Why U.S. Regulators See Minicars as the Enemy
jalopnik.com
jalopnik.com
The main reason is we don't have a regulatory classification for a car that doesn't go to highway speeds but isn't a Low-Speed Vehicle (LSV), and there are safety concerns biased toward those things being on highways when they ought not be on a highway anyway (just like, for example, a bicycle).
Also from the Bloomberg article:
> The absurdity of deeming minicars unsafe while ignoring the danger of gigantic SUVs and trucks reflects a tragic blind spot of US car regulations, which have for decades conflated “car safety” with “car occupant safety.” The result has been an arms race of vehicle size, as well as a refusal to allow Americans to enjoy the myriad advantages that minicars bring to urban residents across Europe and Asia.
So they would fail high speed crash tests, but also wouldn't likely be in high-speed crashes because of the lack of high speeds………
It's unfortunate that the Smart-for-Two didn't do better in the marketplace, but this can pretty much be explained by the high price which was a result of the expense of having a very good crash rating.
That strikes me as an engineering/design problem that is "easily" solved. We shouldn't have highway traffic intersecting slow suburban streets. At least not without a lot of slow-down/calming measures and likely a traffic signal.
IMO, most of our suburban roads are over-designed - we've made a naive attempt to maximize throughput with raw speed. Instead, we should be looking at maximizing throughput across modes of transportation, maximizing safety by road design (so we don't all "need" 8000lb SUVs to feel safe), etc.
Most suburban streets should probably be 15-20mph, not 25-35mph. Suburban arteries 25-30 instead of 35+. Narrower lanes instead of wide-open sight-lines (which encourage speeding) and other calming measures. And for gods sake, separate infrastructure for bicycles and mobility devices, and more pedestrian-focused infrastructure (not sidewalks as an afterthought, as seems to be the norm).
I still think the most forward-thinking solution is to just standardize on putting buried infrastructure underneath cycling pathways --- that way, when maintenance is being done cyclists can be diverted to (their choice) of either a short stretch of road, or a similar length of sidewalk.
Was it just the price? Or a combination of price, inefficient motor (vs the diesel sold in the EU), and lack of practicality?
In the US you ended up with a car that was slower, more expensive to buy, less useful (2-seats, tiny trunk), and barely more fuel efficient than a Honda Civic. It was doomed from the get-go as spec'ed in the US.
Rather a shame that there hasn't been a real replacement for the Geo Metro/Suzuki Swift yet (and I really regret that I didn't arrange my life so that the one I bought was a vehicle I chose to keep).
Personal example: I work just over a mile from home, most days I walk, but when the weather is crap, I drive. But, despite being wholly within a suburban area, the speed limits are 15mph (neighborhood), 35mph (suburban parkway), 55mph (suburban artery), and 20mph (office park).
Likewise, my wife works about 8 miles from home, and cycles some of the time. But driving, the speed limits vary from 25 to 45mph, again with nothing but 2-lane suburban streets.
I'd happily trade one of our full-size cars for an LSV or Kei equivalent, but it wouldn't be able to keep up on the short stretches where we need to go 45+mph (realistically, traffic is flowing at 50mph on many of these roads despite posted limits).
Actually, we saw a Kei truck (Honda Acty) driving up the road the other day. This was a 50mph dual-carriage way in the suburbs (stroad-ish). Pulling away from a traffic light, it could barely keep up. But, for weekend Home Depot runs it's probably perfect otherwise.
I think the recent rise in US traffic deaths is an indicator that the purely technological approach to safety has hit a limit and something else is amiss.
The downsides, though, are as clear. These are not useful for serious transportation outside of the gated community agglomeration. To get out, you must go on a high-speed road (at least 45 MPH speed limit) where these minicars would not survive. So, most of the trips being replaced by minicars would ideally be walking or biking anyway.
I have two short friends who live in the city and have two kids. When their second arrived (and their first was a toddler) they replaced their sedan with a "mini"-SUV specifically because it became difficult to fit all the things required for taking both kids somewhere at once, especially if they were flying.
Right now, it's just too darn cheap to own one in the US, leading us to policy decisions that prevent smaller, more efficient, cheaper vehicles. And diminishing safety for non-car uses of public spaces. We'd all be safer, richer, and healthier if more of us could get by without owning large vehicles.
And note you said "mini-SUV". I'm more concerned about the Escalade EXTs and super-cab pickup trucks and things.
Makes sense, and fwiw that's not something I was trying to rebut. The article I read a while back argued that it might be good to relax the height/weight requirements on car seats. I can't remember exactly but I think it argued that a modest reduction in the requirements would result in an increase of ~30 deaths of child car occupants per-year and some larger number of injuries, but that the externality of reducing incentive for sizing up the family car would result in fewer childhood deaths in general (as well as reduce them for other age cohorts).
> Right now, it's just too darn cheap to own one in the US, leading us to policy decisions that prevent smaller, more efficient, cheaper vehicles. And diminishing safety for non-car uses of public spaces. We'd all be safer, richer, and healthier if more of us could get by without owning large vehicles.
Agreed. I'm really glad I live in a town with a centrally located bike path
> And note you said "mini-SUV". I'm more concerned about the Escalade EXTs and super-cab pickup trucks and things.
I ended up getting the same one (Hyundai Ioniq 5) but it's still larger than I'd like. Our other car is a Honda Fit, which--other than the legroom being a bit cramped and it not being electric--is the ideal car for me. The Ioniq doesn't have the insane completely vertical Everest-sized grills you see on the giant vehicles, but it's still much larger than the Fit. It also doesn't offer the driver the visibility of the Fit which makes me a smidge more nervous around small children, though it has cameras to somewhat compensate.
There's the argument that they shouldn't be on the road due to their higher weight, but I'll disagree with that line of argument in advance.
Tangent: I'd love to replace my wife's BMW 2-series with a lightweight EV. Like an electric Miata or similar. But no such thing exists. :sad-trombone: The BMW is a porker - 3500lbs or so - beating that with an EV should be easy. It's our second car, so range could be a bit lower than some current offerings. No need for 300 mile range on a car that's primarily used to make 10 mile round-trips to the office during the week and 40 mile round-trips to family/friend's homes on the weekends.
Not displacing cars, if anything adding to congestion.
Not sure about Asia, but the popularity of tiny cars in Europe is pretty... limited, I would say. Sure, they have carved out a niche, but the general trend is still favoring bigger cars here too. And this despite the various incentives (in the EU, car makers use small cars to drive down their "fleet CO2 emissions", in Japan kei cars have lower taxes etc.). Not saying that I'm in favor of this trend, but it's hard to deny it...
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