Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 429 posts

Re: Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them

#221

Post by PaulHoule »

LUmBULtERA wrote: post #139
globular-toast wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment shows how bad car culture is. You think you're the enlightened one, but you want an electric sports car for getting "around town"? People should be walking or cycling around town. Cars are actively harmful to towns. Cars have led to generations of people who don't realise they are capable of walking further than a few steps between car and building. A kind of learned helplessness. When you step outside o…

Except in a lot of places where it’s easy to use public transportation and bikes, it’s still useful to own a car for around town to places a bit further away. Or when it would take you 1.5 hours by public transit (even in areas with good public transit!) vs 0.5 hours by car, on a 110 F day. This thread is about car choice, which doesn’t mean people don’t use other options when they make sense.

I had a friend from the Bronx visiting the other day who told me how trips across the East river that were 20-30 min by car are 2 hours by subway thanks to the Manhattan-centric nature of the system. A friend who lives in NJ close to the West River couldn’t believe I was riding the PATH train to the Red Bulls Stadium when it takes so much longer than driving. (Answer: I’m a railfan)

Re: Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them

#222

Post by PaulHoule »

roughly wrote: post #63
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

I hate sounding like a broken record but my belief is that car makers are more excited about XXXXL cars in American than car buyers are. The media is consistently complicit in covering this up, sounding like the brainwashed soldiers in The Manchurian Candidate It's not to say that we don't like big cars because we do, but walk into a car dealership looking for a small car and they will tell you they are out of stock…

As folks elsewhere have noted, CAFE standards make "light" trucks substantially more profitable than other cars, and so yes, car makers have pushed them aggressively, including with strong marketing campaigns for the last 20 years or so. All of the arguments from car manufacturers that they're just "answering consumer demand" ignores the point that they manufactured that demand. Change the tax structures and incentiv…

See also

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

Re: Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them

#223

Post by moandcompany »

imglorp wrote: post #36
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

I hate sounding like a broken record but my belief is that car makers are more excited about XXXXL cars in American than car buyers are. The media is consistently complicit in covering this up, sounding like the brainwashed soldiers in The Manchurian Candidate It's not to say that we don't like big cars because we do, but walk into a car dealership looking for a small car and they will tell you they are out of stock…

Some of us actively hate big cars for daily use and are angered at the "SUV" (usually neither sport nor utility) unithink forced on us, and are frustrated how hard it is to find anything different. I want basically an electric Miata for around town, can't get one. I also want an actual utility vehicle with a long, solid, roof rack to haul a canoe or sheet of plywood. SUV roof racks are usually token, if at all. A pla…

Unfortunately, EVs in the United States are prioritized for range now and range is a function of battery size, with a corresponding penalty of cost and weight.

There are still a few EVs models available in the US that are relatively light compared to the mainstream models, and most are going to be old/used models.

e.g. Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt, Fiat 500E, BMW i3, Volkswagen eGolf.

None of the above will be in the low 2000 lbs curb weight territory that is part of the Miata driving feel, but they are the closest you can practically find.

Re: Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them

#224

Post by dathinab »

in a lot of ways including unexpected ways

e.g.. their love for humongous wide hard to maneuver fire fighting vehicles (and their over use in situations which shouldn't require a fire truck/engine) implicitly block a lot of improvements and often lead to forced wider lanes and other street design aspects which by now are well known to hugely contribute to more deadly accidents

Re: Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them

#225

Post by PaulHoule »

jonny_eh wrote: post #26
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

I hate sounding like a broken record but my belief is that car makers are more excited about XXXXL cars in American than car buyers are. The media is consistently complicit in covering this up, sounding like the brainwashed soldiers in The Manchurian Candidate It's not to say that we don't like big cars because we do, but walk into a car dealership looking for a small car and they will tell you they are out of stock…

> walk into a car dealership looking for a small car and they will tell you they are out of stock of new ones of the model you want because the factory washed out in a flood Are you making this up?

No, it happened when I bought my Honda Fit.

Re: Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them

#226

Post by gruez »

PaulHoule wrote: post #211
gruez wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Part of the problem is that carmakers refuse to sell small cars. If you don’t believe me try to buy a small car at a car dealership in America. >Consumers are angry about rising costs, particularly for automobiles, and having a choice to buy an affordable vehicle could be surprisingly popular. Consumers may claim they care about rising costs, but the fact that more expensive SUVs are outselling sedans makes me think…

Try buying a sedan. Most of them have been discontinued by the manufacturer as of 2024 or the dealer won’t have one in stock or if they do have one in stock it won’t have power windows or they’ll have some excuse why they can’t sell you one. They did it to my dad when he tried to buy a small car in he 1970s and it was a policy of American car dealers except around a short period after he 2008 financial crisis. What i…

>Try buying a sedan. Most of them have been discontinued by the manufacturer as of 2024 or the dealer won’t have one in stock or if they do have one in stock it won’t have power windows or they’ll have some excuse why they can’t sell you one.

>They did it to my dad when he tried to buy a small car in he 1970s and it was a policy of American car dealers except around a short period after he 2008 financial crisis.

What you said about sedans being hard to procure might be true today, but there's no way it was an issue back in the 70s. Eyeballing the chart in the article[1], 3 in 4 cars produced were sedans. It strains credibility to claim that it was hard to buy a sedan. Even today, sedans account for 1 in 4 cars produced. That's a huge drop, but there's no way that the buying experience is as difficult as you make it out to be.

[1] https://www.economist.com/interactive/united-states/2024/08/...

Re: Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them

#227

Post by [deleted] »

1986 wrote: post #23
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

I hate sounding like a broken record but my belief is that car makers are more excited about XXXXL cars in American than car buyers are. The media is consistently complicit in covering this up, sounding like the brainwashed soldiers in The Manchurian Candidate It's not to say that we don't like big cars because we do, but walk into a car dealership looking for a small car and they will tell you they are out of stock…

It's an arms race too, I'm in the market for a car now and would prefer something compact for city parking, but given that every _other_ car on the road these days seems to be an enormous SUV, I'm looking at probably at least a crossover so I won't constantly feel like I'm about to get steamrolled by a 4Runner or F150

[deleted]

Re: Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them

#228

Post by unstatusthequo »

bradley13 wrote: post #95

Easy fix: If you want less of something, tax it. The race to ever bigger vehicles has many costs, from road wear to (now we know) human lives. You pay an annual registration fee for your vehicle. Make that fee go up dramatically for heavier vehicles. If you pay, say, $100 for a car under a ton, make it $1k for up to two tons, $10k for 3 tons, etc..

I am so tired of the comments where “tax it more” is the only solution to problems. I think we should tax posters who suggest this. Then we’d have less of those comments. Win win!

Re: Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them

#229

Post by jeffbee »

PaulHoule wrote: post #217
jeffbee wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People in US suburbs frequently live several miles from their town center It is not the responsibility of the citizens of the central city to accommodate suburban drivers.

In that case all the retail will go out to the suburbs and they’ll lose the jobs and have to drive out to the suburbs to go shopping. Or just lose the jobs to AMZN warehouses even further away.

That is clearly not inevitable which you can demonstrate to yourself by glancing around and pretty much any city on earth.

Re: Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them

#230

Post by idontwantthis »

lamp_book wrote: post #125
idontwantthis wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That one is especially confusing to me because they even have the imprezza hatchback which likes identical to a crosstrek if you squint your eyes. Maybe they don’t sell that one anymore?

They actually dropped the Impreza sedan in the latest gen, it’s only the hatchback now. I always disliked the crosstrek since it’s a heavier Impreza on an already dogged engine but they are/were the only manual version so some people were buying them for that.

Curiouser and curiouser.
Post reply on HN