• CyanFen
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    1 year ago

    The reason for this is bad but the end result is good. Let’s hope these habits stick around once people are in a better spot.

    • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I wouldn’t get your hopes too high.

      In the wake of the 2008 crisis, many people stopped buying huge gas-guzzling automobiles and started buying smaller and more fuel efficient vehicles.

      Sure enough, as things recovered, people bounced right back to the SUVs.

        • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Largely because there is such little demand for them relative to huge vehicles.

          How else will Bob and Beth show off how deeply serious they are as people without a massive truck and SUV that they actually use for their intended non-urban purpose maybe once a year?

          • TransientPunk@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            That simply isn’t true. We have laws in the US that dictate fuel economy relative to the size of the vehicle. Car manufacturers realized that they could make bigger vehicles rather than make them more fuel efficient. That’s the real reason our cars are so bloated

        • oo1@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I think i saw someone say in the US a “commercial small truck” is exempt from various regulations (efficiency /pollution or something ) that apply to “cars”, so end up more expensive for that too.

          • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            This is true; “light truck” is the classification.

            Basically, it would have been annoying and more expensive for car manufacturers to meet the standards, so they just started producing and promoting a bunch of vehicles like SUVs that technically classify as light trucks and thus are exempt from them. American consumers are American and thus love dumb big things for the sake of being big, so that was a pretty good gamble.

          • AA5B@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yes, there are loopholes for “commercial vehicles” that aren’t regulated as strictly, which is why pickups keep getting bigger and have such bad efficiency

            It also creates weird counter-incentives, like no small/mid pickups. Manufacturers don’t want to build small to mid sized pickups because they would be subject to more stringent efficiency, emissions , and safety regulations, whereas large ones are not