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Not only in the USA. Germany also has a growing number of big SUVs.
What's interesting is that it was possible 25 years ago to build a 3 litre/100km car. The Audi A2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_A2
Now a modern SUV has at least double the weight and a worse wind resistance value and uses 6l/100km of fuel.
And while there are limits what physics will allow it seems it was possible to reduce fuel consumption and emissions by at least 50% 25 years ago. With modern computer simulations and technical progress over the last 25 years something like this should be at least possible? Yet it's difficult to buy a car like this today.
Somewhere something went really wrong.
You could buy the hybrid fossil i3 for many years, which was kinda the successor of the Audi a2, but better. Or also the electric i3 which was arguably better than the hybrid version if you have a charging network where you live.
I think it’s trivial to buy a better car than the Audi A2 nowadays. But not with an ICE.
Carmakers build what sells.
So what went "wrong" is that people prefer powerful cars with plenty of space, comfort, and bells and whistles rather than "3l/100km"...
There was also dieselgate :)
There are several great examples of factors that contribute to vehicle size bloat in this article. One factor I don’t see mentioned often is the increased rates of obesity in the US. We’re nearing 40% of the population being obese [1]. Perhaps there’s several Americans who are so large they need larger vehicles in order to comfortably fit inside?
Larger cars are predominantly taller and longer, not wider.
Except in extreme cases, obesity is not playing a major factor here.
It's more a question of being tall. I'd love to be able to drive sporty cars, but I generally just don't physically fit. I fit fine in an SUV. A regular sedan I can fit, but because of the length of my legs, I have to slide the seat back if I'm in the front, or ask the person in front to slide their seat forwards if I'm in the back. Obviously it doesn't work if someone else as tall as me is in the seat behind/ahead.
Also sedans are terrible for my posture because I have to slouch so that my head isn't hitting the roof. My lower back and neck hurt so bad after a long drive because of the forced slouching.
Fortunately I use public transportation for 99% of my needs and none of this is an issue usually.
More true for people above a certain height. There are many countries with a higher obesity rate than the U.S. but none who sell 80% trucks and SUVs.
Edit: if the above hypothesis is true, we would expect average car size to correlate with obesity after controlling for factors like proximity to a dense urban area. Could be true. If you gots data let's go
You've got it backwards. The cars caused the obesity by creating suburbs where people drive everywhere.
I think it's entirely possible that car interiors are getting more cramped. High center consoles between the front seats stop me from spreading my legs, deep glovebox stops me from stretching them, even the headrest juts forward now making it that much more difficult to recline. There about a hundred things like this getting in my way, add in a carseat or two and I'm not even comfortable driving.
Observed this, including both size of seat and difficulty in getting in and out of normal-height cars
I’m not obese but I’m a big guy at 6’3” ~290lbs. I daily drive a Land Cruiser and I don’t think I’ll ever drive anything much different. I also have a full size 2500 pick up and even that is a little small for me. Driving my wife’s cars has become a burden. Even the Land Cruiser is a bit tricky to get in and out of without hitting my head on the door.
Edit: I’m not fat guys. I power lift 3 to 5 times per week and wear a size 36 in blue jeans. I’m no Tom Haviland (I can only dream) but I’m not some porky bastard either. Abs are still slightly visible although I don’t lift for aesthetics. I’m simply trying to hit 1750lbs combined on the big 3 before I turn 45.
As someone who travels to the US a lot, I’ve wondered what drives this phenomenon for a long time now as it’s unlike anywhere else in the world for the vehicles you see. My assumption had been a snowballing macro edition of one-upmanship that was in the car makers favour so they leaned in with marketing, I had no idea it was legislatively beneficial to go bigger. 4 out of 5 vehicles sold being SUV or Truck is crazy though, no way does 4 out of 5 of the population need that surely.
My recommendation to fix the problem is a federal highway tax based on the fourth power of axle weight. This also solves the problem of heavy EVs not paying gas tax.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
Maybe couple that with a requirement for a higher license tier with more liability to drive "light trucks," based on the licensing and taxation systems other countries use.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
You are right that most trips don't need SUVs and pickups, but many families need large-ish, relatively powerful vehicles like the now dead station wagon. But it is uneconomical for car builders to make station wagons, so they don't. Instead everybody who can't fit into an economy car is pushed into an SUV or pickup by practical concerns.
On the other side, large and powerful luxury cars are also not economic for car makers to build, so instead car makers add luxury to large utility models. From there it's a trickle-down of cachet so owning a sedan or hatchback is insufficient for those who need or want to fit in with a higher economic class.
The "station wagon" (estate in other countries) and smaller hatchbacks have gotten trashed by american popular culture. But americans still need them, so they replaced them with "tall" wagons, aka, the SUV/CUV, which can also be marketed as being "rugged" because "freedom" sells in america. It really is a tragedy since wagons and hatchbacks are the most practical cars.
Invert this point ("SUV or a pickup colliding with a smaller car was 28 percent and 159 percent, respectively, more likely to kill that car’s driver.") to get that one is less likely to die in a big vehicle.
It is in your interest to buy and drive the biggest car you can afford, due to the presence of other large cars on the road.
See [1] 12 black swans to avoid, YouTube video from ER physician Dr. McGuff. First thirty seconds. Force equals mass x acceleration.
> Invert this point ("SUV or a pickup colliding with a smaller car was 28 percent and 159 percent, respectively, more likely to kill that car’s driver.") to get that one is less likely to die in a big vehicle.
That's not how inversions work. If you're in a small car and get into a collision with a large truck, you're likely to die. But if you're in a truck and get into a collision with another large truck, you're still likely to die, because you still got hit by a truck. Meanwhile truck collisions are more likely given the same drivers because they have more surface area which provides less margin to avoid an impact.
Perfect illustration of the tragedy of the commons. Until there is top down intervention, people choose to be either part of the problem, or choose to be part of the solution.
It sounds like it's also in your interest to legislate safety standards that ensure other peoples' vehicles are less likely to kill you when they crash into your own.
This is the reason my wife insisted that we get an SUV: Concern that if she were to be in a crash with another SUV/truck, they'd obliterate her in a small car.
Yep it’s very much a prisoner’s dilemma. If I choose a smaller car then my family is in greater danger.
Really interesting video that one.
Yeah, we had a very compact car. Drove my firstborn home from the hospital in it, surrounded by monster vehicles. Then traded it for a (smallish) SUV.
I may wish it weren’t that way, but I’m playing the game.
The fact that fuel prices is the US are like 2.5x lower than Europe may also have contributed to the oversizing trend.
You would think twice about gratuitously moving around a multi-ton behemoth if it actually hurt you economically.
EVs aren't zero emission on the road, either; roughly half of the pollution of an ICE car is not from the exhaust, but from the tires breaking down and releasing tiny (likely carcinogenic) particles, and heavy electric vehicles wear down their tires faster than a lighter car.
At a rate proportional to the fourth power of the weight per-axle[1]. So considering how much more EVs weigh compared to their ICE counterparts, we can only hope that compact and lightweight EVs become more prominent.
The conversation around microplastics rarely includes this info - a significant fraction of microplastics in an urban environment are from car tires, potentially the single largest source IIRC.
Particulates are only a local air quality issue. They don't cause global warming.
This barely-an-issue is only ever brought up by people trying to naysay EVs. I've never once heard it mentioned before EVs became popular, despite heavy ICE cars being extremely common.
"zero emission" usually refers to greenhouse gases
thats not what the word emissions means
So get rid of cafe standards and import duties/blocks and add a federal gas tax to price the increased pollution and fatalities of larger vehicles. This is a policy that would actually work and let us fire a lot of beaurocrats to save even more money
Many Americans seem to have been told they need to drive a tank-like car to be safe. I point out that the tank is safer in a crash, but a smaller car may be able to stop in half the distance and avoid the crash altogether. I am assuming that its safer to focus on avoiding a crash than surviving it, but maybe I am wrong. Certainly it would depend on the driver. If you want to text on your phone and not maintain distance with the car in front than the tank approach is probably safer for you (but dangerous for everyone else).
It also fails to take into consideration that once everyone else gets a larger vehicle, you're less safe because two large vehicles colliding does far more damage than two small vehicles colliding at the same speed.
> I point out that the tank is safer in a crash, but a smaller car may be able to stop in half the distance and avoid the crash altogether.
The problem there is that they're not actually correlated. A BMW M5 has a shorter stopping distance than a Mazda Miata even though it weighs almost twice as much.
But smaller cars tend to have weaker brakes, and less weight that means less friction against the road in braking.
Brakes are "sized" for the car they're in. Bigger cars have more powerful brakes.
It would be a major safety issue if heavier cars couldn't brake as quickly as safety required.
So no, smaller cars don't have any general advantage in being able to stop earlier and therefore avoid accidents.
If I look back at how the UK has evolved over my lifetime the main issue is essentially that we are just wealthier and therefore do more. Either that or some sort of Jevons Paradox e.g. people spend less on basic necessities and more on luxuries.
There are far more cars on the roads now, and there are far more people who can simply afford to own a car that gets 20-30mpg instead of 50-70mpg.
I don't really know how we can "solve" this. The main route being taken at the moment is basically to try to reduce living standards, but to code it (e.g. "reduce car journeys") in such a way that everyone doesn't revolt.
Mid-century cars were very large too, but they had much better visibility.
I drive a small car, and my family has had SUVs ever since they could afford them. Were it not for cost, I would also drive an SUV or a big truck. A small car is a pain to carry people, luggage, furniture, plants, tool boxes, or anything beyond common commute items.
I suspect most people with SUVs would agree. Small cars are great, until the days when they're not.
SUV do not carry more stuff than lighter passenger cars of similar interior size.
Actually I found out there are use cases where an SUV is worse than a convertible or even a bicycle with a trailer. I once carried home a small tree from my kids bicycle trailer and was amused to see peopme struggling to put large plants inside their SUV without spilling dirt all over the trunk carpet. Those with a pickup truck fared a bit better yet still had a harder time than I did because their truck bed height. The only guy who was as comfortable as I was putting a large plant in his car was the guy who put the pot on the passenger seat of his convertible.
Have you considered a minivan?
Any insight as to what happened in the UK? We seem to have caught the same bug, despite our streets being ill equipped to handle them.
UK just seems to be cargo-culting bad US policies at this point.
Local parking laws are a great tool.
Limit the amount of parking required, sizes, etc. invest in transit and bike infrastructure.
Just make cars/drivers pay for the real costs on urban society for car storage.
Pursuit of luxury is an important factor like for bigger houses.
> Carmakers from China, an emerging automaking behemoth, face a 25 percent tariff enacted by Donald Trump. As a result, Americans cannot buy small Chinese EV sedans like the BYD Seagull that cost around $10,000, barely a fifth the price of an average American car.
Uhhh? So pay the tariff and get a $12,500 electric car? Still sounds like a pretty good deal plus the government gets some revenue. Where is the problem? Where is this “cannot” coming from?
What's wrong with letting people drive the cars they want to
One thing that isn't often mentioned is the diversity of the US landscape. For those who go hiking or even straying off the common road, having high ride height is desirable, which suits large SUVs perfectly.