It’s time for Americans to embrace small cars

boem@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 1077 points –
It’s time for Americans to embrace small cars
arstechnica.com
435

You are viewing a single comment

some reasons for the raise of vehicle size on the last decades are personal taste, but others are policy driven, we could look into that, as utility vehicles are treated differently in terms of emission requirements

Yup - in the US, pick-ups and SUVs are categorized as "light trucks," which have different fuel efficiency and emission standards and are therefore more profitable to produce.

Add to that some clever marketing to the effect of "big car = more manly/safe" and boom, now you see these big, stupid, fuel-ineffecient, dangerous vehicles everywhere.

Good job 👍

Not just that but the standards are also more lenient if the car is larger for its class which is part of why even small cars are bigger now.

I have heard also that a big car is better because a big car crashing with other bigger cars will increase the probability of surviving, but then it's a war of having the biggest car. It's basically the same as weapons.