weight of 1 ton. Now consider a semitruck with eight axles and a weight of 40 tons -- each of its axles would weigh 5 tons. The relative damage done by each axle of the truck can be calculated with the following equation, and comes out to 625 times the damage done by each axel of the sedan.

(5 tons/1 ton)^4 = 625

Considering that the truck has eight axles and the sedan has two, the relative damage caused by the entire semitruck would be 625 x (8/2) -- 2,500 times that of the sedan.

- https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-... - https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2017/06/22/murphys-law-how-trucks... - https://truecostblog.com/2009/06/02/the-hidden-trucking-indu...

Regardless of transportation cost attribution, the electric vehicle fees are meant to offset transportation funding, which ICE vehicles pay largely via federal and state fuel taxes. And which we as a society have decided is a political decision, separate from direct use/cost. Otherwise we'd have just stuck with everything being a toll-road.

Equating the marginal increase in pavement maintenance costs (due to trucks and heavy-loads) to the overall costs of building and operating a highway is also entirely wrong, but that's a bit tangent the point here.

I'm usually the first to point out the outsized amount of damage and wear attributable to heavy vehicles, but it's still a marginal increase of only one cost component in running a public transportation network.

This is my favorite equation to trot out when red state folks demand bikes be taxed for also damaging the road. Comes out to some fraction of a penny.

Same here in Ohio. I know the justification given was to offset the taxes on fuel that go towards road maintenance, but that math never held up. Just another regressive tax against the little guys instead of the heavy industry that causes the vast majority of road wear and tear...

I used to have a similarly narrow view. And because my worldview was similarly colored and judgmental, I too would roll my eyes when I saw an off-road capable truck parked at a mall, and reflexively throw out similar loosely-substantiated stats (70% will never take them off-road, etc.), and even indulge in more vitriolic private musings such as "he's probably compensating for a smaller-than-desirable reproductive organ."

That changed when I traded-in my Tesla for a mid-sized, off-road capable truck, and found myself on the receiving end of this view.

I certainly did not buy a truck to "overcompensate" as the article suggests or to use it only to haul groceries. I'm not even a blue collar worker – decidedly white collar in SV, with no need to haul lumber or construction material. Luckily, being a SV white collar type also made me beneficiary of WFH, and killed my commute.

I loved my model S, but didn't need an efficient/fun tarmac shuttlecock between work and home anymore. I also found that an off-road truck was more suited to my new "commute": like the ability to go haul my astrophotography equipment to the middle of nowhere – far away from light pollution where regular cars can't make it.

I also traded-in my road bike for a mountain bike because I discovered that even small/mid-sized cars are hostile to cyclists in America. It doesn't matter if a Nissan Leaf runs me over or a Ford F-150 – I'm still dead. So now I also use my off-road truck to haul my off-road bike to places where a regular car can't run me over. A bear maybe, but not a car.

Rivian seems to offer the best of all worlds, and I'm rooting for their charging infrastructure to grow asap – so I can still do truck stuff, without the emissions.

Are there people who'll buy a truck/SUV only to use it as a mall crawler? Sure. Just as there are people who'll buy BMW M3s or Porsche 911s and never take it on the track.

I think the basic concept around truck ownership is as true now as it always has been: A truck can do everything a car can, but a car can't do everything that a truck does (at least not as easily or conveniently). Most people who buy trucks or similarly large vehicles with copious storage space do so because they think they might someday need to do one of those things.

A truck cannot go under very short tunnels, under low & thick tree branches, etc... Each vehicle has its tradeoffs. With that being said personally i prefer a larger vehicle because its easier to get in/out of, sitting higher lets me see further, lots of other tall vehicles essentially force me to also be in a tall vehicle or have a worse view while driving.

What do you put on the truck bed that you couldn't in a car trunk?

a dead bull elk

a large amount of garden soil

a Christmas tree

a large sofa

an ATV

a camper attachment

a cage containing 2 live goats

leaf debris from a half acre of lawn

playground equipment

(Results may vary, such as with an exceptionally large car trunk)

It's not just manliness. It's everyone. Ford hasn't made a car in two years. Total insanity.

Ford said that they stop producing cars for US market some time ago meaning that they’ll produce SUVs and trucks only.

As a family person that runs to fruit market every several weeks and brings back a boot load of fruits in boxes it is hard to understand how a sedan can suffice.

Having said that huge SUVs are overkill too, something like Subaru Forester/Outback or RAV-4 seems to be the sweet spot for people with less than 3 children. With 3 children you start looking at something with 3rd row of seats.

Just to be clear, they aren't stopping sports car production. They did end all sedans though.

They sure ramped it down though. No more Focus/Fiesta RS or ST stateside.

I’m guessing we’ll see ev equivalents for that soon enough.

Given that Ford gave its classic sportscar "Mustang" badge to an EV SUV rather than anything resembling a classic Mustang, Ford seems to be putting a lot of work into avoiding sedans/coupes even in EVs.

My mom would haul enough mulch for our entire garden in a Taurus wagon, which was built on a midsize chassis

I fit 8 dining room chairs and accessories in my Leaf.

https://i.imgur.com/TzYt8Qi.jpg

Leaf is a hatch back, a good alternative if you want to down size and not ready to go to SUV. For electric stuff I'm waiting Tesla to start delivering Model Y in Australia.

Hatches are considered cars. Fords most liked car options were the sporty hatch versions of the fiesta and focus.

Hatches are essentially a downsized SUV. They are very different from sedan's when it comes to storage of goods. The positive is they generally can hold more stuff. The downside is that it is easier to access that stuff by unknown 3rd parties (break and enter).

The Leaf is a hatch back but it's very shallow. The total volume isn't that different than the Model 3 we have or an Accord I had in the past. The main difference is the configuration with the Leaf being shallow but tall.

I fit 4 chairs and a dining table in a Jetta. Only took the legs off the table.

It can be done, and it is done all the time all around the world. People just want to use their extreme case to justify both ways. We are saying “I fit my whole house in a fiat 500” and they are saying “I eat for 25 people every week so others must need it to”.

The reality is that people drive suburbans and Tahoes and they don’t even have kids just because they can. I hate to say it but the best thing that can happen to the US culture is expensive fuel. And I say this as someone who races cars as a hobby and would like cheap fuel.

> It can be done, and it is done all the time all around the world. People just want to use their extreme case to justify both ways. We are saying “I fit my whole house in a fiat 500” and they are saying “I eat for 25 people every week so others must need it to”.

I agree with everything you wrote in this paragraph in terms of SUV vs. compact hatchbacks, but I stand by the fact that if all large crossovers and small SUVs were replaced by midsized station-wagons the roads would be a better place and the drivers would lose no utility.

Then we both agree

To be fair most modern small & mid-size SUVs are the sizes of wagons with similar fuel consumption

I don't know about US but in Australia all SUVs are marked as "Wagon" in registration papers.

> boot load of fruits in boxes

Hard to believe that the 100 gallon boot volumes of a small sedan are insufficient for a weekly fruit&veg shop - let alone the 300 gallon boot of an estate car or the 400 gallon boot that a compact car has if you take the 30 seconds to lay down the rear seats before you load it...

And being a bit older, I do remember being driven into summer holidays with a family with 3 children, luggage and an inflatable rubber boat - in a Fiat 126 (half the length, half the width, and a quarter of the weight of today's giant pick-ups and Escalades...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NkXauuz2vUALRafq6 this is what my wife goes through in two weeks.

That's boot of my Subi Forester and that is not the fullest it is ever been. During mango season we even take a bit of passenger space. That box of oranges is was 5 AUDs btw.

In the rest of the world you just fold your seats or stack your stuff better?

“Stack your stuff better” doesn’t sit well with soft mangoes and “just fold your seats” doesn’t sit well with children in child seats in the second row.

Practice is often different from theory.

Now having written that and looking at you user handle I realise that you might think that mangoes are firm and you can stack it.

Well, those firm mangoes you see in super markets are not ripe, they are green. Ripe mangoes we buy here in Australia are soft, you can damage them with you fingers and I would like to keep them for at least couple weeks.

To be fair, Fords smaller SUVs are essentially sedans with an extended roof and trunk. A Ford Escape has almost identify fuel milage as a Toyota Camry. Likewise, a Ford F-150 gets nearly the same gas mileage as a Chevy Equinox.

At this point, there's a lot of engine tech that really helps to optimize for a vehicle's power demands. Ford in particular is running very small volume engines at high compression ratios to get some great fuel economy.

SUVs also have higher front profiles which makes them significantly more deadly to pedestrians.

Current safety ratings are only for people inside of the vehicle and that is insane.

The Escape is pretty much a larger Hatchback Car. Lifted slightly with bigger tires and more headroom. Compared to a sedan you get more cargo space options. For a family cars make zero sense.

Is that really true? They list on their website today Mustang, Mustang Mach-E, and Ford GT.

Which are respectively a performance car, a luxury electric SUV and a sports car. Ford is no longer making any regular cars like sedans or hatchbacks.

Meanwhile in the EU Ford offers 3 or so SUVs, and a myriad of regular cars.

They’ve been run out of that market largely by Honda, Toyota, and Nissan. Their truck market is strong though, so makes sense to double down.

> 70%+ of them will never see a day of off-road

I remember laughing my head off when Lexus announced they were making a "Luxury SUV". I'm on my second one and it rarely even experiences a gravel road.

As someone who likes 4WDing we appreciate people buying these. A ~10 year old nicely devalued and non-abused SUV is a perfect car for those that want to actually 4WD.

Taking a new and expensive 4WD down a narrow track with branches scraping stripes down the side would be too stressful for most.

One theory I have as to a contributing factor is that the streets are poorly maintained in enough of America that an SUV/Truck suspension is a noticeably comfier ride.

One thing begets the other though: more heavy SUV/Trucks the worse the wear on the road.

have you tried driving in the rest of the world? The US streets even in the north are pool tables compared to most of the world.

Agreed about manliness (“build ford tough”!) and patriotism but don’t forget status. Part of me dies seeing people driving around land rovers in the city by themselves. What a waste of energy…

It is all marketing. It was sold to people. Mainly as a symbol of a good life.

Because it is hard to prove to others, and especially to yourself, that your life is quite good. You can buy expensive clothes (with huge logos that can be seen from a mile) but how expensive can they get, they can be fakes; you can have expensive house (but not much people can see you comong in/out), etc.

So car becomes a perfect proof. "Everybody sees how big and how new and how powerful and loud it is". You have succeeded. Look at drivers sometimes. They are even acting like driving in a movie of some sort. Doing faces when accelerating and etc.

It is the same with plastic surgery - you don't want it to be subtle anymore. You want it to be visible. So anybody can know that you can afford it.

Cars are not very practical. Small and cramped on the inside, and not great for a family.

Trucks and SUVs make for great family movers.

I have a full sized half ton truck, It is the main family hauler. But I use the bed alot and tow my boat or trailer all the time.

But something small like a Ford Escape is perfect for most, and that is why there are so many of these compact crossovers on the road. They are bigger than a Car, higher up, and the back seats can be fold down to allow for a lot of storage room. Our secondary Vehicle is a Escape titanium, and see these everywhere along with Rav4's and CRVs. Really the only 3 compact crossovers worth looking at IMO.

Larger cars are safer-- to the people inside them[0]. And the cost of an SUV is nothing compared to medical bills and chronic pain. Of course, they only remain safer as long as they're larger than other vehicles on the road, so it's just a never-ending arms race.

[0]: https://www.iihs.org/topics/vehicle-size-and-weight.

> cost of an SUV is nothing compared to medical bills

Another argument for universal, free at point of use, health care?

And/or roundabouts. They significantly reduce lethality of collisions at crossings.

Absolutely!

The potential cost injuries from cycling are far less than the health benefits from it. Cars on the other hand are as dangerous as smoking for its user:

https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/33/2/160/1591440

In this sense an SUV is like smoking lots of cigarettes around others but without inhaling as much.

Please stop. Comparing cars to tobacco and using a bike to transport your family or goods. Where is the parallel? It is obvious that we have to change towards reality of EV and optimization of cars. In EU SUV is not predominant form factor (yet), but there are use cases for different people. You cannot paint with this big and bold "everything on bicycles" brush, trucks are America's problem exclusively. The solutions are obvious. Create adequate public transportation grids for the cities and manage all car traffic. People living outside the cities cannot do they work on a bicycle.

The parallel of tobacco and cars is that they both have potential bad health effects to it user. And Lol, car culture with EV just removes the very local emission part for now. All other problems in terms of space, accidents etc. remain. Sure bicycle is only a partial solution. But I only pointed out that using cars is bad for your health while bicycle has a net plus health benefit.

You're right, although vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of death in young adults in the US. I'm just saying that SUVs and trucks externalize their costs onto other road users.

Yeah that speaks a lot about individualism in the US. They make streets way more dangerous for everyone else. If everyone drove small cars it would be safer overall for everyone.

And this is one of the origins 1974 Chevrolet C10 Custom 3MT: Regular Car Reviews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeT6LspPPFQ heavy cheaply made piece of shit with a cult status

> ... large and heavy vehicles... Aside from the safety problems (for pedestrians & cyclists, not the driver of course), these trucks also wreck city streets, which are not designed for them.

The best selling trucks in America, the F150 and the Chevy Silverado, are lighter than a Tesla S.

Okay..? So all three are very heavy.

True, we should start a program to get everyone a GMA T.50 – kerb weight of < 1,000 kg!

The 4th Power Rule tells us that they are all doing bonkers amount of damage to roads. It's especially terrible considering very few truck owners actually use them for anything more than single-user commutes.

Trucks are such horrible deadly things for cities and should be either banned or prohibitively taxed for anyone who doesn't need them.

https://insidescience.org/index.php/news/how-much-damage-do-...

https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...

They are doing far, far less damage than heavy trucks, such as semi tractor-trailers or even box trucks with significant weight inside.

Even so, the goal here is to spend the resources to permit movement of goods and people... not to limit traffic to those vehicle types that do the least damage to the road. The road is there to be used, not admired.

If you really want 0 damage, work toward legalizing hovercraft on national highways.

> They are doing far, far less damage than heavy trucks, such as semi tractor-trailers or even box trucks with significant weight inside.

Why on earth do you think it's ok to compare the damage done by industrial freight vehicles to personal transportation?

Presumably that's mostly because of batteries - the electric F150 weighs a whopping 6,500 lb - 1500 lb more than the heaviest Tesla S.

That’s a counterintuitive thing about current generation EVs: they are heavy. Those huge batteries weigh a lot.

Regenerative braking helps reduce the extra energy cost of this quite a bit by recycling a decent percentage of the kinetic energy you put into moving that big heavy thing.

The weight does have some safety and handling benefits under some conditions but it does probably do more road damage.

As EVs grow states will probably have to charge a “road fee” or something, but it will still be far less costly than gasoline fuel and all the extra maintenance an ICE requires.

Side note but the F-150 Lightning is as important to the EV revolution as the Tesla Roadster and Nissan Leaf were years ago.

Rednecks will stop scoffing at EVs once they find out what instant full torque means. Days worth of on site power for job sites or camping without generator noise is also pretty badass.

That's what this article about Rivian's R1T is about too: Rivian's 4-wheel motored truck (and its SUV form factor brother the R1S) are going blow some minds among my redneck cousins. 4WD is nice, but 4-wheel Motored, with instant full torque at each wheel and each wheel can have its own torque for the offroading task, is a dream they probably don't even know they have yet.

Bought a truck when I moved to Texas. I managed to furnish my home there off Craigslist by picking up stuff way cheaper than by buying new stuff. Completely infeasible to buy some of these things even with the Subaru Forester I used to have.

Couldn't have rented a van/UHaul for a day or weekend?

Not really. In my experience, quality vs list time is a concave up decreasing function. If your close duration is high, you will get substantially worse execution.

If you’ve been able to beat that, then you are better at this than I am.

It sounds like you've minimized one-time furniture costs by increasing your recurring fuel costs.

I misspoke. I let the Forester. I just don’t use it for this anymore.

…streets don’t account for SUVs and pickup trucks in their designs?

Absolutely disheartening to see EVs amenable to people who drive trucks and SUVs though, one would hope their manly culture of overpaying for patriotic vehicles would change before the climate does, but alas.

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