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Comment by JimsonYang | Hacker News Reader

Youre right, i forgot to add

4) europeans are environemtally conscious

Americans however like their gas guzzling F150s.

The reason I did the original comment was I know for a time the major car companies did a huge push into EVs.

Like the ford 150 lightning, chevy bolt and mustang mach E. But they stopped manufacturing them due to weakened sales and profitability.

Its a vicious feedback loop of consumer adoption, high car prices, and capital investment which makes us feel stuck

*edit this is based on what I heard from a GM exec during a lecture visit while at UofM

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> Americans however like their gas guzzling F150s.

Pickup trucks have always made up between 10% and 20% of vehicles on the road in America; it's the SUV that has picked up from next to nothing in 1980 to almost half of all new vehicles now, while the sedan has plunged from 80% to about 25% of new vehicles today.

A big part of that transition to larger SUVs (which are not F150s) was the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) Standards, which sought to make cars more fuel efficient. They regulated based on the size of the vehicle, so larger vehicles (including both the SUV and the F150) became cheaper to manufacture, while smaller cars were squeezed out of the market as meeting CAFE became too expensive. Larger cars also perform better on safety tests and have an easier time passing onerous safety regulations. Had environmental and safety regulations been handled differently, or if there weren't any, Americans might well be driving more fuel-efficient smaller coupes and sedans.

That said, the Chevy Bolt and Mustang Mach-E are, in fact, being manufactured—the Bolt was recently brought back, and the Mustang Mach-E was never discontinued. The Ford F150 Lightning has been discontinued. Tesla outsells all of them by far.

> Larger cars also perform better on safety tests

That's only true if we're limiting the discussion to the safety of the people inside said car. Quoting one of the first sources I could find: https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2024/06/big-cars-feel-...

a study found a 500 kilogram increase in vehicle weight, which could mean the difference between an SUV and a sedan, correlated with a 70% higher fatality risk

[after the 2003 bumper height-matching standard] The likelihood of SUVs causing fatalities to drivers in other cars reduced from being 132% more likely for a collision with an SUV in the early 90s, to 28% more likely by 2016

A mere 10 centimetre increase in front-end height can elevate the risk of pedestrian death by 22%, with impacts more likely occurring at critical injury points like the chest or head

Children are eight times more likely to die when struck by an SUV compared to lighter and smaller cars

> Pickup trucks have always made up between 10% and 20% of vehicles on the road in America

This is false. It's true today that sales are in that range. It is not remotely true that actual ownership is 10%-20% today nor that it was in the past

I don't think the jump in EV sales in Europe are primarily driven by environment consciousness.

The jump in EV sales this year are primarily driven by seeing what a psycho in the US whitehouse can immediately do to gasoline prices.

Gasoline only comes from one source., and is largely delivered around the world by shipping.

Electricity is able to be generated by many means, and is available everywhere.

I know several people in modest suburban homes, who generate all of their own electricity, including driving two EVs.

The supply chain can be very short.

There is no other form of energy that can deliver the individual and national energy independence that can be delivered by electricity.

Gasoline and petroleum in general can never, ever, ever, deliver this degree of autonomy.

I think a large part of it is just EV's getting good & cheap. You can get a quite good EV for £15,000 now.

Sorry for the very late reply.

This article was just pubished:

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/09/nx-s1-5872786/iran-war-evs-so...

"China exported more than 2 million electric passenger vehicles between January and May"

Now, with the awesome deal with Iran of a "Big, Beautiful, not-a-nuclear-nonproliferation Treaty" blown out the window, along with the rest of the hot air emitted from our idiot in the oval office, oil prices are going through the roof again.

I am very glad to hear that affordable electric cars are available in England. This is a giant step forward.

I'm not glad for the reason, but I'm also glad that countries around the world are accelerating a transition away from petro based energy.

Here in the US, GM is announcing a new coal powered car, with the slogan: "Bring back the Stanely Steamer".

While all Chinese EVs are banned.

The major US car companies pulled back some on EVs mostly because of hostility toward EVs from the Trump administration.

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