American cars are huge and unsafe, but automakers don't want the simple solution
jalopnik.com
jalopnik.com
There kind of is. Fuel efficiency requirements are stricter for smaller vehicles, creating a perverse incentive to increase size. Here's a 2011 paper that predicted exactly what would happen: https://news.umich.edu/cafe-standards-create-profit-incentiv...
Source? At least according to this source[1], a car with footprint similar to a Honda Fit only needs to hit 51 mpg this year, which it currently meets[2][3]. There are certainly cars that are even smaller than a Honda Fit, and maybe those do need to hit 90mpg, but the existence of cars like the Honda Fit proves that you can have CAFE compliant cars that aren't "beasts".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...
[2] https://hondanews.eu/eu/fi/cars/media/pressreleases/1523/hon...
[3] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=+4.5+L%2F100km+to+mpg
But that is just one part of the puzzle.
The other is of course just normal marketing, advertising, etc. convincing people that they do lots of things outdoors that they don't actually do. Ford, GM, Toyota, Dodge, etc. are not the only ones guilty of this of course as Patagonia, REI, Apple (Ultra watch), and other companies that tout the Great American Outdoors have suckered us (me included) into these outdoor lifestyle brands as well. They all make fine products, of course, but people who tend to want trucks want them because of what they think they enable.
> but people who tend to want trucks want them because of what they think they enable
Those two of statements, sandwiching a paragraph, are completely contradictory.
If the marketing works (and I would claim it does) then people who want FOO want it because of marketing, not because of actual real need fulfillment.
Bernays told us that propaganda/PR/marketing was about selling feelings, not facts. And he demonstrated to us all how well it worked in various domains. The auto industry has been selling more "freedom" than cars and trucks for longer than I have been alive.
I am also quite confused about your follow up comment as well since I haven’t written anything to the contrary here in my previous post.
> The Chicken Tax is a 25 percent tariff on light trucks ... imposed in 1964 by the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson in response to tariffs placed by France and West Germany on importation of U.S. chicken.
> ... since 1964 this form of protectionism has remained in place to give US domestic automakers an advantage over imported competitors.
I occasionally rent cars and always ask for a sedan, but half the time I get "upgraded" to a tank that has huge blind spots (how are you supposed to see cyclists?), uses twice as much fuel and is much harder to park in front of my condo building (which requires maneuvering around elevated train pillars). My toddler even calls it a bus.
> These massive trucks are actually safer for their occupants, but far more deadly to the people outside
Your personal risk goes down because as you say vehicle to vehicle is the most common and you win that zero sum game, but overall the score is very negative.
These are structural issues, asking manufacturers to just make different cars won't magically create demand for them.
The difficulty with getting people to agree to that is that when it comes to crashes between two cars, or between one car and some stationary object like a big tree, "everyone has a smaller car" is less safe than "everyone has a larger car".
"Everyone has a smaller car" would be safer for pedestrians and cyclists, but something like 80% of deaths involving cars are from cars hitting cars or cars hitting stationary objects accidents so that's probably going to be the priority for most people.
This isn't going to be solved until we have "autos on demand", and then pricing will be based on the vehicle size ordered. At that point, there will be no justification for an SUV if there's just a single person needing to get across town or across state.
Let's forget small / smaller for a second. Let's just go with mid-sized. *Plenty* of options there and yet SUVs and trucks are the goto choice. See?
It's the market.
Think about it...Uncle Sam is offering tax credits and such in order to encourage the purchase of EVs. And that same Uncle Sam is doing all he can to keep gas prices down (for a number of different reasons) which discourages and disincentizes EVs. Make sense, right?
They need _a_ car _now_ .
I guess the question is, why. It is because marketing works? Or a sense of safety? Bigger is associated with wealth, power? etc.
Auto makers have figured out how to push our buttons and buy larger and more wasteful vehicles in what is a de facto arms race on the public road.
If you are the man you must buy NewAuto TM, you wouldn't want to look weak.
One could argue quackery but this is C-level paying millions in consultancy fees quackery.
"Rapaille no longer sees patients. He doesn't need to, because he's paid well to supply his insights to corporate America - and lives in baronial splendor outside of New York City.
Apart from Ford, GM and Chrysler, he's advised companies like Kelloggs, Kraft, and Proctor & Gamble. They pay him to get inside the deepest recesses of our brains. In fact, he's known as the "car shrink" in Detroit." [0]
"The notion of need is very, very interesting. Because what do we really need, you see? I need food, I need water. I need shelter," says Rapaille. "And you know that, but then there are other needs, needs of identity. Needs of communication. Needs of being loved, being respected."[0]
"Why do you buy a car that doesn't even make 10 miles per gallon, doesn't fit into your garage? Do you really need that? And you don't need that intellectually," he says. "But at [...] the deepest part of you, the gut level if you want, you feel like you need that."[0]
"I don't believe what people say. They have a good alibi. They have a way to explain things to make them feel comfortable about what they're to do anyways," says Rapaille, who believes it's now considered hip to appear ready to take on anything.[0]
People are MADE to want big cars by advertisements.
Other than the emissions standards mentioned by other commenters, the real solution is to ban car advertisements. We should ban gambling and alcohol advertisements as well. It worked for tobacco.
Nope. People go test drive them, and realize it's nicer to have more space. There are cars in every shape and size in the US. I went to buy a midsized SUV and ended up with a full SUV after test driving. It's much more comfortable. More space is valued by humans in houses, cars, airline seats, hotel rooms and various other places.
source?
Now, I don't imagine that there would be any privacy related issues related to providing evidence regarding whether a Chevrolet Impala was considered a compact car or not, so I look forward to receiving correspondence from your auditor and whatever evidence you have that Chevrolet Impala was considered a compact car.
A bunch of us were alive in the 90's and driving cars.
>The highest-selling full-size car nameplate is the Chevrolet Impala, sold as a full-size car from 1958 to 1986, 1994 to 1996, and then from 2000 until 2020.
The 1970's Ford Maverick, for example, is described on Wikipedia as a "subcompact", at just under 180" (15', or 4.5 m) length.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Maverick_(1970%E2%80%9319...>
Full-sized U.S. cars were large up until the oil embargos of the 1970s, and even then it took most of a decade for Detroit to start marketing smaller cars. The Ford LTD (a large full-sized car) was 224" (17'4") long, and simply massive.
There was a pretty radical re-basing of automobile sizes beginning in the late 1970s and continuing through the 1980s / early 1990s.
“Full size” now = “Compact” in the 80s
(Going by size)
Dude, you do understand that making extrapolations onto all cars from a single datapoint is idiocy?
The average SUV can cost significantly more than a typical car. The manufacturer tends to build SUVS with larger wheels, and sturdier components. Very often SUVs will be built on a Truck body for example. The larger wheels, sturdier frame are much better going over potholes, and clearing snow.
Just curious, do you live anywhere with snow/winter weather?
But I wrote in reference to the market average car vs the average suv. There's probably at least $10k price difference there. The observation I have made owning both cars and SUVs, is that the SUV is more rugged and durable, and drives better in Winter. The larger price tag, also means that the manufacturer doesn't have to skimp on every component as much, to come in under $25k. A real challenge at the bottom of the market, where the largest share of car consumers tended to be.
If I was living in Hawaii, I honestly would not give a shit what kind of car I drive. I would just be happy to have a car in Hawaii.
What this discussion misses is the context of how a car gets used. And that largely depends on where the car is driven.
Having an arms race where people buy bigger and bigger cars to be safer in collisions with other cars is really not ideal, because it doesn't improve overall automobile safety on a national level even just for drivers, and it hurts safety for pedestrians.
Cities including mine are drunk on putting speed humps everywhere.
But obviously they’re not “tuned” for each vehicle size.
A coupe/sedan needs to slow down to half the speed limit to go over, while a larger vehicle with a suspension and tire sizes to match can take them at speed.
Same story for potholes, which of course are worsened by heavier vehicles while small vehicles pay the price.
Literally encouraging an arms race when it comes to vehicle size.
And they are, but only for larger vehicles on my ass for slowing down to go over them in my sedan.
If you look at the stats, virtually the entire increase in pedestrian deaths over the last 10 years has occurred at night.
At any rate, it's largely left-turning, night driving vehicles that are causing the increase in deaths in North America. These pedestrians are being struck at an angle rather than head on.
I've driven vehicles that don't have to survive a rollover (a few models of New Flyer diesel bus). The A pillar being slanted or straight makes no difference. It's the thickness that'll block a pedestrian.
I'm having a bit of trouble understanding this. I've done some visibility tests in my car, a 2006 Honda CR-V, and I don't think the A columns would cause me to miss a pedestrian. I'm not sure how that compares to newer cars, but just looking from the outside at newer cars in parking lots and on the street the size and slant of the A columns seems similar to mine.
What I found in my tests is that the slant of the columns helps with me seeing pedestrians. Yes, along any given horizontal line the column could completely span the visual width of a pedestrian who is not very close to the car, but since pedestrians stand vertically it is only covering part of them vertically. E.g., if the column is blocking me seeing waist it won't be blocking the chest or head. If it is blocking their chest I'll see their waist and head.
A column with little or no slant would be able to block from head to waist.
From my perspective in the driver's seat, the driver side column is less slanted than the passenger side column, so it does block more of a pedestrian. Still, I think if a walking pedestrian was close enough that I might hit them when turning in that direction they would be close enough that enough of them would be unblocked for me to see them.
Also, since I'm much closer to the driver side column, when I turn my head from looking straight ahead to looking to the left that moves my eyes enough that there is enough perspective shift that the places that someone who is at a distance where they could be completely blocked cannot remain blocked throughout the head turn. I'll either catch them with my right eye at early in the head turn or my left late in the head turn.
This might vary between people. When I turn my head to check the driver's side I also move my head back a little. Someone who moves their head forward as they turn it could end up with the perspective shift from the turn being offset by the perspective shift from moving the head forward.
PS: while writing this I had an idea for a simple add on that could make it a lot easier to see pedestrians near the car. Why not add a pair of mirrors near the bottom of the windshield directly in front of the driver. One mirror would be angled to let the driver see what is on the left, and one to see what is on the right.
But while minivans won't roll over, they also will almost certainly have longer stopping distances than a sedan.