And I hate their blue-rich eye searing headlights to.
Within the “truck” class of vehicles, EPA fuel efficiency standards are based on weight. It’s easier to build heavy trucks and SUVs that meet those standards, than light trucks.
Effectively, the US government legislated heavier trucks and SUVs.
Thanks Obama!
Probably Bush more likely. Oil 🛢 fanatics
Probably? You know you could actually look it up, it’s well documented. Obama’s EPA rules are responsible for this. They’re well intentioned but poorly designed
They were poorly designed on purposes tho
That’s how all laws in the US come out after lobbies get done editing them for their benefit as expense of the taxpyer.
Lolol bruh i could care less about unenforced EPA “regulations”. I said “probably… more likely” as a counterpoint and a joke really. Why don’t you research the personal conflicts of interest for my point first that I was talking about before you go all “dO yOuR rEsEaRcH”?
Ya’know what ill help you out since you didnt provide any burden of proof like an arguer SHOULD do.
Bush administration unveiled a controversial National Energy Plan, which consisted chiefly of $33 billion in public subsidies and tax cuts for the oil, coal, and nuclear power industries, as well as provisions to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for industrial oil drilling.
Ofc they’re both guilty, they are the establishment and two sides of the same coin. Doesn’t mean one can’t have more vested interest potentially. Also lol what EPA rules did Bush even try to pass tho? Besides opening the Arctic for drilling primarily.
We got here because fuel economy requirements are tied to the size and type of vehicle, and so it’s easier to make and sell larger, less efficient vehicles.
https://afdc.energy.gov/data/mobile/10562
Why make a smaller vehicle with a smaller margin that requires more engineering time to reach fuel economy standards when you can sell a larger, often more expensive vehicle that has the same fuel economy as last year’s model?
Consequently they have become best selling vehicles because there are increasingly fewer small vehicles on dealer lots to purchase.
That explains why manufacturers focus on making these vehicles, but not why people aren’t buying cars. There are many cars available to buy, less so than before, but still plenty.
My guess is it’s that people are too susceptible to marketing. Some people see huge vehicles as a status symbol, and parents see them as safer.
A long time ago, I saw a documentary about how marketing changed. Vehicles (and everything else) used to be marketed in a matter-of-fact manner listing off capabilities, features, and specs. Now, marketing is mostly about emotions and convincing people to buy products to “express themselves.” That’s how they got the “anti-establishment” hippies to start spending money on colorful vehicles, new fashion items, etc.
I’m sure marketing has a significant impact, but let’s also look at Ford as an example. They are ending production of all passenger cars except the Mustang, and will now only produce trucks, SUVs and other larger vehicles. I’m sure other manufacturers will follow along, reinforcing the trend of buying larger vehicles by limiting choice.
I just traded my 7 year old corolla for a suv (mainly because of awd for winter driving) This much larger vehicle has better fuel economy than that little car.
We should make a distinction between full sized SUVs and small to medium that are more like tall cars
I upgraded from an older Civic to a Subaru Forester and improved my gas mileage! I also got all wheel drive, lots of modern technology and a vehicle more suited for poorly maintained roads. Most importantly, as a larger guy with bad knees, it’s a world of difference in head and leg room. As a guy with two teenagers, it’s an actual four-seater car. I never want to go back to cars where I need to contort myself to get in and out, and worry about how uncomfortably cramped the back seat is for my passengers …. Tesla, I’m talking to you too.
So, I also upgraded to a larger vehicle, but I’m hoping this article focuses more on excessively large vehicles
Wow, what great consumer choice! The capitolists are only making the goods consumers want and cutting out the fat. Theres literally no strings attached! What an amazing system we have. /s
I just want my wagons, specifically sport wagons back :(
Altezza Gita, my beloved 😍
My rav serves the function of a wagon.
Your rav four either serves the purpose of a small SUV or minivan depending on the year. The current one is an MPV based on a small van so it’s literally a minivan from Japan with regular doors. It does not have the cargo space of a wagon and it definitely doesn’t have the performance or handling of a sport wagon. The closest thing Toyota had in the US would be the really old Camry V6 or the matrix XRS. Maybe a Prius v if it could have had the Prius all-wheel drive prime power train.
“No cargo space” and “it’s a van” are incongruent.
As for performance, it has “sport mode” but even in eco mode it can vastly exceed the performance necessary to drive within legal limits. I’m not going to race with it, I am taking my kids camping in South Dakota or shopping at Costco.
Their seating or slope roof instead of rear cargo space. The current crossover version of the outback fits way less stuff in it when you go camping then my 4th gen legacy wagon. There’s a little more room for people but even with the seats folded down my legacy wagon fits more than the crossover.
There’s so much space taken up by interior trim and sloped body areas for no reason that could be used for cargo.
Edit- On the performance front the new XT can accelerate, but it feels bad to drive, wobbles in the corners while bouncing on the road, and does not stop well. It has similar ground clearance with the same sized tires as my legacy and less than a legacy outback stock for stock. So I just don’t get why you would pick the crossover if given the choice. It is also always fun to see the new Subaru dig a rut into a hill on a dirt road if they forgot to get a running start while I can climb it with my real AWD (VTD center diff.) Even old base models with 4ACT can shift into 4x4 mode (if you shift to 1 or 2 it locks the coupling if the steering wheel is straight so you essentially have a transfer case.)
The 2.5i withe the CVT is what I do not like. The 2010-2019 outback 2.5i take over 10s for 0-60, and the rest of the lineup was similar. They re-tuned the CVT to be more aggressive off the line so it is like 7.5-8s not for most of the NA line up, but the 5-60 is still over 10s. I had a 2017 impreza long term loaner and it felt unsafe to merge onto the freeway from a metering light in the bay area. It also got worse city MPG than my tuned LGT in the hills.
Not a sports though. If I wanted just a wagon there us plenty of those. And rav 4 prime has handling and weight of a wooly Buffalo.
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This is far from new. The best selling vehicle in the US has been the F150 for some 30+ years now and the top 5 spots have typically been pickups from GM and Ram/Dodge.
Yeah but they’re like twice as big as they were even 15 years ago.
It’s funny you say that because there was someone on Reddit that would argue with people who stated that trucks are a ton bigger than they used to be. Their shtick was that trucks of yore and today are within a fraction of an inch.
All lights are the debil
While I don’t doubt the F150 is a leader in sales, it use to be F-Series trucks which included their commercial truck line and no other manufacturers could make that claim.
Stop buying bigger and bigger cars.
I drive a station wagon because I need to fit two dogs in the booth plus and entire family in the same car. But this is a transitory need. At some point I’ll either get a small van, for carrying the dogs, or a small hatchback and have the backseats always folded down.
You should buy according to your true needs not market pressure.
" everyone should do thing!
But not me, I have a particular circumstance that means I need to exempt myself from the logic!
I plan to stop in the future but for now am certain!
"
Everyone buying these cars has some reason that matters to them. They all believe they need it.
Myself included (similar reason, dogs, kids, family out of state that we need to help often), but I have no illusions that I took the dirty way.
The key words here are “matters” and “need”.
I bought the car I have today because driving my small 4 door hatchback was no longer a feaseable endeavour when wanting to move the entire family all at once. It was an objective need, not something it mattered.
You can reply I didn’t need to get a family or the dogs. You’re right. But that actually mattered to me, regardless if it was an objective need.
As I said, I’m in the same spot.
My point is that 99.9% of large car owners have what to them seems like an objective need. Humans are super good at justifying our actions, especially to ourselves
As someone with one forward facing and two rear facing kids right now - this is so frustrating. I feel like there are so few vehicles that can hold them without busting at the seams and even our minivan makes it hard with getting kids hooked in if they are in the very back.
I can’t wait until they are all forward facing and I can open up what cars we can have.
There are like 2 station wagons on the US market. I’d love one, but I’m not into VWs and the Volvo PHEV wagon is only available as a $75,000 performance wagon and no one makes an EV wagon.
You don’t have access to Stellantis FIAT line? The Doblo and Scudo (short chassis model) are pretty affordable and decently compact.
Nope
I hate to break it to you, but small to medium SUVs replaced station wagons, just taller. According to my insurance company, my “SUV” is a station wagon
The Audi A6, Mercedes E class and VW Passat are available I believe. I have seen A6es and E classes in the USA.
The Passat is discontinued in the US and I don’t think they ever had a wagon version of it here. Not recently at least.
The newest Passats I’ve seen in Canada are mk5s I think (2005-2010 or something like that). Most common is the previous gens, which is not common at all.
It’s much, much easier to find and afford a small SUV/crossover than a station wagon body style in North America.
The Kia Niro and the Hyundai Kona are both basically station wagons and they have EV models.
Not really, they’re closer to hatchbacks. I also won’t trust Kia anymore. They got better for a while and then suddenly got much worse.
I hardly ever see a real station wagon in the US anymore. For whatever reason they just stopped selling them here.
I am the world’s last sedan enjoyer.
Or buy whatever the fuck you want, because why not make one part of your miserable life slightly more pleasurable by driving something that makes you smile. In the US, 99% of us need a vehicle to commute because we don’t have access to decent public transportation, so why not drive something you enjoy? Do I need a 500hp Mustang to get me to work and back? Hell no, but it sure does turn that commute into a few precious moments of happiness before I start the 9-5 grind.
You could also change your life in a way that sitting in traffic is not your day’s highlight, but you do you
That’s a very privileged take.
That’s a very privileged take.
Yeah because moving is so viable and affordable for everyone these days. It’s not like there’s a housing crisis with massive inflation.
Oh I forgot I’m in fuckcars, aka one of the most delusional places on the internet.
Those who want, find ways. Those who don’t want, find reasons. Why is it, that most poor people live in cities and not in suburbia, when it’s so impossible expensive to live in the city?
If you could truly enjoy it. Stuck in traffic, a Mustang is little more than eye candy and ego soothing.
The headlights can be angled downwards but fuck it, it’s not themselves they’re blinding
I’ve stopped driving my wee little Subaru at night because of these asshats with 900 lights on at roughly supernova levels of brightness.
(eyes burnt to crisps) What do mean? I drive a 2012 Renault Twingo and i’m not complaining.
Partially because people are selfish narcissistic cunts, and partially because being a selfish narcissistic cunt has become normalised.
People have always been, and will always be, selfish narcissistic cunts. That’s why the concept of regulation exists.
A huge chunk of it is because the USA has a huge tax incentive for car manufacturers to make bigger cars. When fuel efficiency standards started coming in, trucks were exempted because farmers needed their trucks for farm work, it’s a loophole that encourages the manufacturers to build bigger vehicles to avoid these taxes. These massive vehicles are unusually cheap in the USA. If these loopholes regarding fuel efficiency were closed out people would be financially incentivised to buy smaller cars. Unfortunately, money talks. People aren’t all selfish, they’re just doing what makes sense for them.
That’s where the market led us. We have to accept some responsibility but I can’t just build my own car when I don’t find one I like.
Everyone, including you, is such a cunt. It just depends what issues really matter to us.
Am I reading this wrong? By all means plenty of people who don’t need trucks buy trucks.
But the majority of this list is sedans and compact crossovers? These are barely more than hatchbacks with a different name. Obviously the top few spots are dominated by pickups that have ballooned in size. Legitimate criticisms are easily made.
But after reading the title I was pretty surprised at the list because I expected lots of large SUVs. But most large SUVs are missing from this list.
They bracketed it funny. I think they meant (large trucks) and SUVs.
Turns out the more efficient engines make a hatchback a little bigger, creating the “compact crossover SUV”.
Most best selling cars
in the US 😒
Unfortunately SUVs are very popular here also, though they tend to be a bit smaller than in the US, and I even saw a few pickups, in a country where you definitely don’t need one…
Trucks have been bestselling models for literally decades.
It’s because there’s a 25% tariff on importing trucks. It was put in place nearly 60 years ago by Lyndon B Johnson; it’s called the “chicken tax” because the excuse for passing it was as a retaliatory tariff against France and Germany taxing American factory farmed chicken.
Because of the chicken tax, fairly few foreign car companies in the US sell pickups.
And because being a “best selling” model is good marketing, truck makers generally sell very few models of truck. For example, the best selling vehicle right now is the Ford “F series”. So that’s the F150, F250, and F350, in all of their assorted trims. There’s a couple other models they sell - the Maverick and the Ranger - but most of the trucks Ford sells are F series.
So a truck driver has been much more likely to drive a F-series for decades than a car driver was to be driving a Civic.
Don’t forget the insane fuel efficiency calculation that rewards larger, less efficient trucks over the smaller more efficient ones we used to have. It’s the reason even an f150 is gargantuan compared to ones of the past.
I just don’t understand why the tariff applies to foreign cars that don’t compete directly with US cars in terms of form factor
Because it’s designed to protect Ford etc. from foreign competition.
Mind if hijack your comment to clarify a doubt I have?
In the early 2000’s I had an acquantaice move to the US, somewhere in California.
After driving a typical american car for about six months, that person came to Europe, bought a hot hatchback, bolted on it every aftermarket part available for the car, had all the mods approved by the manufacturer and imported it, which awarded them a very high power/low consumption vehicle when compared with the standard american market, and I was told all the money spent was recouped in a few years.
Would this still be valid today?
I’m going to point one that hasn’t been mentioned. Infrastructure.
Highways, roads, streets have way too many lanes that are way too wide. This encourages drivers to drive faster. Faster driving makes overall the roads and vehicles to feel more dangerous, because they are. People’s response is to want and acquire larger, heavier an faster vehicles that make them feel safer in those hostile roads.
This is what contemporary urbanism is talking about when they say that infrastructure determines behavior. You can alter people’s behavior by changing the shape of infrastructure.
The problem in most of the western world is that the answer of authorities (heavily misled by car and oil industry) has been to make more lanes that are wider. In the false belief that this would make roads safer. When in reality the result is the opposite. Other measures like police enforced fines, speed limits, etc. Are also useless to mitigate the lack of safety and carry a huge set of problems with them like systematic discrimination and endemic corruption.
The answer is to make narrower lanes, with fewer lanes in densely populated area, less parking, traffic calmed and car traffic banned zones. Protect bicicles and pedestrians with concrete traffic segregation. Impose aditional fees and taxes for vehicles above a certain weight and parking space take up. Those things will signal people that it’s fine to drive a smaller, slower vehicle, it’s fine to use public transport instead. Along with more public transport options available.
I get what you’re saying, but have you ever driven in Italy? The lanes are terrifyingly narrow compared to the UK, but the drivers are far more reckless!
They just need a “guardian angel” ford f150. /s
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TIL some fella with two cows didn’t get attacked by Neanderthals.
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That’s reddit, let them melt.
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I dunno. I had to drive a truck over the weekend, to move 3 cords of wood. I rented an F250, which is a big truck. It was useful to have; there’s no way that I would have been able to move that much wood with a smaller truck and trailer, and, if my driveway wasn’t so tight, it would have been nicer to rent a larger dump trailer (I’m pretty sure that I was over the maximum load rating on the trailer for each trip).
…But it’s not a fun truck to drive. Power is slow compared to the compact car I usually drive, and very slow compared to my motorcycle, steering feels sloppy, brakes are feel mushy, fuel economy is terrible, and it was so goddamn big that I had to drive very carefully to be sure that it wasn’t over any of the lines on the road. Aside from the ability to move a very heavy load–greater than a ton–it really doesn’t have much of anything going for it. I can’t imagine why most people would want one, compared to a vehicle that allows them to react quickly.
…Or compared to functioning public transit.
Two things: First of course is one simply must have a nicer, bigger, more powerful truck than that guy.
The second thing is no, that F250 you rented wasn’t comfortable. You most likely rented an F250 XL. The XL trim is the lowest, meanest, least comfortable version of Ford’s trucks. The people who need their brodozer status symbol drive the fancy versions that have the soft carpet, power windows, leather seats, and a bed cover because lets be realistic, that truck bed will never carry anything more than groceries.
I have an F150 XL that I bought used. It was a rental truck from some hardware store called “Menards”. It has no carpet, no power windows, no tint, steel wheels, no extended cab, no crew cab, no CD player, just a bench seat and an 8ft bed.
OMG, Menards is fantastic, and I wish we had them in the state I live in now. :(
But yeah, base model truck. But even without the being a base model, the things that make it shitty to drive are still going to be shitty.
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Can you name the truck with four wheel drive, smells like a steak and seats 45? Canyonero! (Yahhh) Canyonero.
Twenty feet long and two lanes wide! Fifteen tons of American pride!
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An honest response I’ve gotten when I ask why someone needs a big car.
