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Heavy car dependency is making American lives less satisfying, study shows
(www.motherjones.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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The NHTSA has enacted standards for increasing fuel economy and lowering emissions in the US. It sets MPG standards based on the size of vehicles. Smaller cars are naturally going to have better economy than larger vehicles, so they set higher MPG requirements for them.
Rather than try to meet those tighter standards, they are increasing the size of cars, so as to qualify for the looser standards.
Minimum sizes and weights have been introduced, ostensibly to keep manufacturers from dropping safety features, but really just to game statistics by reducing the size difference between vehicles involved in collisions.
Safety features like side curtain airbags require considerable space to deploy safely. Side windows used to be at elbow-level in most vehicles; now they are at shoulder level to accommodate explosive restraints. Explosive restraints have been mandated, even where static restraints make more sense.
TL;DR: For better or worse, the small cars Americans want to buy are illegal for manufacturers to produce.