this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
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Big cars are dead weight dragging down climate policy (ketanjoshi.co)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 50 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The US government of yesteryear recognized a problem, so they drew up legislation intended to improve fuel efficiency, and thus reduce emissions. But they recognized that certain trades required large vehicles that could never be that efficient. So they built in a loophole for vehicles over a certain size not counting towards the requirements being placed manufacturers. Manufacturers being the crafty hogs they are realized if they just increased the size of everything they wouldn’t have to follow any of the rules. Now you have a company like Ford that only has one actual car ( a muscle car at that) in its lineup. Everything else are trucks suvs and crossovers.

The government of today could rewrite these rules to make the loophole require business licenses or something else, but half of them refuse to see there’s a problem at all, and half of what’s left are in the pocket of the problem makers.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago

What’s more interesting is that if you go overseas and look at the same brands, you can see companies like Ford and BMW selling station wagons and normal-sized cars without a single truck, if any, available for purchase.

Not Just Bikes has a great video on this.

[–] droans 16 points 10 months ago

The Obama admin began changing CAFE to use a whole-fleet average which would have closed the large vehicle loophole.

The Trump admin reversed that and pushed to eliminate CAFE altogether.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not to mention they’re tremendously dangerous for everyone who isn’t inside. The fear of dying in a car crash meets the illusion of safety, when it’s being forced to ride or drive in a car that puts your safety at risk to begin with.

[–] SergeantScar 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is what happened with my family. We had a VW GTI and a Golf.. when the kiddo came along the wife wanted an SUV so if we got in an accident the kid wouldn't be automatically dead by one of these fucking monstrosities... I think I'm slowly convincing her that a car might be safe, but VW doesn't make the Golf for USA anymore..

I feel like maybe a path forward would be a long the lines of what someone else has said. Make vehicle registration cost more depending on how big it is.. but who knows...

Now to top it all off because of America's obsession with big vehicles there is still a limited selection of small hatchbacks in the EV zone...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

A big truck should require a CDL, maybe not the same class of CDL a tractor-trailer requires, but a significant bar to entry. Automotive lobbies have probably kept this from happening yet.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But what about my truck that is 65 tonnes of American Pride?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Unexplained fires are a matter for the court!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

12 yards long, 2 lanes wide

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

God I get triggered by these monstrosities. Something tells me that's exactly why the people who buy them, buy them.

Pass the pedestrian crossing extra slowly.

Report any of them for any minor parking violation.

Make them eat shit. If I could.

[–] captainjaneway 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I parked behind one yesterday. Dude backed up into my car during my brunch. He comes into the restaurant to fess up. I tell him I'm the owner. He was nice enough. All he did was put a square dent in my license plate and bent it. I told him it's an old car and that it's ok. But as we were walking to my car he said "you parked close behind me and I couldn't see it as I backed up". I had half a mind to make a remark about having a clean, lifted, truck that probably hasn't hauled anything in 2 years, but I just shut up and let bygones be bygones.

Still, I hope that guy realizes having a 9ft truck isn't worth the sweat every time he backs up. I have a Toyota Camry. Not the fanciest thing in the world. It's 20 years old and I do most of the work on it. So I'm not phased by a dent in the license plate (and possible minor trauma to the bumper). But it's the kind of car that a lot of people own. If he can't see that, he probably should consider lowering his lifted truck. Or perhaps learning to look behind his car before he hops in and tries to exit a parking space.

People like that probably will never learn. They are buying an aesthetic, not a tool. It's like buying a high caliber pistol, an expensive phone, or a McMansion. It's not about having a tool. It's about having a sense of visible identity.

Based on my long rant, I can tell I have not entirely "let bygones be bygones" despite shaking his hand and letting him drive away without a lick of shame.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

The other day a jeep wrangler swiped my car in a parking lot and drove off. I wasn't there but a kind bystander saw it and left their number and the offenders license plate. The damage wasn't small, but also small enough for me to shrug off because it's a 2014 golf wagon and in the end it's just a car.

But the hit and run pissed me off enough that I reported it. The cops found the driver who will be ticketed now and their insurance will go up. If they fessed up I'd have let it slide.

At least your dude fessed up. And yes, they'd all have a much easier time parking if they chose a sensible car.

[–] robocall 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

All my homies want a '95 Toyota Pickup instead of a '24 F-250.

[–] PilferJynx 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's the thing. You still see those old toyotas on the road. They're ugly from wear but still choochin.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

If they had their frames replaced. 95-04 iirc were the bad years, and they were bad years for rot.

[–] LifeOfChance 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The US needs to revisit emissions laws. We need access to smaller trucks. Very VERY few people need a tank on public roads. I'd love to get something like an S10, early 2000's ranger, or an older Tacoma sized truck. My 13" F150 extended crew is the largest truck I feel comfortable owning.

[–] AA5B 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It does make me curious: has anyone seen a survey on how widespread that interest may be? Sure, it’s the practical answer, but i it an answer that a lot of people would give?

Or how much price difference would it require? We naturally expect a smaller vehicle to cost less. The propaganda from one major manufacturer is that a small truck is still as complex and materials cost is small, so they could not produce a small truck for enough less that people would buy it. I know it’s corporate propaganda for sticking with their profit machines, but I suspect there may also be some truth in it.

[–] sphfaar 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Meanwhile, people hate motorcycles even more

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Noisy, dangerous

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Smaller, nimble, less polluting, less traffic, faster

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Yes

[–] sphfaar 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Bullshit, more dangerous because of the other cars who are not used to having motorbikes nearby, and you have this idea of ​​being less protected on a motorbike, in reality you should try to understand that on a motorbike everything is much more predictable and the problem is almost only who is riding it, in a car, you have more blind spots and less control and therefore greater risk of making mistakes and for pollution, seriously, the simple use of a motorbike when all the space in the car is not needed would eliminate almost all traffic on the road therefore less pollution, less weight to move, less wasted energy, motorbikes are better in everything and not they are only considered because of the comfort zone of the average person.

And noisy what the fuck means? even motorcyclists can be idiots and change the exhaust to make more noise, but this happens because having the fucking motorbike is a niche of people who adore and modify their motorbike, but you can very well not do it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes, it definitely is the cars fault

[–] sphfaar 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I hope you're not being ironic, but this is the example.

a tall and bulky vehicle full of blind spots, which causes an accident with a motorbike due to lack of precedence.

the second is an idiot, but I never said that motorcyclists can't be idiots

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I think everyone knows someone who died on a motorcycle. I know of a few, none of which involved a crash with other vehicles.

As for noise... All motorbikes are noisy. They have short exhausts.

[–] sphfaar 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I know someone who died because he was irresponsible, I myself had 2 accidents, one of which was serious and I no longer ride because I don't trust myself or others, with the problem that I spend a lot more if there is no public transport.

It's a vehicle that gives too much freedom, and it doesn't take long for a person who isn't fully responsible to abuse what he can do on the road.

I was speaking more ideally, because if you limit yourself you can have all the advantages it can give without ending up between the sheets of guardrails and cars.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

That's why I don't have one, because I would just abuse the power. My 400hp car is already a bit too much for me, should have got something much slower lol

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Challenging this. Maybe the problem is the constant appetite to change your car every year? Maybe if there was a push to have consumers keep the same car for 10 years (I've had mine 11 now) it would be overall better for the environment. I'd argue the biggest impact on the environment around automobiles is the energy taken to create it, not to use it once it exists. This is what worries me with the push to electric. Perhaps we shouldn't be pushing people to continue the same model of disposable vehicles except now they're electric. Maybe we should stop people treating vehicles like they're disposable.

This is my same belief with phones, computers, etc.

We have an underlying problem with how we treat things as disposable.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

It takes significantly larger amounts of pollution, energy, resources to produce these ridiculously large vehicles that are in many many use cases not the best tool for the job of transporting 1 to 5 people. Driving a vehicle for a longer time doesn't change this. Drive a regular sized car for 15 years or longer.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but most of times when they dispose of a vehicle they sell it someone else to use right? So the only waste for that person be the rapid loss in car value after buying it new. Or are a lot of these cars ending in the dump?

[–] AA5B 2 points 10 months ago

Frequently changing vehicles is wasteful to that person’s weatlth but the vehicle stays on the road just as long. For the rest of us, this behavior just fills out a fpbigger used car market