Carmakers are ‘pushing’ SUVs because a large fraction of buyers want SUVs.
I find it concerning that this seems incomprehensible to many people.
You can’t really change what people want without enacting dystopian/fascist policies.
I find it concerning that this seems incomprehensible to many people.
You can’t really change what people want without enacting dystopian/fascist policies.
It's the other way around. Making SUVs desirable has been an absolutely massive marketing project since the '90s, to take advantage of weaker regulations on "light trucks" and bigger per-unit profit on larger vehicles.
examples of this? If SUVs have better sight lines from being higher, people want better sight lines, and car manufacturers put that on their advertisements, is that really carmakers "pushing" SUVs or people wanting SUVs?
I think this is an overgeneralization, and there are a few factors at play:
Carmakers and dealers push SUVs because typically they have a better margin. I know when I bought my first car back in 2006, lots of folks tried to push me into an SUV even though I -knew- I wanted a basic compact sedan. [0] One of my past partners had the same problem even last year when shopping for a Sedan from the brands that -do- still sell them.
Many consumer groups overbuy on vehicles in general; Whether it's folks who buy a full size truck when a midsize would be more than enough, or as a 'status symbols' (e.x. Cadillac Escalade or Range Rovers at the start of the century)
Then there's the 'Miseducated' group that think that SUVs/Trucks are 'inherently safer' than a Sedan (maybe in some cases, but then it's a weird game of MAD at best since the counter-argument is that SUV->Sedan accidents tend to go worse for the sedan...)
> You can’t really change what people want without enacting dystopian/fascist policies.
IDK. Fixing EPA Footprint rules would be a great start while being more on the 'pragmatic' side than dystopian/fascist.
[0] - RIP Saturn and their no pressure sales.
If this had been really true, some car company would have decided to sacrifice the extra margin to sell at a lower price point to capture a larger market share.
Yes you can, you can educate them. Decide on how to categorise the environmental impact of each car and mandate that it is labelled as such. Unless you deem such regulation as dystopian?
There are definitely some places that'd like to stop building out new housing with natural gas service, however. But that isn't quite as rage inducing as telling people the leftists are coming for their cherished gas range.
NY state has banned gas stoves in new buildings[1]. Someone is pushing enough for legislatures to act.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/03/us/new-york-natural-gas-ban-c...
There might be a tangible difference between "banning gas stoves in new construction" and "banning gas stoves", but as it relates to this conversation they're still the same. ie.
>ostensibly seem less concerned about addressing externalities and more concerned about imposing a choice onto others
In my driveway sits a Chevrolet Bolt. In my garage is a Model 3. When I replace one of them, it will be with a crossover. A Model Y, if I could just wave a magic wand today and replace the Model 3. I want a slightly taller car. And not because of some conspiracy of marketing, either, but because it will be a better fit for my needs.
You can't change what people want without fixing safety regulations to account for the people outside the vehicle, instead calling it a day after 45mph crash tests.
Changing the polices that led to the SUV/pickup arms race just so automakers and dealerships can sell vehicles for higher profit margins is not dystopian/fascist. Pedestrians deaths are going up, smaller lower seating vehicles are becoming unsafe, and the climate crisis keep getting worse.
This is a funny thing to say considering most of these vehicles already come with a tax rebate to entice people to buy them over their ICE counterparts. Are taxes and tax rebates "dystopian/fascist"?
It’s pretty much only useful if you have a large taxable income.
Sucks for you if you are a student, a retiree, a small business owner, etc etc.
(Average new car price: 46k, Median Income: ~54k before tax)
If tax rebates become a way to control what people can and can not afford to buy, it's just a welfare program deceptively designed for benefiting the top few percent of people drawing a steady income.
Maybe most people are buying cars they can not afford, but that is not an excuse to take away that choice.
The popularity of SUVs is the result of a "loophole" in government incentives. By being classified as light trucks, regulations which apply to cars don't apply to them. This lead automakers to push trucks and SUVs rather than smaller cars. Simple as that.
If the regulatory pressure were applied in another direction, e.g. by scaling road tax with the 4th power of mass (as road damage scales) or by removing this ludicrous loophole, we would have smaller and more efficient cars rather than monstrosities with hoods as tall as a 14 year old.
SUVs are getting really popular in India and most of Europe nowadays, despite narrower streets and lack of parking infrastructure.
Or you can, by using marketing, exactly the strategy auto manufacturers in the USA used to push SUVs, SUVs that conveniently skirted emissions regulations which smaller cars were required to fulfill.
Interesting how your definition of dystopian is exactly what marketing/PR has been invented to do, to change the minds of people about what are their "needs".
If you haven't seen, I thoroughly recommend Adam Curtis' "The Century of the Self".
How would you expect a larger car to adhere to the same emissions regulation as a smaller car?
>Interesting how your definition of dystopian is exactly what marketing/PR has been invented to do, to change the minds of people about what are their "needs".
When the government does it, it's definitely a problem because there is not much mechanism to check this power.
When it's a company doing it to sell a product, it's a problem if there are no competitors. That's sort of why we have fairly stringent anti trust regulation.
I don't, never said that, don't create a strawman. SUVs are classified under small trucks instead of passenger vehicles for emissions regulations in the USA, that's the issue.
> When it's a company doing it to sell a product, it's a problem if there are no competitors. That's sort of why we have fairly stringent anti trust regulation.
No, it's a problem when a whole industry decides to skirt some inconvenient laws by using marketing tactics to slowly change consumers' perception of their product. That's what automakers in the USA did, sold an idea that SUVs are safer, that they are needed for families and so on because it was more convenient to not have to abide by stricter emissions regulations in their smaller cars. There's competition, and the competition is doing the same because it benefits the whole industry's profits. This form of collusion is impossible to prosecute, USA's laws infamously end up having lots of these holes for loopholes to poke through... How much of that is on purpose or just simple incompetence is left as an exercise to the reader.
They are heavier, so they wear the roads more, so there are higher taxes to cover that.
They are less efficient per km, which uses more grid, so there are higher taxes/charges to cover expanding the grid.
This seems to work and they same thing could work here
Similar to your other example: it's made up and is not the reality.