The loophole that made cars in America so big
distilled.earth
distilled.earth
American family sizes have steadily dropped for many decades so the editor’s mention of millennials and family sizes contributing to demand for large vehicles is nonsensical.
Americans just love big cars and that desire vastly trumps and concern over environmental impact.
Makes sense to while about it. And is an oppression, while definitely not the worst.
How about we tax cars as property, based on Blue Book value and modulated by income bracket, and maybe even by specs like weight and fuel economy? Some states are already doing at least a basic version of this. And instead of giving the money back, we can fund fare-free municipal bus and rideshare programs
That's the point. It is a luxury to live on a 10k sq ft lot in a 3k+ sq ft house. Moving mass far distances requires lots of energy.
In all scenarios, taxes decrease consumption. Kids can use bikes to get around, families' second cars can be glorified golf carts. Enviro-winning.
I agree about the desirability of free mass transit. To take a case in point, Tallinn (Estonia's capital) instituted it for residents (only), the idea being to get people to undo bogus out-of-city residences and return to the city's tax rolls. The last I read, it's working nicely.
Not always. For example, an increase in the tax on a popular but very low-priced subsistence food can increase its consumption by reducing the amount of higher-priced alternatives that consumers can afford.
So you suggest, by analogy, that higher gas prices might reduce demand for electric vehicles by pre-emptively emptying drivers' wallets ?
It's usually an ancestor's choice and getting out is typically either prohibitively difficult or in conflict with family values
Spoken by someone who got out
As an urban US taxpayer, I'm totally on board with fairness, revenue sharing (rural communities still receive full education, health, etc), and making sure every one has some kind of chance in life. In short, I really want "the greater good" for everyone.
The way it's worked out is urbanites like me unwillingly subsidize sprawl. Thru extortion, deceit (h/t Robert Moses), and tantrums. Some kind of acknowledgment of this parasitic (codependent?) relationship would be nice. Instead, the recipients hate us. Worse, they think they're carrying us.
Reduced minimum cost of living for the poor, less traffic for those who drive for a living or have no choice or are willing to pay for luxury.
Rural poor would struggle, they'd need support through another means.
I don't like the idea of extra tax complexity when it could just be an adjustment to headline rates though. Too much admin and potential for benefits cliffs.
Not like it’s just Americans either.
The stupidity threshold is just higher, because European countries are not designed for vehicles this long or wide so your want for the bloody things has to exceed the sheer inconvenience they are for you (I assume whoever buys these cares nothing for the inconvenience to others), and the money pit they are in fuel and maintenance (as they’re uncommon I’d also assume most garages can’t handle them).
At that point it's about showing off more than anything.
They’re not small which definitely counts against them, and their weight may play against the stacking garages some folks have, but IIRC having a car in Tokyo requires justifying that you have an off-street parking spot so it seems well suited for EVs.
There's more inconvenient vehicles out there, but those are the ones I see most frequently.
I know a surprisingly nontrivial number of people who needed an SUV, but upsized because of the tax deduction.
That tax deduction requires having a business. The general population only knows the bare minimum to file their personal taxes, not how to create a LLC to take advantage of tax breaks.
Take houses — Americans are richer than Europeans, and spend some of that on houses that are significantly larger than European houses.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Carpentry/comments/vcvanr/why_are_a...
But when energy is so cheap, why bother?
The median income is just 20-30% higher compared to Europe.
Americans constantly overestimate the standard of living of the majority of their citizens compared to the rest of the developed world
no-one in Europe, Japan or Australia worries about medical bills of bankruptcy regardless or their income
I might like a slightly larger house but I'd rather have a Fiat 500 than a giant US "sofa on wheels" fake SUV with the turning circle of 100ft
Oh the irony of this comment if that was a BMW "Mini Cooper"...
The trade-off is that the back seat might as well not exist. I keep mine folded down to make a two-seater with lots of legroom and cargo space.
Chubbiness of my fellow patriots aside, our commutes suck. Plush seating, ample leg room, and a corpulent selection of infotainment amenities help ease the pain of a 30 mile or more slog through traffic.
When everyone else on the road has a big one, then yes it is the only safe option.
It makes sense that you'd want a larger car when you live in a place that is designed for driving and everyone else is doing it too. Give people other viable options, like walking,cycling, and transit, and I guarantee that they will pick them instead because they are more pleasant and convenient.
I also don't buy that Americans don't want to live in walkable and bikable places either. The two most desirable and expensive cities in the United States (SF and NYC) are largely built this way.
The problem is that the walkable / bikable places are so few and far between that they're gobsmackingly expensive. Even on a FANG salary, getting a reasonable place in one of the few walkable neighborhoods is beyond what I'm willing to pay these days.
If you want more than 900sqft for your family, trading a 15min walk for a 25min drive just makes so much more sense with how American cities are laid out and how much competition there is over the desirable places.
There are efforts being made, it will just take time. Can’t move almost a century of car centric public policy on a dime. Vote with your dollars and feet.
The fix is simple: just get rid out the laws that prevent them from being built.
Like try driving a huge SUV on narrow German village roads or parking in the tiny parking spaces there. Or try weaving though heavy NYC traffic or finding a new parking spot when you need to move for alternate side parking. It’s nearly impossible in an SUV, but an SUV is an objectively better car choice if you don’t care about efficiency or sporty handling.
What I struggle with is how it's socially acceptable for people to ignore all of these negative externalities. Just another example of Moloch winning: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/. For some reason we scorn people who drop litter, but air pollution is totally fine
Imagine society’s collective lifestyle was predicated on littering 100 candy bar wrappers per person. In such a scenario, I don’t think many people are going to get worked up over someone littering 105 wrappers.
Taking this analogy a little further, I always find it strange when people that litter 90 wrappers get mad at those that litter 110.
Motorcyclists, bicyclists, and pedestrians get extra shots.
You can get all of those things in walkable cities. SF and NYC have single family homes with back yards in walkable neighborhoods, they are just really expensive.
Also all neighborhoods have truck access, including fully pedestrianized streets.
Maybe its like this for because our infrastructure has been built around the assumption that you can park your car right in front of your destination AND doesn't have good transit oriented development/frequent enough service. If you had to walk 10 minutes to park your car and or circle the block for 10 minutes waiting for a spot to open up and the trains and busses ran every 3 minutes and didn't get stuck in traffic, the time would balance out differently
But I see that your suggestion is actually to degrade the infrastructure to the point that you need to spend a lot of time to park. That's quite an "improvement".
In a transit-oriented neighborhood, you don't have to travel as far being you don't have acres of wasted space dedicated to parking.
There's more worth going to within a 10 minute walk in Siena the there is within a ten minute drive in Houston.
NYC, London or Tokyo also work as examples since traffic moves at a snail's pace. It's trivial to beat a car on transit and a moderately fit person could jog faster than a car there.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/uo7cle/a_comparis...
Same with Siena (I picked just random points "Hotel Athena" and "Farmacia Ravacciano" as they were highlighted on the maps) 17 mins by car, 26 mins by transit (though walking is faster than transit and biking is faster than car, apparently you cannot drive through the city, very progressive).
> 17 mins by car, 26 mins by transit (though walking is faster than transit and biking is faster than car, apparently you cannot drive through the city, very progressive).
Walking is almost as fast as driving and biking is faster? Not sure how this proves your point, sounds like it is working as intended
This just isn't true, everything breaks down and driving becomes much slower during rush hour due to inherent limitations of, you guessed it, physics.
See my other comment about my rush hour bus commute in Portland, the bus was faster than driving because of dedicated bus lanes. Driving is only fast if there isn't traffic AND there is ample parking close to your destination.
Siena bans traffic out of necessity, not just on a whim. There simply isn't space for cars.
Have you ever sat in traffic? I used to commute downtown Portland and driving took 1 hour during rush hour but taking the bus took 30 minutes AND I didn't have to park AND I got to read instead of curse at other drivers. Driving will always be faster when traffic is good but as we all know, traffic gets pretty bad in most places and would be much worse if it wasn't for alternative transit modes. Here is a good example of this working: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...
Watch that video and then tell me driving is still faster because of physics
> But I see that your suggestion is actually to degrade the infrastructure to the point that you need to spend a lot of time to park. That's quite an "improvement"
Yes actually. I want wider sidewalks, bike paths, parklets, gardens, housing, and shops over automobile parking infrastructure for people who don't even live in my neighborhood.
The route in Portland was downtown to approximately 42nd Street and powell. The bus drives on bus only roads and crosses a transit only bridge so it beats cars sitting in bumper to bumper traffic every time
You are right that the routes are limited and that's it's a problem. However, this isn't because cars are better, it's because we built the city for cars. It's pretty telling that given all of the hostile car-centric infrastructure, buses can still be competitive to driving. I was resistant to taking the bus at first but then once I tried it, it was the obvious choice for me.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/10/how-cafe-killed-co...
I am quite large in every dimension and my Mini Cooper is the most comfortable car I've ever driven, so I think you're way off on this one.
It doesn't help that the well intentioned policies mentioned in the article have effectively bifurcated the market in small and very big, removing consumer choice for smaller (but still large) vehicle designs (i.e. I would love to buy a modern small truck or a hatchback approaching station wagon size, they don't really exist.)
The correct conclusion to me seems to be that, given the physic situation drivers experience on the road, it's foolish to continue pushing on fuel efficiency as we are and instead we need to focus on making the road physics situation unpalatable to these kinds of vehicles to lower their value to consumers (with the added benefit of increasing road safety because the things that make the physics situation unpalatable to huge vehicles are in the same design real as all the stuff people like not just bikes on youtube push that will also make the city more walkable and bikable aka livable).
On top of that, outside the axles, you're in the automobile's crumple zone - ie it's deliberately designed to fold in itself to absorb the blow of impact.
I don't like putting my mother in law on my SUV's third row - I'm loath to put my kid
There are still 4 minivans on the US market, and really I don’t think there’s space for any others to sell successfully. The ones that exist are damn competitive for what they are, and they still don’t sell well.
Oh I don't really disagree. The Sienna and Odyssey seem like good vehicles. I'm less familiar with the remaining American(?) models.
I also don't know enough to meaningfully speculate why 3-row SUVs took over from minivans for fairly similar use cases even though they seem less effective in a lot of circumstances. Part of it is probably image--especially for some male drivers--but I lack the data to have a strong opinion.
It was pretty funny 20 years ago before this was realized- big SUVs had low range transfer cases, skid plates, lockers, air suspension, and tons of other expensive and complicated offroad hardware. The people buying and driving these had no idea what those parts were for, and only found out they had them when they would accidentally activate them on pavement and get an expensive repair bill.
Unless you're looking at an expedition or the like, they're all unibody, front wheel drive, and turbo charged inline fours. Just like a minivan.
The SUVs of old had a truck chassis, a large V6 or V8, rear wheel drive.
See [1] and [2] for examples.
Note that the second link is to an Australian site, so may be using car seats that are not available in the US.
Here's a unit, not available in the US, that fits 3 kids in the back of a Fiat 500 [3]. They have a 4 seater [4] that works in a Honda Civic and similar sized cars.
[1] https://www.carmax.com/articles/cars-that-fit-three-car-seat...
[1] https://www.onlineauto.com.au/best-cars/5-seat-cars-fit-3-ch...
2. There are tons of car review sites touting three cars seats side by side. I own one of these cars. They don't actually fit. Not in real life. Think of it like the McBurger commercial on TV. In real life... bleh.
3. A big car solves many problems other than transporting three kids. Ive only put 2800 miles on my SUV this year, but:
- Ive driven six (six!) people on two >600 mi journeys.
- Ive loaded it with all the tiles and flooring needed for my remodel
- picked up 2x4s and the like
- taken my neighbors kid's to the theater with my family many times
(Personally I find minivans have more utility, but I don’t feel like I’m doing something “right” by owning one instead of an SUV).
So I really don't understand minivan love paired with SUV hate (mid sized ones anyway)
In fact the minivan would have been more practical, but environmentally indistinguishable. The minivan has the same engine my SUV has and, to my eye anyway, has a larger frontal area.
I can put them in the Sorrento.... But I have to buckle her into her seat belt while shes standing holding the boosted. Then I have to lift them both to get them i to position.
We want a new car. We were going to buy a Sienna hybrid. But they're ridiculously priced, unobtainium and, frankly, not that big. So Im looking at a low milage Expedition Max or convincing the wife for a Sprinter.
Maybe some people are buying SUVs because they can't wait until their new baby is walking and talking before driving them somewhere?
When I had a kid I went from a golf to a full sized SUV and was shocked to find that the usable space was barely any larger.
It was easier to pack my firstborn's stuff in it than the Golf. We got rid of it for the Sorrento when we got rear ended when my daughter was four days old. Then I decided I'd get the heaviest vehicle I could then afford - the Sorrento.
Why did Toyota drop the Yaris?
Why is the Honda Civic so big?
Cars have gotten bigger due to a lot of factors and this article addresses none of them.
One can look at the Chevrolet Spark; it is not really much larger than the Metro, but only gets MPGs in the upper 30s AFAIK.
They talk about SUVs the size of the Ford Expedition, which certainly sold well, but smaller SUVs like the Ford Explorer, Chevy Blazer and Jeep Cherokee that are more similar to the crossovers our roads are jammed with today sold even bigger number and continued to grow in popularity.
I think the number of reason is cheap fuel compared to Europe, marketing, infrastructure and norms. We don’t have old cities with narrow streets like Europe does. Our suburban homes have space for a large car. Our cars were always big.
And then again, other countries have lower limits on the weight of vehicles you can drive with a regular driver's license.
We're stuck in a race to the top.
Intuitively, a larger car is safer: if two differently-sized cars are in a crash, the big one will win while the small one suffers greater damage. In the modern age of safetyism, that means that if I'm on a road surrounded by larger cars, I also must by a large car in self defense. Thus, everybody keeps upping the ante, buying larger cars.
(FWIW, I don't subscribe to that approach. I favor a nimble and agile car to allow me to avoid a collision in the first place.)
Additionally, the newest models have had 360 degree cameras for a few years now since they're cheap to add and mark up the price by a bit. An inexperienced driver will have an easier time parking one of those than a standard sedan without.
It is profoundly stupid to own a pickup truck if you don't plow snow, need to haul things off road, or regularly tow recreational vehicles.
With that said, the higher trim models are easily the most comfortable vehicles to ride in that you'll find. I'm 6'4", and I can sit in the back seat of a modern crew cab truck without slouching and leg room to spare. Most smaller cars I can't even do that in the driver's seat.
For reference you can drive 60ft of recreational nonsense in most states with a basic license.
In short, because SUVs are built on a truck frame and are considered trucks, they are not held to the same fuel standards as cars.
Create more small, local neighbourhoods with everything needed in them. Make sure everyone has a grocery store, a school, a doctor's office, and green space like a park within walking distance.
So this basically killed off wagons, which were what people actually wanted to drive. My last three cars have gone from 2500 (1998) to 2750 (2016) to 3300 (2022) despite being basically the same size and same function.