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Comment by elil17 | Hacker News Reader

They aren’t a wholesome lecture away, but they are a law, tax, or regulation away. Removing tax loopholes for large cars, tightening emissions standards, and perhaps adding extra licensing requirements for oversized vehicles could reduce the environmental hazard and the safety hazard these vehicles create.

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I doubt it because I don’t think most status car buyers are particularly cost-sensitive and moreover passing said legislation is easier said than done (and regulations are likely to be overturned whenever the presidency changes parties). So far “sexy” has done a whole lot more to convert people to EVs than regulation (and I say this as a staunch proponent of carbon tax/pricing).

I think that requiring a CDL to drive a 9,000 pound vehicle with a 3 second 0-60 time would be enough to deter most potential buyers unless they were really motivated. Getting the license would be an actual inconvenience, not something you can just throw money at.

CDL may also lower the legal BAC to .03, which would be a problem for many people. I only know one person to mention that and he had the full class A license (it was his turn to drive home so his wife was drinking and he refused even one drink even though they were planning to stay for more than the hour it takes for alcohol to clear the bloodstream because he refused to risk his license)

I mean if we really want to minimize and we’re positing a world where we can pass any legislation/regulation we want, we could just outright ban them.

There are some rare legitimate reasons to own pickup trucks, but those trucks should require something between a normal license and a CDL imho.

As for SUVs, yes a ban is a good idea.

Hah! I take it you live in a city and don’t have kids?

Are SUVs better than minivans?

They’re comparable. Minivans are a bit better with kids, SUVs are often better for recreation (e.g., pulling a camper). Lots of people also depend on pickup trucks, contra the parent’s viewpoint that they’re rarely legitimate.

Pulling a camper is something that most people do rarely - no reason to drive that pickup to work every day when you could just rent it for trips.

Yes there are certain areas where most people will need a bunch of hauling capacity due to their professions. But most people who drive a pickup in the USA are doing it for stupid (prestige related reasons)! I don’t mean to sound too extreme here, I’m just tired of hearing people (who I know IRL) with expensive gas guzzlers complain about the cost of diesel when a compact sedan would suite their needs!

Firstly, if you have a camper you probably want to take it out many times a year, and even if you just have a tent, an SUV is pretty nice for all of your other supplies. Moreover, it’s not any one use case that justifies an SUV as much as a combination. If you have kids and you camp and you bring bikes and you have jet-skis, ATVs, dirt bikes, snow mobiles, or other toys then it quickly becomes worthwhile.

My wife and I upgraded to a small (electric) SUV and it’s absolutely been worthwhile just for extended roadtrips and camping with our dog and maybe a friend or two.

I’m sure plenty of people get big vehicles for prestige/whatever, but I was refuting a specific claim that use cases for pickups are rare and SUVs should be banned altogether.

You “take it” wrong. SUVs didn’t exist prior to the 80s and are relatively rare outside of the US. People get along just fine with minivans and station wagons which are far safer for other due to their lower weight and far safer for those in the car due to their lower COG.

Minivans didn’t become mainstream until the mid-late 80s, and anyway pickup trucks were common well before that. Moreover, station wagons that were popular in the 80s were huge and they guzzled gas.

I don't think it's all that rare to need a pickup truck for certain uses, but small pickup trucks have basically disappeared.

Rather than require a CDL for any pickup truck, I'd prefer a policy to require a CDL for vehicles above a certain size/weight, or with front grills that extend more than about 3 feet off the ground, or with the ability to reach freeway speeds from a stop in under about 5 seconds.

Same thing could apply to SUVs.

Seems like a sensible policy. Just getting people to downsize is certainly a win.

Everyone is sensitive to large enough changes in price. Converting people to EVs does nothing if those EVs are energy and lithium hogs.

There is no substitute for energy efficiency. Having the right form of energy generation or storage is wonderful but efficiency is a fundamental virtue for hardware that is currently undervalued.

I'm all for good incentives, but I fundamentally do not see the value in waging wars on things people like while there is so much other low hanging fruit.

> but they are a law, tax, or regulation away

We're closer to losing women's and gay rights than to setting new environmental laws and standards.

You sound salty. Improve the power source emissions instead of trying to dictate what type of car people want to drive.

We need to dictate the what cars people drive in order to achieve green energy. Even if we had the political will to go 100% solar, the resources needed to make cars and panels and electricity generation are still going to be scarce. Why should those resources be thrown away on pointlessly large card when we could be using them for so much more?

It’s incredibly frustrating to see society dump our limited metal reserves into useless things. Every EV on the road that could be replaced by public transit and every big EV that could be replaced by a small one is N kWh of grid storage batteries that don’t get built.

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