• cosmic_cowboy@reddthat.comEnglish
      52·
      7 months ago

      The massive size of vehicles in the U.S. is ridiculous. I think a lot of people would buy smaller, cheaper cars if they were on the market.

      • antler@feddit.rocks
        152·
        7 months ago

        The EPA makes really tight emissions targets for vehicles under a certain size or the auto makers have to pay a fee iirc. Pretty sure they the medium sized stuff out of existance, an unfortunately I’m guessing the same fees would apply to imports too.

      • toastal@lemmy.ml
        8·
        7 months ago

        I think folks bought into SUVs since they were bigger & selfishly less likely to take more damage in a crash. As such, with SUV tanks everywhere, being a pedestrian or in a small car on the road on in an SUV’s trajectory can often lead to lethal injury.

    • lemmus@lemmy.world
      25·
      7 months ago

      Absolutely. So many sensible sized European cars aren’t sold in the US because bullshit market research says small car bad big truck good.

      • Moonrise2473@feddit.it
        7·
        7 months ago

        But the European market is also pushing bigger cars and SUV.

        The smart is now a 4 meters SUV

        The Volkswagen up (small 4 person car) is out of production and they’re selling nothing under 4 meters

        The fiat panda (another small 4 person car) is in the process of being redesigned and the mockups look like a huge range rover SUV

        Skoda, after retiring the citigo, has the Fabia that’s relatively small (almost 4 meters) and the rest are huge

        Most automakers are giving up on the cheap and small compact car segment, leaving a big gap for Chinese automakers

        • maynarkh@feddit.nl
          3·
          7 months ago

          The smart is now a 4 meters SUV

          Is it? I haven’t heard about it, I’ve seen some weird concept picture, but the Fortwo as currently being manufactured is still the same 2.6m long car as it was in 2014 as per Wikipedia.

          The Volkswagen up (small 4 person car) is out of production and they’re selling nothing under 4 meters Skoda, after retiring the citigo, has the Fabia that’s relatively small (almost 4 meters) and the rest are huge

          They are the same company. The Skoda Citigo and the Seat Mii are both just rebadged Volkswagen Up cars.

          The fiat panda (another small 4 person car) is in the process of being redesigned and the mockups look like a huge range rover SUV

          Those mockups are actually the redesign of the Panda Cross, which was an SUV-ish thing they introduced in 2014. Fiat still makes the subcompact 500, having recently made an electric version.

          Some EU automakers are doing weird stuff, but if you look at the electric car market for example, at lest where I live, locally produced electric kei trucks actually outsold Tesla at some point.

          • Moonrise2473@feddit.it
            1·
            7 months ago

            The smart fortwo has been discontinued a few months ago, replaced by the 2 ton smart #1

            The fiat panda cross was just a fancy trim of the fiat panda, same size and weight just bigger bumpers and higher wheels

      • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        7 months ago

        Nope, it’s the government’s mileage standards. If you make a truck with a shorter wheelbase and track, it has to hit higher gas mileage standards. Easier to make a big truck that’s allowed worse mileage.

        https://youtu.be/azI3nqrHEXM

        Also, I did a brief stint selling cars in the 90s. One of the salesmen explained it like this, "What’s the real difference in a big truck and a small truck? Same engineering effort, same production work, all that. Hell, same parts for most systems.

        More steel on the big one, and steel is cheap. We can charge a premium for the larger truck."