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Mini imported Japanese vehicles may soon be banned on Massachusetts roads

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Re: Mini imported Japanese vehicles may soon be banned on Massachusetts roads

#61

Post by digdugdirk »

briHass wrote: post #57
zrobotics wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I'll need to see a source on increased pollution. I really doubt that a motorcycle is putting out more pollution than an average American-size vehicle. For example, my sport bike gets 59MPG, and I've owned multiple bikes that got >100mpg. Even without a catalytic converter, how is that more pollution than a single commuter driving in a truck or SUV getting 20MPG and likely shedding more road and tire particulate…

For exhaust emissions, motorcycles are often dramatically worse than modern vehicles with catalytic converters. https://gearjunkie.com/motors/motorcycle-vs-vehicle-emission...

Of note, that article was mostly highlighting older motorcycles as dramatically worse when comparing them to newer vehicles.

See this article to show how a modern motorcycle would be ~100x less polluting than the example vehicle given in the article referenced:

https://www.acem.eu/new-euro-5-environmental-standard-for-mo...

Re: Mini imported Japanese vehicles may soon be banned on Massachusetts roads

#62

Post by devilbunny »

sickofparadox wrote: post #56
Amezarak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This gets brought up on HN every time the subject comes up but it doesn't make sense. It is true that, sensibly, emissions regulations are more relaxed as vehicles get larger. But smaller vehicles are still cheaper to make and sell for lower MSRPs than the same manufacturer's larger cars, and larger cars almost always hugely outsell them. Sadly, this has meant that a lot of small cars, like the Honda Fit, have been d…

Because the fuel standards for those smaller vehicles are not realistic to hit. If you go to page 24 on this pdf [1] you'll see that for a car with ~41 square foot wheelbase they need to get 55 combined miles per gallon. This essentially disqualifies anything that is not a hybrid from even going into production at that size. I'll give you its true that Americans love big cars, but even my Ram TRX driving coworkers ar…

I drive a 2000-era Chevrolet Tahoe. Large but not huge by SUV standards.

I park between an F150 and a Ram pickup. Despite the fact that all three are built on the same nominal size category - 3/4 ton pickup - the new ones make my 20-ish year old car look like a RAV4.

And it's not exactly a gas-sipping vehicle to drive.

I do wonder why nothing seems to get good highway mileage anymore despite all the improvements that have been made. My mid-90s Pontiac Bonneville got the sort of mileage around town that you might expect from a full-size sedan (even by American standards, it was large for a sedan) with a 3.8L engine driven by an early-20s male, but the top gear was set so high that it got 30 mpg on the road (7.8 L/100 km). Even modern sedans of the same nominal size get worse than that.

Re: Mini imported Japanese vehicles may soon be banned on Massachusetts roads

#63

Post by petesergeant »

tacticalturtle wrote: post #58
petesergeant wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume governance is the art of the possible, and banning motorbikes is impossible for political reasons, where banning hobby vehicles looks pretty straight-forward.

Governance is also the art of getting the most for your financial and political capital. The fact that the Mass RMV is taking the time and effort to write up and defend a bespoke policy for a super niche vehicle class is a bit of a head scratcher. Only 7500 kei vehicles are imported into the entire US each year - is this really a problem that needs addressing? https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/07/14/business/kei-trucks-ja…

Given the huge volume produced in Japan, if you want to prevent them on the roads then it seems worth nipping the problem in the bud?

Re: Mini imported Japanese vehicles may soon be banned on Massachusetts roads

#65

Post by tacticalturtle »

petesergeant wrote: post #63
tacticalturtle wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governance is also the art of getting the most for your financial and political capital. The fact that the Mass RMV is taking the time and effort to write up and defend a bespoke policy for a super niche vehicle class is a bit of a head scratcher. Only 7500 kei vehicles are imported into the entire US each year - is this really a problem that needs addressing? https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/07/14/business/kei-trucks-ja…

Given the huge volume produced in Japan, if you want to prevent them on the roads then it seems worth nipping the problem in the bud?

I’m biased because I bike everyday through Boston but - I just don’t agree with their assessment that they are a problem, or at least to the degree that it’s definitively worth addressing.

Being visible as a pedestrian or biker is a lot easier with kei cars parked on the street than some of the F150s I have to deal with now. Many of Boston’s streets are also notoriously tight compared to other sections of the country.

If there was wider movement kei cars (which is a big assumption - I can’t imagine many people would be willing to tolerate right side driving) there would be more road injuries of the drivers, probably, but that would also be weighed against injuries to non drivers.

Re: Mini imported Japanese vehicles may soon be banned on Massachusetts roads

#66

Post by karmakaze »

jszymborski wrote: post #3

I really don't get the NA car market. There is a demand for small kei car/trucks as is natural with cities growing and parking dwindling. Yet even compacts are disappearing. My kingdom for an EV compact that is compact. Even the Fiat 500s and Mini Coops feel like they get bigger each year.

That's how capitalism works for vehicles. The same model name continues to grow and increase spending for people looking to buy them when they do. Eventually a new lower model may be inserted below for new buyers, or sometimes the grown model may be reset to a smaller or different form. It's similar to bundling/unbundling cycles which increase expenditure as you try to keep what you want.

Re: Mini imported Japanese vehicles may soon be banned on Massachusetts roads

#67

Post by petesergeant »

tacticalturtle wrote: post #65
petesergeant wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the huge volume produced in Japan, if you want to prevent them on the roads then it seems worth nipping the problem in the bud?

I’m biased because I bike everyday through Boston but - I just don’t agree with their assessment that they are a problem, or at least to the degree that it’s definitively worth addressing. Being visible as a pedestrian or biker is a lot easier with kei cars parked on the street than some of the F150s I have to deal with now. Many of Boston’s streets are also notoriously tight compared to other sections of the country…

> I just don’t agree with their assessment that they are a problem

And I don’t have an opinion either way, but it seems reasonable for the appropriate government agency to, even if the issue is currently pretty limited

Re: Mini imported Japanese vehicles may soon be banned on Massachusetts roads

#68

Post by consteval »

jszymborski wrote: post #3

I really don't get the NA car market. There is a demand for small kei car/trucks as is natural with cities growing and parking dwindling. Yet even compacts are disappearing. My kingdom for an EV compact that is compact. Even the Fiat 500s and Mini Coops feel like they get bigger each year.

I think it's because they are still a relatively niche pick. Ultimately creating a car is very hard (I assume), so they all tend to converge their efforts on the 95%.

And the 95% want an SUV or a Sedan. The 5% in dense cities, even if you successfully target and sell to 100% of them, isn't much revenue. Whereas if you make a crappy sedan and only 10% of the 95% consider it, that's STILL more sales.

So it might make more sense to simply give up those markets, take that money and dump it into the big sellers. Your Accords and F-150s of the world. To further capture more of the biggest market. So that's my guess.

Re: Mini imported Japanese vehicles may soon be banned on Massachusetts roads

#69

Post by consteval »

Amezarak wrote: post #22
EligibleDecoy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of a quirk of emissions controls in the US. Longer wheelbases and heavier vehicles can get by with poorer emissions. It was done, at the time, to help semi trailers and other huge trucks meet less restrictive requirements without specifically calling them out but now has led to each manufacturer making vehicles as large as possible so meeting emissions restrictions is more economical.

This gets brought up on HN every time the subject comes up but it doesn't make sense. It is true that, sensibly, emissions regulations are more relaxed as vehicles get larger. But smaller vehicles are still cheaper to make and sell for lower MSRPs than the same manufacturer's larger cars, and larger cars almost always hugely outsell them. Sadly, this has meant that a lot of small cars, like the Honda Fit, have been d…

Americans love them because of advertising. It's societal wide manipulation.

For those who doubt the power of marketing, look no further than this case.

American regularly buy worse cars, that don't last as long, and burn more fuel, and require more maintenance, with virtually no upside - purely because that's what's advertised and what makes people feel cool. And they know this is the case. They understand the purchase they are making is an objectively worse one, and they (pretty often) have to create complex orchestrations of lies they tell themselves to obfuscate that.

I mean, the sheer amount of single passenger drivers buying trucks for 70,000, never towing anything, and then complaining about fuel economy is insane. I know many people like this. Little do they know they could pay half the price for a Prius, get a better experience, and get 3x as many miles to the gallon. But they do know this, kind of, but the manipulation exists on a subconscious, unreachable level.

Re: Mini imported Japanese vehicles may soon be banned on Massachusetts roads

#70

Post by skeaker »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #23
spdgg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it funny that the safety standards are for the drivers, not everyone around them. Small trucks = not safe Massive modern trucks killing cyclists and pedestrians = very safe! (For the driver)

A small truck has just as much possibility to kill as a big truck, and in fact due to the smaller application of similar forces its more likely to seriously cripple you, even if said hit was non-fatal. While I’m all for reducing the size of cars in USA, pretending that ”massive modern trucks” are the only ones that kill is just wrong.

Not sure how you can come to this conclusion. Seems obviously false by intuition, napkin math, and a cursory search.
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