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Comment by nisa | Hacker News Reader

Not only in the USA. Germany also has a growing number of big SUVs.

What's interesting is that it was possible 25 years ago to build a 3 litre/100km car. The Audi A2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_A2

Now a modern SUV has at least double the weight and a worse wind resistance value and uses 6l/100km of fuel.

And while there are limits what physics will allow it seems it was possible to reduce fuel consumption and emissions by at least 50% 25 years ago. With modern computer simulations and technical progress over the last 25 years something like this should be at least possible? Yet it's difficult to buy a car like this today.

Somewhere something went really wrong.

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You could buy the hybrid fossil i3 for many years, which was kinda the successor of the Audi a2, but better. Or also the electric i3 which was arguably better than the hybrid version if you have a charging network where you live.

I think it’s trivial to buy a better car than the Audi A2 nowadays. But not with an ICE.

Sure but that's not the point. Reduced fuel consumption using hybrid technology works in the city. EVs are even better.

It's just fascinating that the technology was there and wasn't improved upon in 25 years. We could drive non-hybrid ICE cars were a big chunk of cars is using 50% less fuel now if we would have avoided that SUV trend.

My point is that the technology has improved. We ditched the ICE for electric motors on the way.

Those very lightweight fancy cars didn’t sell very well (~150k A2, ~250k i3) but that’s another problem.

VW - GOLF I - Average weight: 800kg, 1.8l, 112bhp, average fuel consumption: 10 litres/100km

VW - GOLF 8 - Average weight: 1450kg, 1.0l, 110bhp, average fuel consumption: 4.6l/100km

So the car is nearly twice as heavy and uses less than half as much gas. And there were no optimizations?

My point is that it could use 2l/100km if that would be the optimization target. Golf 8 is nowadays a few classes above what the Golf 1 was. It's also a rather big car compared to the Golf 1.

>My point is that it could use 2l/100km if that would be the optimization target.

No it cannot. There are more things involved than just air drag when it comes to fuel consumption in a car.

>Golf 8 is nowadays a few classes above what the Golf 1 was. It's also a rather big car compared to the Golf 1.

Exactly. It's way heavier and uses less than half of what the Golf I used back in the day. This to me demonstrates that you don't understand the basics behind all this. Maybe you should read up on stuff.

> Reduced fuel consumption using hybrid technology works in the city.

Works on a highway as well, but the difference is smaller.

Carmakers build what sells.

So what went "wrong" is that people prefer powerful cars with plenty of space, comfort, and bells and whistles rather than "3l/100km"...

This is the drug dealer argument; if it wasn't me, someone else would

Whatever you want to call it that's the reality.

I thought it was an observation of a market that is primarily free.

The entire article this comment thread is attached to is a liturgy of all of the policies affecting this market, and all the distortions created by the various actors.

Despite tariffs and regulations that restrict how "free" the market is compared to other vehicle markets overseas?

Correct. While there are many rules and regulations that affect the auto markets, ultimately cars, including Europe, have grown in size because of market forces (I.e. what consumers prefer)

Conveniently forgetting that the SUV trend started due to a shitty workaround to fuel economy requirements. There are so many unnecessarily large cars around nowadays.

As though marketing never influences what people want.

> Carmakers build what sells.

Eh, they build what makes them the most profit.

That's a much more complicated can of worms than what sells. It includes tax policy, rebates, financing rates, mileage standards, engine technology costs, etc.

If enough people wanted the same cars as the Vox author wants, they’d be made.

Not if you set up the market such that other cars are significantly cheaper. The market is only free to respond to demand when an intersection of demand and regulation makes it economical.

That's not the case in Europe though. Lots of people in Europe have exactly two preferences when purchasing a vehicle: low price, and good fuel economy. All of Europe's best selling cars in 2022[1] fit either or both of those criteria. Europe has a strongly revealed culturally-ingrained preference towards economical cars.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1127929/best-selling-car...

it is the case, the average european car is becoming a ridiculous SUV/pickup too

the rate of increase in mass of european cars is now greater than that of the US

Cars in Europe are becoming, and have already become, massive as well.

Preference towards economical cars does not mean any of my previous comment isn't true. At some point cars are economical enough and other features become a better selling point in the market instead of absolute best possible fuel economy.

Are you saying that the reasons in the article are incorrect, and what happened was a change in customer preferences?

> Carmakers build what sells.

This is only true when carmakers are sufficiently experimenting and letting customers decide what sells, but when they all make extremely similar products in each category, it isn’t true. For examples look at the truck category - in North America at least, there is effectively no way to get a truck that is not loaded with electronics and silly features as the makers stopped competing on anything else. There is no “light weight, utilitarian build” truck that can be bought. And magically they all have super high hoods and massive interiors.

The same is true in every category I have looked at.

Vans

Minivans? Work vans? Where’s the experimentation? They all seem to compete on the same narrow list of metrics leading to homogenization of the product category. So it isn’t “we build what sells” but rather “customers need to buy and we define what’s available quite narrowly”

Work vans in Europe have quite some variety to choose from, usually the segment is divided in 3 sizes: small ones based on compact cars chassis, a mid-size and larger ones with the chassis adaptable from a box van to a mini-truck, even with the possibility to exchange part of the rear for a bed truck.

Some brands have an extended version for the mid/larger sizes, either to accommodate more passengers, have larger boxes or to fit a box truck enclosure on the back.

> in Europe

That’s the difference. I am writing from a North American perspective and I am often jealous of the seemingly endless variety of options available elsewhere in the world. Just know that we North Americans aren’t necessarily choosing to buy the giant trucks - in many cases we would love smaller options but they don’t exist.

Because that's what the market prefers.

Sorry but people are not "innocent victims" and carmakers do not increase their own costs for the sake of it.

They kept adding electronics and "silly" features because on average consumers went for it when given the choice.

Exactly. This article is all over the place.

It's the tariffs making americans buy SUVs, european cars are too expensive!

Then they complain that a tax increase on SUV owners in DC was opposed?

They clearly don't want Americans to have cheaper cars - just force people to use the cars they think are 'correct'. Gotta save the environment, who cares about the consumer?

Drugs sell really good yet we have laws against that. Maybe some regulation on what a car company can sell would be good.

There was also dieselgate :)

Dieselgate was about NOx emissions and avoiding using so much AdBlue. I'm not sure that a bigger tank for that would have a big impact. As it's happening in the exhaust system there shouldn't be an impact on fuel consumption.

There is regeneration that happens to burn the soot from the filter, which increases fuel consumption a little bit, but I will still take a BMW M340d xDrive station wagon over a BMW X3 M40i any day.

Except I can't get the diesel here. Nor can I get a station wagon here.

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