> We can hem & haw and browbeat consumers, but if they want to buy big trucks.. better EV flavored ones than V8 coal rolling polluters.

Yes, or perhaps regulate these tanks that are a disaster for human life in all the years past 2150 (i.e., a time people born in the next twenty years will live to experience)...

I mean, I can't just bring a gigantic 500 kilo suitcase on an airplane. There's costs associated to the airplane and other passengers, and thus doing this is priced such that nobody does this for fun or mere convenience, but rather only very rarely out of necessity. In fact, only on the rare occasion when the costs are worth paying because the value is equal or higher than the price.

There's rules & conditions to using certain services and infrastructure like an airplane. Roads aren't any different, we just happen to accept rules & conditions that are ridiculously imbalanced, aren't pricing in the costs, and are disastrous on a whole range of categories: from climate change, to environmental pollution, to human health and safety, congestion and geopolitical issues around oil dependence.

Very few people are buying this exact monstrosity at $100K price point.

I am mostly trying to drive home a point I think a lot of perfectionists miss..

A lot of people drive gas vehicles. A lot of people drive big trucks. The more form factors that EVs come in, the more gas vehicle drivers can be converted to EVs, which is a net win. I am not sure we are going to magically regulate and legislate away everything al at once in one Great Leap Forward of banning ICE, mandating smaller vehicles, changing land use and road design all in one go.

I am simply putting forward the opinion that every EV Hummer sold to a former gas Hummer buyer, is a net good. Every F150 Lightning/EV Silverado/Rivian sold to a former F150/Silverado V8 buyer is good. Every Tesla Model 3 sold to a former Camry/Accord buyer is good. Every VW ID4 sold to a former CRV/RAV4 buyer is good. Every Chevy Bolt sold to a former Honda Fit/Chevy Sonic buyer is good. Etc etc etc.

Look at the list of top vehicles sold in America. Most of them don't have EV versions available or affordable today. The more we can convert the merrier.

I don't think you are going to convert a lot of Chevy Suburban buyers into a Polestar 2, or BMW X5 buyer into a Tesla Model Y, or a Toyota Highlander into a Chevy Bolt. You could get some of them into a BMW iX or Mercedes EQS SUV or Rivian R1S, etc.

Some vehicle bloat is also crash safety regulatory driven as you see how much crumple zone growth cars have experienced if you compare say a BMW 3 series from 1990/2000/2010/2020.

Personally know a few people who drives trucks solely because they have wider seats so they fit comfortably in the vehicle.

Are these people obese? I don’t judge. It’s sad really, the way corporate interests have so profoundly shaped the fabric of North American cities towards car dependence, and hijacked our proclivity for calorific foods to the point of widespread overconsumption.

I'm a taller guy with wide shoulders. Not obese at all. Most cars are uncomfortable to me because the bucket seats aren't wide enough. I own an 2007 Tundra and it's the most comfortable vehicle I've driven. It's also the smallest truck that can tow my boat. I don't think corporate interest shaped my desire for an old truck and even older boat, but who knows.

In that case, I beg your pardon. Although, I’m curious where the desire for a truck and a boat comes from.

I know when I bought my car it was the sense of freedom it granted me that appealed, and some vague sense that cars are what “real” adults own. Now I look at it as a tool for our collective self-annihilation.

I would sell it, but then someone else would presumably actually use it. So instead, it sits there in the drive.

>I would sell it, but then someone else would presumably actually use it.

They would use it and reduce the need for carmakers to make a new car. Making a new car emits co2 as well. So unless your car has a bad enough mpg that the better mpg of the new car outweighs the manufacturing co2, it's better for the environment for you to sell your car. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Hmm, true. Thanks for the perspective.

I grew up around the ocean and boats. The water relaxes me. I don’t get to fish as much as I used to, but I’m a big catch and release person.

"Although, I’m curious where the desire for a truck and a boat comes from." is this a serious question or a comment for you to grandstand on your perceived superiority and 'green cred'?

"I would sell it, but then someone else would presumably actually use it. So instead, it sits there in the drive."

It sounds like it could be, but seriously? a) who talks to people like this and b) would actually do something that silly, spend money to keep something to grandstand on the fact that you are saving the earth by owning something to prevent others from using it.

Surely you could do something else with your time and money to further your goals and 'values' that would be far more productive. Such a strange mentality.

Not grandstanding, given that you’re all strangers and this is a pseudonymous account.

In truth, I stopped working and gas prices are real high. That was the initial grounds for the car to sit idle. Then I got to thinking whether I should keep the thing or not — whether I actually need it. I happen to live in a place with extremely good public transport, so there’s that.

And the question was meant in good faith. With time on my hands, I’ve been scrutinizing my own life choices up to this point, and it’s honestly hard to discern what influenced them.

I’m genuinely curious about people’s motivations. I can surely understand the desire to relax on the water :)

I sat in the back of a model 3 last week and my feet didn’t even fit straight under the drivers seat. I had to twist them both to the side for an Uber ride. I’m not small but not excessively large either. Sedans just don’t move groups of adults around very comfortably

If they want to buy big trucks, we need to consider those trucks' negative externalities. A bigger, faster, heavier, and more deadly vehicle, imposes costs on everyone around it.

Insurers aren’t properly internalizing the liability costs and therefore are pricing premiums too low for the risk these vehicles create. Maybe judgements need to be higher for deaths and injuries caused by overweight vehicles? I don’t have enough context to say. If they’re significantly more dangerous, it should be priced accordingly (based on claims data).

I don’t have any data myself, but it is a common argument in the United States that automobile drivers enjoy ridiculously little legal liability for injuring or killing pedestrians and cyclists in all but the grossest cases of recklessness or negligence.

Here is a recent case where a driver of a Jeep swerved into the oncoming lane to at high speed try to hit a bicyclist. They were only given a misdemeanor.

This person should not be allowed to drive a motor vehicle. There is almost no consequences for motorists who repeatedly violate the law and risk others' lives. We should be much more aggressive about taking away people's drivers licenses who demonstrate that they are incapable of public safety.

https://jalopnik.com/jeep-driver-gets-misdemeanor-after-tryi...

They don't really care about a lot of the externalities, like more land used per parking spot, more energy used by transportation, increased road wear from heavier vehicles, etc.

They would certainly be leaving a lot of money on the table if that were true.

Right, if big vehicles are more dangerous, where is that uninternalized cost being squeezed out if not the vehicle owner’s premium.

Who says more dangerous equals more expensive? Killing a victim can often be cheaper than the medical costs required to treat a severely injured person.

Or more commonly, someone who drives a compact car drunk habitually through a dangerous neighborhood is higher risk than a high-income person with a good driving record who drives a heavy car in a quiet suburb.

The people who cause the most insurance losses are often people who really don't have their lives together. They're driving cheap pieces of junk and wrecking them frequently.

> Killing a victim can often be cheaper than the medical costs required to treat a severely injured person.

Maybe, but I am rather skeptical of this claim being true under most circumstances.

And even if it is true that the payout from insurance is bigger in the case of injury than death, there's potentially lost revenue if the insured goes to jail.

>there's potentially lost revenue if the insured goes to jail.

It is surprisingly hard to end up in jail after killing someone with your car in the US. As long as you weren't drunk, weren't doing something crazy like going 40mph over the speed limit, and didn't flee the scene, the most you are generally looking at is a misdemeanor if you are charged with anything at all.

Likely the victim's medical or comprehensive insurance - most states only require very small liability limit policies that won't really cover much in a big crash.

California, for instance only requires ~30k injury coverage and ~5k property damage, not even enough to replace a cheap used car when totaled these days.

Strong agree that California’s minimums for insurance don’t make sense. I’m constantly surrounded by $75,000+ cars and have bumped up coverage amounts considerably

Weight is a confounding factor if an accident does happen, but the biggest risk that insurers deal with is the driver and the environment in which they operate their vehicle.

Attributes like weight or type about a vehicle have relatively vanishing impact on risk in reality. https://www.iihs.org/ratings/insurance-losses-by-make-and-mo...

If those externalities were priced correctly, people would stop buying big cars. That’s why they’re not.

This is the sort of things governments can be good at if they choose. Otherwise gas/energy prices will eventually do it for us. And it won’t be pretty.

> If those externalities were priced correctly, people would stop buying big cars.

That isn't what it means to "price externalities correctly". Pricing them correctly means that the price covers the cost of the externality. That doesn't stop people who are willing and able to pay the price from doing so.

> This is the sort of things governments can be good at if they choose. Otherwise gas/energy prices will eventually do it for us. And it won’t be pretty.

This is exactly the sort of thing you want a market to sort out. Rising energy prices would naturally create the market pressure needed to find alternatives. It's the kind of problem firms would see coming a long way off and prepare for.

> Pricing them correctly means that the price covers the cost of the externality

My argument is that current fuel and energy prices do not cover all externalities. And I'm suggesting that maybe they should.

> This is exactly the sort of thing you want a market to sort out.

Yes and that doesn't work very well when fuel, roads, and the car industry are heavily subsidized in an effort to make car culture more affordable.

Part of the problem is that knowing the true price of relevant externalities is currently difficult or impossible. We'll find out eventually one way or another. Through the price of habitable real estate and lower crop yields if nothing else.

Not only only we not pricing in those externalities, the current regulations are structured in a way that actively incentivizes bigger vehicles, above and beyond consumer preferences:

https://www.thedrive.com/news/small-cars-are-getting-huge-ar...

Aren't those negative externalities already factored into things like the cost of fuel and liability insurance?

And registration! I have a large truck for only occasional dirt bike trips and I pay up A LOT of money to the government for it.

That is the point. You are showing you are in a position to impose costs on everyone around you, especially with a Hummer.

People are selfish.

I keep hearing communism is a nice idea but fails in practice.

Well, unchecked capitalism is a nice idea until the world collapses.

Capitalism is well suitable to people at their current level, which is about developing a strong ego with intelligence and clear boundaries. Communism was appropriate in the past, when people had weak notion of self, is not appropriate now, and will be appropriate in the future when people want to give more and take less. "I think my nature was always one that strove to yield itself to the great whole of which it was such a small part - and by yielding itself, to draw back into it the sustenance of life." - a pretty good allegory on the essense of communism done right.

> and will be appropriate in the future when people want to give more and take less

..5000 years later...

> people still suck > lol guys communism will work eventually just trust me bro, it's not the system it's the people that make up the system

Way more than 5000 years. People don't change that quickly.

Given that all of recorded history has taken place in the last 10500 years, and that time has seen a huge diversity of social structures in civilizations across the globe, I think your pessimism is unfounded.

Yes, people are selfish. People also have a great capacity for cooperation and altruism, given sufficient cause to bind them together.

I rather hope that the impending collapse of the biosphere that sustains all life is just such a cause. Then again, we appear to be setting the world on fire at an ever greater pace.

Lol, touche. I hope for all our sake that you are eventually correct, though I fear we'll be extinct before that's ever the case

I too only buy food that reached my town via horseback. Who cares about how useful trucks are when they could kill people?

nobody here is talking about freight vehicles

What are pick-ups used for, then? In my country they're mostly owned by farmers.

They're popular in the US:

1) As status symbols (because they're expensive, and because their "truck = freedom" advertising has been very successful) that still read as blue-collar / "red";

and,

2) Explicitly because of their size—they're perceived (pretty accurately) as being far more likely to "win" a crash than a smaller car, and they also put you up high, so you have better visibility. Not sure if the latter actually translates to more safety, but it's certainly perceived to. This is also a big reason SUVs sell well. There may be some related "I like to intimidate other drivers" factor here, too (not my uncharitable guess, as I've heard it seriously expressed by truck owners, and I'm also not saying this is extremely common—but it's common enough that I've encountered it several times). For that last part, see again: status symbol.

Some portion of the population owns trucks for the same reasons people own trucks in other rich countries, but that's not the reason they're unusually popular here. It's largely a form of class & political signaling ("I'm in your tribe, and also not poor") coupled with some tragedy-of-the-commons personal/family safety concerns.

[EDIT] 3) Aspirational purchases and poor cost/benefit analysis. Think: the lettuce you buy then don't eat before it goes bad. "I really want to get into [x activity that is easier with a truck] and I need to buy a vehicle of some kind, so I should get a truck" -> buys truck -> does not actually use truck-specific functionality anywhere near enough to justify purchase vs. use of paid services or rentals.

Around here they're used to drop kids off at elementary schools.

Definitely depends on where you live. I live on the coast in the south. Tons of people trailer boats. The 'smallest' truck that can tow (actually able to stop) my boat is a Tundra.

Then there's people who own homes in the suburbs. Could I make multiple trips with my car to pick up 2500 pounds of sod for a project I just finished? Sure, I could also pay a lot to have it delivered in a couple weeks. And there's the other things like throwing my surfboard in the back or other 'fun' gear. Then there's trips to the dump, because trash won't pick up certain things.

The reality is, having at least a single truck in the family is useful for anyone not living in a city.

I use mine to transport tools and building materials.

tell me you've never been outside of a city without saying you've never been outside of a city, lmao.

I live in a very rural area with cows on 3 sides. My neighbours have 400 acres of grazing land.

The vehicles that drive down my road are about 30% sedans/crossovers, 30% tractors, and maybe 20% old beater pickup trucks, like your classic 90's Toyota.

But I live somewhere that we don't encourage people to buy gargantuan tanks and use them to take your kids to school.

No one is saying pickup trucks are never used to haul large items. They’re saying the vast majority of pickup trucks purchased are not used for that purpose and even when they are it’s a couple of times a year, a situation where renting a truck ought to make a lot more logical sense.

I'll go talk to some farmers and ranchers and get their take on renting a truck for work. I'm betting they'll see the economic sense in that.

While I generally agree with you, I live in a large metropolitan city, and there are just as many trucks being used for work as there are vanity trucks. The work trucks actually tend to the smaller side, think Chevy s10s and the most common working vehicle is actually a cargo van, mostly Ford transit connects. And then there are tons and tons of lifted wranglers and trucks that never see a day of work. It's laughable, as I grew up in a more rural area and never saw that. Excepting of course the redneck coal rollers with hanging nuts and all. But those were not that common. And I don't think I've ever seen a Hummer actually used on a job site.

Why does this talking point get employed every time this conversation takes place? As I said:

> No one is saying pickup trucks are never used to haul large items

Obviously some people use them for purpose. The majority don’t and are purchased as status symbols in suburbia. The fact that farmer do use them does not invalidate that.

I grew up in rural America. Nobody used their Sierra Denali for farm work, unless it was to take horses to a horse show. Most use their personal trucks for recreation or utility... towing the camper to the camp site, or getting some mulch at Lowes. 1.3% of Americans work in Agriculture.

Farmer I sometimes do some work for pulls the cattle trailer with his Lincoln Mark LT. It's getting old though, not sure what he'll replace it with but he's on the list for the Cybertruck.

1.3% of americans use their sierra denali for farm work, that's just plain fact.

source: i grew up, and live in, rural america.

This is not because of some innate character of Americans, it is because of specific state policies and subsidies. Fuel prices and registration fees are only slightly higher in California but that small economic nudge is enough to knock trucks completely out of the ranks of best-selling vehicles in that state. The Model 3, Camry, Civic, and Corolla all outsell any pickup truck in California.

My observation is that in many countries people want to drive big cars but only in US non-negligible fraction of population can afford it: combination of 5th highest median income in the world, low (relative to the EU) fuel (and electricity) prices and availability of parking for large cars. A state can counter this by higher taxes, but looks like support for this is not broad enough.

That would seriously depend on 'what part' of California you are talking about. In the cities and down south where parking and traffic are huge factors, you bet. But the farther north you go the more trucks and large SUVs you will see on the road. California is far too big to be treated as a single entity when it comes to anything.

Arguments that the empty part of California is huge and therefore important baffle me. 99% of Californians live south of Yuba City. 90% of them live south of Lodi. Half of them live south of Ventura.

Yes the incredibly empty "Empty Quarter" of the state is large, and empty. As in nobody lives there. The best-selling vehicle in Modoc County may or may not be a truck, but the fact is of no interest.

> In the cities and down south where parking and traffic are huge factors

Really, INME, just “in the cities” (with maybe also the coastal mountain areas between the coastal cities). The inland rural south is no different than the inland rural north in this respect, AFAICT.

But the population is largely in the cities.

>Fuel prices and registration fees are only slightly higher in California but that small economic nudge is enough to knock trucks completely out of the ranks of best-selling vehicles in that state.

I'd be cautious about blaming it all on fuel prices. I'd argue that the increased wealth of California residents relative to the rest of the country also plays a part in why a vehicle that is too expensive for most people made it so high on that list in California.

Trucks aren't especially cheap.

2022 Ford F-150 XL: $30,870[0]

Tesla Model 3: $46,990[1]

[0]https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/?intcmp=vhp-attribut...

[1]https://www.tesla.com/model3/design

That price is for a V6 (not ecoboost), single-cab, short-bed F-150 that doesn't even have power locks or windows. Those trucks aren't generally sold to consumers. Minimally, you're looking at at least $35,515 for an XL Super Cab, but more than likely you're looking at a minimum cost of $41,755 for an XLT. KBB's data [1] reported that the average cost in 2018 for an F-150 was $47,174 before fees.

[1] https://www.kbb.com/reviews/pricing-your-next-ford-f-150-it-...

Not sure what you were trying to cherry-pick there, but in general trucks cost more than cars, and this has been the case for decades. The recent new record highs for average new light vehicle price has been largely driven by a continued shift toward trucks and away from cars.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1168-janu...

> This is not because of some innate character of Americans, it is because of specific state policies and subsidies.

I would argue it's more because auto manufacturers wish to streamline their production lines. Body-on-frame is very flexible and allows them to re-use most components across different products.

The marketing departments then produce Television ads questioning your masculinity if you don't drive a vehicle based on a commercial truck frame. Suddenly "it's what the customer demands".

> Fuel prices and registration fees are only slightly higher in California

I'm not sure what the prices and fees are in California, but for comparison, in Mississippi it costs me about $45/year for registration and today I paid $4.17 for fuel. If I recall correctly, vehicles newer than 20 years old can cost significantly more to register here, but I don't have anything that new.

This is the thing that drives me nuts. Remember the anti-SUV mania of the 90s? It completely failed and SUV consumption skyrocketed and people stopped buying minivans and station wagons. The absolute least, smallest, simplest thing an ordinary consumer can do to decrease emissions is to just buy a smaller car and people just did the opposite. You're right that our only choice is to meet consumers where they are it just makes it such an uphill battle. Everyone complains that elected leaders and corporations are not doing anything to fight climate and it's almost entirely because people are telling them not to.

Yeah, that's how I remember it too. Back then I wondered why some people I knew bought SUVs even though they were only needing to commute to/from work.

In the early 2000's my own situation changed, I was needing to haul relatively heavy/bulky items. I acquired a Honda Pilot because of its rated 1300 lb payload, better than a small pickup. After a while that need ended, but I kept the Pilot and still drive it. However since then it's used <3000 mi/year, a good thing with price of fuel being what it is now.

The Pilot was/is built on the same platform as the Honda minivan, albeit with slightly modified drive train. Pilot and minivan have essentially identical mileage ratings. So with these models switching from minivan to "SUV" makes no difference in fuel usage.

Can't disagree that old-style "station wagons" were more fuel-efficient than minivans and similar size vehicles. However, station-wagons seem to have disappeared from the scene at least to my observation. Out of fashion I suppose. And from the fuel usage point of view that's unfortunate.

EVs are the future but expense factors will keep ICE in the picture for some years to come. Do you suppose the current increased fuel prices will inspire a resurgence of smaller vehicles for routine transportation? In the interim that would be a good thing.

I wonder why the truck rental market isn't bigger.

I occasionally have to haul heavy or bulky items too, but when I do, I walk a mile to the nearest U-haul, pay about $30, and have a pickup for the day. For the rest of the time, my primary vehicle is a Honda Fit that gets 40mpg, can fit into the Compact spaces in all the local parking lots, and easily pulls a U-turn even on narrow roads. I wouldn't want a pickup as my daily ride - it wouldn't fit in my (relatively small) garage, it burns gas like you wouldn't believe, and parking options are much more limited. Dropping $30 for the couple times per year that I need one is way more cost-effective than spending the upfront cost for them + additional gas & maintenance.

Exactly - its minivan to SUV swaps mostly. And its the same vehicle under the hood. Increased safety standards, crumple zones and side curtain air bags add some girth..

Station wagons I think also partially fell out of fashion because you can't do a 3 row wagon safely anymore as there's no way the rear facing vomit seats are going to survive modern safety tests.

Also don't forget how ginormous modern kids seats are in cars, and how many more years kids are legally supposed to sit in safety seats compared to when we grew up. Few sedans are comfortably able to take 2 of these kid seats and still leave you with room for much cargo or a 3rd adult (grandma or grandpa) at the same time.

The market for 7 seaters (of which 4-5 may be occupied at any one time) is fairly large.

Station wagons died in North America mostly due to fuel economy standards, just like all the other full-size sedans. They still exist in Europe/UK (as "Estate Cars") where the fuel economy standards, vehicle and fuel taxation work differently and don't advantage SUVs/light trucks as much.

They've improved a lot and are no longer tarted up pickup trucks. I live in a city with very limited street parking though and it's nuts that people who live here don't always opt for the shortest wheel base.

> It completely failed and SUV consumption skyrocketed and people stopped buying minivans and station wagons.

The government put fuel efficiency regulations on sedans in the 1970s. This effectively killed station wagons. The rules around light trucks were different though, and that's why the minivan was created.

The SUV is an outgrowth of the same thing.

It is of the same flavor of why many of my smartest leftiest friends don't understand why we lose elections if we are so smart and tell people how wrong they are if they don't vote for us? Don't they understand? Maybe we just need to educate them more!

Simply put, you need to meet the voters were they are.

Companies know this and meet consumers where they are.

Why do people buy SUVs? Because the generation that grew up embarrassed by their parents minivans never wanted to buy a minivan! So now companies sell the former minivan cohort SUVs instead, which are basically the same thing.

Occasionally the Germans ship us a sexy sports wagon, but they can't call it that here and have to call them hatches or "cross turismo" etc.. haha.

I think it was the boomer generation that decided cars were vanity purchases. Your car became your identity instead of being a purely practical decision.

Vanishingly few things are purely practical decisions.

The ubiquity of SUVs is a phenomenon of the last 30 years. I remember when it started taking off in the 90s. It's not an eternal thing that can't be changed.

Sure, but the idea that we are going to both legislate away ICE and legislate away SUVs in one go.. and not get destroyed in the voting both next cycle is... dubious.

If you live in norther climates there are some advantages to SUVs/crossovers in terms of ground clearance. Winter, even with AWD and winter tires can be a problem in my sedan when I bottom out at every poorly plowed intersection.

Sedans are also a PITA as soon as you want to haul both people AND stuff at once. Or anything with a dimension wider than 3 feet.

SUVs do offer benefits in terms of semi-regular things normies do like moving your kids in/out of college 4x/year with the semester system, taking your family on road trips instead of flying (which is way more polluting!), hauling large dogs, Costco runs, etc.

People with various sorts of outdoors enthusiasm also may use them to haul, roof rack or tow more outdoorsy gear.

Not everything other people prefer is because they are bad people who are evil and need to be stopped.

I'd be curious how exactly you'd legislate away SUVs now that the genie is out of the bottle. What's an SUV, whats a cross over, whats a commercial vehicle, etc. If you go by weight, plenty of sedans violate worse than small SUVs.. In fact if you go by weight class you may ban EVs and allow ICE!

I'm the moron that used to do Costco runs on a motorcycle. And that usually included balancing toilet rolls and a pizza on the tank.

I live in Michigan. I can do Costco runs in my Nissan Leaf. Families got by fine in the 50s through the 80s without needing to have SUVs.

> The thing is Americans just do not buy sedans.

I see more sedans on the road than any other type of vehicle. Crossovers I see almost as much, though.

>Nationally, 80% of the top 10 sellers are either trucks or SUVs (Honda Civic and Toyota Camry are the exceptions).

https://www.edmunds.com/most-popular-cars/

I'm more confused by how this seems to be a recent phenomenon. A decade ago non-trucks and light trucks were on roughly even footing, but after about 2015 the distribution shifts meaningfully towards light trucks. What made Americans want trucks more?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/199981/us-car-and-truck-...

"Light truck" is a problematic term in the US -- it can be defined in multiple ways, often exacerbated by automakers desire to get around fuel economy requirements.

Assuming that "light truck" in this context includes SUVs, that may correlated with the introduction of sub-compact SUVs into the US which have been extremely popular with drivers who are intimidated by driving large vehicles and like the confidence of sitting higher than in a traditional car. Many of these are basically just hatchbacks with some stying tweaks a couple inches of extra height.

So it may not necessarily be "Americans wanting trucks" that you're seeing in that data, but instead "Automakers styling their vehicles slightly differently, calling it an SUV, and avoiding fines for violating CAFE standards"

Some of it is supply: the manufacturers build more and the dealers find ways to sell them. Those marketing efforts drive what average people "want". (That's the role of marketing.)

Some of it is a brinksmanship snowball: If I'm safer in a bigger vehicle when more other people are driving bigger vehicles, I need a bigger vehicle.

Some of is budgets: There are a lot of sub-factors here, but one key viewpoint is that there are two very strong markets with very different goals. The new buyer is looking at marketing, and swayed by fashion trends, on average more likely to trade in for the "newest model" for aesthetic or fashion reasons on a regular basis. The used buyer is more budget/maintenance driven, more likely to use a car for utilitarian purposes than treat it as a fashion symbol, more likely to drive the car for longer. Car companies are selling to that first buyer and what they (think) they want, they don't care about the used car market because they don't get their cut of the used car market. There are arguably a lot more used buyers and car companies don't care what they want. To some extent they take what they can get after the "fashionistas" get bored and don't express their wants all that directly.

Some of it is maintenance: The average maintenance life for sedans still seems to be much higher than trucks/SUVs. Longer maintenance life is longer life in the used markets and longer life on the road. It's anecdotal data, but have you ever car watched and tried to estimate the average model year of the cars that pass you by? To me SUVs and Trucks almost always look at most five years old, but you'll see all sorts of 10, 15, 20 year old sedans.

I think those last two points are especially important asterisk to that "Americans don't buy sedans" from the anecdotal perspective of what you see on the road: Americans don't buy new sedans regularly. Sedans seem to last 20 years on "average". Sedans are rarely "fashionable". Sedan buyers favor good long maintenance life. It was the "lesson" of the 80s wave when Japanese manufacturers proved Americans were desperate for reliable, easily maintained sedans and compacts. It was again the "lesson" of the late 00s wave when Korean manufacturers proved Americans were desperate for reliable, easily maintained sedans and compacts. It seems like a "lesson" doomed to repeat roughly every 20 years as old ones age out of the used market. (I think the current EV manufacturers are ignoring/forgetting the "lesson" at their own peril. It could be someone new and fresh like the Chinese this time taking advantage of the used market's huge desire for reliable, easily maintained EV sedans and compacts.)

Those statistics are for new vehicle registrations. There are a lot more vehicles on the road than that.

Right! But the quote you responded to was, "Americans just do not buy sedans". In the context of that quote, it appears that you were using your anecdotal observations to suggest that Americans do buy more sedans than trucks.

You have a point there. I guess I didn't quite realize what I was replying to.

All good, just wanted to make sure I was understanding ya correctly.