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Comment by the_doctah | Hacker News Reader

They are better at snow driving

Then that leaves a huge part of the US that has no (or an extremely rare) need for that advantage. I can't haul a couch in my sedan, but I'm not going to buy an F-250 "just in case"

2023 saw more than 70% of the lower 48 states covered in snow. If you include Alaska, the largest state, it’ll increase a bit more.

What percentage of counties? My state got snowed on because it has a mountain range, but not my county since it's in the desert near sea level.

Large states like Texas may as well be considered several states for purposes of identifying trends. Houston hasn't had any snow since the freeze in 2021; we commonly go several years without snow that doesn't melt in an hour. So again, it wouldn't make sense to base a purchase on a rare event.

I'd like to see a statistic that shows what percentage of the US has persistent snow (say, 24 hours).

My AWD sedan is only worse than an SUV for snow driving in a single dimension: ground clearance. I can't drive over snow berms quite as high as those an SUV can. In practice this doesn't matter much, and the sedan is more (vertically) stable in the snow than an SUV. (Yes, I've driven both in these conditions, and vastly prefer the sedan.)

The main issue is that AWD/4WD in sedans isn't that common, while they're nearly standard on an SUV. But that's a matter of market dynamics (people think that SUVs are required for this sort of driving, which is laughable), not any inherent technological or cost limitation.

Tires make or break snow driving, no?

They're really no better than plenty of reasonably-sized cars.

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