In many parts of rural America it’s not feasible to buy groceries and other supplies a day at a time. The stores are too far away to drive to that frequently. Plus it would defeat the purpose of a smaller car as more energy would be required overall.

I think that’s a good point, and one we should acknowledge as we stop designing our cities, roads, and transportation systems to cater only to this small number of rural people.

20% of the US is rural and that number has been increasing the last few years. That's about 70 million people.

That definition of rural where the 20% comes from isn't countryside.

https://www.hrsa.gov/rural-health/about-us/what-is-rural

"Micro area (urban core of 10,000-49,9999 people)"

I apparently live in a rural area, Helena, MT. The state capital by the way.

You can look up if you are the 20% Rural or 80% Urban here: https://data.hrsa.gov/tools/rural-health

I say all this because I walk to the grocery store and bike to work. In a rural area no less!

Thanks, and also 70 million is still a much smaller number than 262 million which would be the remaining population (continuing to use broad number as the OP did) and so the point still stands based on that alone.

70 million is enough to turn ANY national election...

70 million - 1; rural people aren't a bloc.

That is just as true for many parts of rural Europe, and yet cars are not American-sized in the European countryside.

They have denser zoning and higher population densities which allows grocery stores closer to their homes.

Especially when you account for the cost of time, it's way cheaper to make a grocery haul to walmart every couple weeks given we cannot just 'pop by the shop' for milk and eggs.

This is also, I believe, why processed food is so popular here. It's shelf stable for weeks at a time whereas fresh fruit and veg are much more perishable.

I think my small European car is capable of hauling a week worth of groceries for 6 people. It probably wouldn't fit that AND 6 people at the same time, but I don't really see why anyone would do that.

Some of us take our kids with us when we shop. ;)

If you have 5 kids, I would assume vehicle choice is the least of your concerns...also...Wagon!

It's 4 kids, plus the Wife, but that's why we have a minivan.

Americans tend to buy with the outlier edge case of Thanksgiving in mind. The big house full of family, the refrigerator size, multiple ovens, the TV size, the car for Black Friday shopping, and even down to the size of the mall parking lot.

It’s more like we tend to buy with a mindset of being prepared for likely future scenarios.

These are things many people need to do multiple times a year.

> I wonder how 6 billion other people manage to eat.

Four billion of the top six billion live relatively very poorly.

Out of the 7.88 billion, the bottom two billion live in such horrid conditions as to have no regular access to fresh drinking water, routine medical care or indoor toilets at home.

The majority of all people on the planet still don't have access to functional indoor toilets at home, or otherwise have sanitary toilets at home.

Nearly one billion people are still open deficating as a routine. Did you know 35-40% of Laos households have no toilets? Information provided by UNICEF.

I'm willing to bet the majority (not all) of people on HN are oblivious to the actual state of the rest of the world, specifically the bottom four to five billion or so, and just how poorly they live day to day.

So to the question, how do they manage to eat? Food insecurity is still a top concern for the bottom half of the world's population. Four billion people roughly. And for the bottom couple billion people, it's a severe day to day concern.

It's such a serious problem on an ongoing, constant basis that a single war between Ukraine and Russia, is enough to put the basic food security of billions of poor people at risk.

>So to the question, how do they manage to eat?

No, but how do they do that without a $50,000 SUV? /s