Fuel economy standards should be fixed so that vehicles with truck chassis are treated the same as cars, tax loopholes advantaging truck chassis should be closed, there should be much stricter legal requirements for driver view of nearby low objects, possibly urban areas should have special 10 mph lower speed limits for SUV-sized vehicles, and there should be much higher financial liability for pedestrian/cyclist injuries, possibly piercing through directly to manufacturers.
Otherwise, car design has been a race to the bottom.
Peak wagon was the P3 Volvo V70/XC70, built on the Ford EUCD platform [1], which had amazing utility via tie-down rails, 40/20/40 fold-flat middle seats, and a front passenger seat that folded flat to create a uniform load floor for carrying 10 foot long boards. They were better at being useful than the Subaru Outback and yet had higher quality leather and carpets. And don't forget the vertical rear hatch, giving more interior space with a larger window (and larger rear wiper!) that gave them excellent rearward visibility.
Subjecting big trucks to the same standards as small cars either makes the fuel standards pointless (as they cater to trucks), or outlaws trucks entirely, which is political suicide. People already pay extra for big trucks, which suggests it's something they intrinsically like, and will oppose efforts to ban them.
I'm not really sure what you can do to fix it, and anything you could do would be political suicide. I'd like to think if i were in charge, I'd have them banned for urban use by the end of the week, but I'd also be out of office by next Monday.
Because I would rather die than kill. I honestly can't understand how anybody would prefer the opposite. How do you live with yourself knowing that you have killed somebody?
Secondly, this mindset is also considering at in a collision with a larger vehicle, like a truck, the SUV means possible survival, small car means certain death, and the trucker walks away anyway (no, that's not a guarantee but it's heavily implied by the "big is safe" message). The fate of a hypothetical small car is only a subset of possibilities, and also can be mostly discounted because:
Thirdly, if you are driving an urban tank in order to defend against the bad drivers (you being, naturally, a very good driver), anyone who dies in a crash with you killed themselves. It's your job to defend you and yours (going by SUV adverts, they're very photogenic and adoring) from that brutal recklessness.
I don't think it's complicated psychology, even if I think it's extremely misguided.
Not least, the tank is disproportionately a danger to your own kids, has shit visibility and is probably not as safe in a collision as it might feel, leading to a false sense of invulnerability and confidence to push into dangerous situations.
However terrible single party dictatorships like China is, at least they can build high-speed rail (right over your property they've forced you to relinquish) or force cities to electrify without needing to consider the moaning voters who are resistant to change.
The reality is that manufacturers have captured the EPA regulations and are using them to steer the market in the direction they want, and in doing so actually making the environment (to say nothing of road safety) worse.
Manufacturers want more profit per-car. They also want to push the market into categories that have higher tariffs on imports. They don't want to be in the market of compact cars or sedans or even, increasingly, large but lightweight vehicles like minivans so they steer the market and regulations away from these vehicle classes.
Honestly this just indicates that you haven't seriously driven a modern CUV. What you describe sounds like a 1990 suburban.
CUVs wouldn't be so popular without being safe and easy to drive.
Sure, I'm opposed to daily driving trucks and truck frame SUVs. But thats an important distinction. The popular cars in the US today are CUVs which are built on a car chassis and generally speaking have good visibility and safety features. They are essentially scaled up wagons with awd.
So yeah. Needless to say the practically argument is lackluster relative to the actual capabilities of most vehicles. I think folks are just overestimating their use cases which will cost us in the long run because you've financed yourself to death through the cost of ownership.
For the vast majority of people who own trucks, they're not using the cargo hauling or off road capabilities at all. That's an easy one, we shouldn't all be paying the cost of that.
At the other end, there are definitely situations where the job the vehicle is fulfilling is not "people transport" but "heavy thing transport". I don't think anyone's suggesting we start outfitting construction crews with Priuses (Priora? Prii?).
There's a whole spectrum in between that you likely fall on, and I can't really say much more than that without knowing what "routinely" or "full use" means there.
What I can say is that there are trims of the Tacoma whose towing capacity is low enough that it's basically overlapping with my japanese compact sports car and exceeded by some larger cars. I can't see any justification for those at all besides "because I want to" which really doesn't seem like a good enough justification for putting people in danger.
As far as pedestrians are concerned (just one factor), they're twice as likely to die being hit by a full size truck than a sedan given similar conditions. From the data I can find[0], that's a similar increase in risk of fatality as someone doing something like 30mph in a 15mph school zone and hitting a kid. If I started driving 30mph through school zones "because I want to" or "because sometimes I'm in a hurry" they would put me in jail. Frankly, I don't think there's _any_ reason society would accept for me doing that. Certainly not after I hit and killed a kid. So why should we all accept it here?
[0] https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_...
Which trims would those be? My SR is the absolute lowest-power trim option available to my knowledge, and even it readily handles towing loads (like the large trailer full of furniture that I hauled from Sacramento to Reno last weekend) that I wouldn't in a million years trust a sedan (let alone something smaller) to tow.
In any case, there's more to the equation than weight. Would you use your Japanese compact sports car to haul gravel? Or bags of trash? Or large pieces of furniture? I've hauled all three in the sort of vehicle for which you "can't see any justification" - without needing a trailer, mind you.
> As far as pedestrians are concerned (just one factor), they're twice as likely to die being hit by a full size truck than a sedan given similar conditions.
"Full size" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
In any case, I can't find anything supporting the claim that pedestrians are twice as likely to die being hit by a full size truck. More like +45% at most: https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-v...
What I said was that I cannot see justification for trucks that are less, not, or barely more capable than smaller vehicles with fewer negative externalities. You're choosing to put yourself in that category it seems.
> Which trims would those be? My SR is the absolute lowest-power trim option available to my knowledge,
The Tacoma comes in "34 flavours" apparently, so... there's a few but looks like the SR with I4 is rated for 3,500lbs. That's 1,000lbs unbraked TWR and 3,500lbs braked TWR.
> and even it readily handles towing loads
Yes? I'm not trying to suggest trucks aren't capable of towing... I'm trying to suggest that other vehicles are a lot more capable than people seem to think and some of these trucks are unnecessary.
The manual for the Tacoma says towing above 2,000lbs requires an anti-sway bar and never to exceed 65mph. Under the same conditions, a Subaru Crosstrek has the same 3,500lb tow rating.
So if you can get by with the 3,500lb towing capacity, you don't need a truck for towing. You've proved the exact point I was trying to make. We are dealing with the negative aspects of truck ownership and there's basically no reason for it. In a society where people were more considerate, that vehicle would not exist. Why are we in this situation then?
> I wouldn't in a million years trust a sedan (let alone something smaller) to tow.
Right, that's why. Over in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere with all the extra safety regulations and everything else they're towing around giant campers with little 0.8L econoboxes without turning the highways into mad max, but somehow that just never made it over here.
In the past while I've hauled loads consisting of:
- Concrete patio blocks
- A hardwood king sized bed + headboard; kid's play structure; swingset; and a pile of flatpak Ikea stuff
- A heavy hardwood hutch, buffet, large kitchen table, and four dining chairs
- A kitchen's worth of new cabinets, a dishwasher, and related fixtures
- A kitchen's worth of old cabinets, fixtures, and related construction debris
- A bunch of yard debris from neighbours' yards after some storms
- A bunch of lumber from the lumberyard
- Probably a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting.
> Would you use your Japanese compact sports car to haul gravel? Or bags of trash? Or large pieces of furniture? I've hauled all three in the sort of vehicle for which you "can't see any justification"
Again, I'm not saying trucks can't haul things. I'm saying they're not needed to haul things in many situations. Saying that you can do things with your truck is not justifying its existence unless they're things you _can't_ do otherwise. Right off the bat, the existence of trailers, cargo carriers, hatchbacks, etc basically addresses this. But sure, I'll play along.
No, I wouldn't fill my back seat up with gravel. That would be stupid and also horribly inefficient. Gravel's heavy. I pay the guy $50 to use his dump truck to dump 10 or 15 yards on my property instead of making 15 trips with a trailer or 30+ with a truck bed. Thankfully I've yet to run into a situation in my life where I suddenly and unexpectedly need to transport a half a yard (max for the top trim Tacoma's bed capacity) of gravel with no time to just go get my trailer. Is this a thing that happens to a lot of people?
I do haul bags of trash with my car. Every week when I take the trash. Sometimes in the trunk, but sometimes in a small hitch mount cargo carrier.
Yeah, I've moved furniture with my car. Sometimes I need to take a couple pieces off to get it in there. There's a lot of space but the trunk opening's just not that tall. Can get a lot of Ikea boxes in there! At one point I went down to Home Depot for a 4x8 sheet of plywood and I had to pay them $2 to cut it in half lengthwise so I could get it in there. Generally though if I were trying to move furniture I'd either use my wife's hatchback (larger trunk opening's kinda helpful, managed to shove a fridge in there the other day) or, y'know, just use the trailer. Again I find in my life it's pretty rare that I suddenly and unexpectedly need to haul large pieces of furniture.
> without needing a trailer, mind you.
I'm really not sure why this is a benefit. Even though I'm probably moving around more stuff that many people, the vast majority of my driving is still not hauling furniture around. I don't need to pay the costs in space, weight, or fuel economy for the capability to haul stuff when I'm not actively hauling stuff--I just take the trailer off. Much like I don't drive around day-to-day in a 27ft box truck because I occasionally move between houses... I go borrow one from U-Haul. (Which also has trailers and trucks.)
> I can't find anything supporting the claim that pedestrians are twice as likely to die being hit by a full size truck.
Here's a meta-study saying +50%: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20146143/
This was the newer study that was sourced from, though I mixed some numbers up: https://www.justintyndall.com/tyndall_pedestrian.pdf
+68% for "trucks" and +99% (where I got twice as likely) for "full-size SUVs". Given most SUVs are built on truck frames with similar bodywork and styling, I'm not sure what the distinction would be.
But sure, instead of 2.0x or 1.7x or 1.5x we can call it 1.45x. A 45% increase in risk of death as a pedestrian, an increased likelihood of being hit in the first place due to worse visibility, an increased risk of death in a collision while driving because physics, increased pollution in the air I breathe... totally worth it.
While not being all that much smaller than a Tacoma, aside from length. And the tradeoff for that shorter length is that you lose out on a bed.
> I pay the guy $50 to use his dump truck to dump 10 or 15 yards on my property
And if you don't need 10 or 15 yards of gravel?
> Sometimes in the trunk, but sometimes in a small hitch mount cargo carrier.
So in other words: either stinking up your interior or reliant on an extra piece of equipment. If only your vehicle had a built-in exterior storage compartment.
> There's a lot of space but the trunk opening's just not that tall.
One of the perks of a pickup is that the "trunk" is infinitely tall. I don't have to cut boards or disassemble furniture or what have you. I don't need a trailer, either. I just need ratchet straps.
> I'm really not sure why this is a benefit
A trailer is an extra burden that's best avoided if possible. It complicates maneuvering, it's an extra set of lights and (possibly) brakes to maintain, it imposes different chain control requirements when driving in ice/snow (very relevant where I live), some places impose different speed limits when towing, etc. You also need someplace to park it when you're not using it, which ain't always possible - that, or you need to rent one, which means extra costs, and extra time/fuel to go to U-Haul or whatever to pick it up and drop it off.
Meanwhile, I just put stuff in the bed and call it a day.
> Again I find in my life it's pretty rare that I suddenly and unexpectedly need to haul large pieces of furniture.
Cool. Meanwhile, for me it's a monthly occurrence at minimum. If it ain't for me, it's for a friend or family member.
> This was the newer study that was sourced from, though I mixed some numbers up: https://www.justintyndall.com/tyndall_pedestrian.pdf
An interesting conclusion of that study, to your point, is its claim that replacing all "light trucks" (pickups, SUVs, minivans) with "cars" would reduce yearly pedestrian fatalities by almost 500. And yet, that'd be less than 7% of the approx. 7,500 yearly pedestrian deaths - which suggests to me that blaming big(ger) vehicles for any significant uptick in pedestrian fatalities is a red herring.
> an increased likelihood of being hit in the first place due to worse visibility
My Tacoma has significantly better visibility than any comparably-new sedan I've driven.
> an increased risk of death in a collision while driving because physics
That's the opposite of correct: https://www.iihs.org/topics/vehicle-size-and-weight
If the concern is fuel usage then let's raise the fuel tax. Moralizing and telling other people that they like the wrong things isn't going to accomplish anything.
And then you can get into in the US high cost of medical when one of these ego chasers mow down an otherwise productive member of society.
Most people don’t need this beyond what most modern vehicles can already do.
I’ve got what is termed a “compact sport sedan”.
I live in rural Canada. I can guarantee that car has seen more gravel, mud and barely roads that most cars will see in their lifetime, trucks included. Never mind the snow and ice. The experience is in no way challenging or compromised.
I regularly use it to tow a 5’x10’ trailer. Most I’ve pulled is just shy of 3,000lbs. Only compromise there I’ve found is pulling it up the 8% grade headed toward my house I had to take it down from 6th to 5th gear to maintain 70mph.
This is _way_ more than most people demand of their vehicles.
A truck is practical for the average person in much the same way that using a kinetic orbital strike to drive a nail is a practical as a replacement for a hammer.
They wouldn't be so popular if every other car on the road didn't tower over conventional sedans. Why would you want a car that rides worse, is heavier, and costs more to buy and live with? People don't want vehicles that feel sunken into the ground and increasingly that's how sedans are perceived. It's a runaway effect.
A wagon or sportback I can understand. And thats essentially what a small CUV is based on, along with a bit more ride height and often awd drivetrain.
The CUV is popular because it's a really functional and practical design. You don't have to spend a lot on one, but you can. Maybe test drive some more and it'll click why so many people drive them. They don't all handle poorly either, some are downright fun.
The "CUV", compact SUV, is popular because it's higher off the ground. Because as other cars have gotten larger, people feel less safe with traditional sedans. Sedans, which worked well before because really people don't carry a lot with their cars most of the time. They've taken the hatchback design, since with rollover it's difficult to make those high in cargo capacity, and blown it up and thrown AWD on it. Take makes the car more expensive, it's more metal and plastic.
Doing that spoils the handling because now you've taken a chassis where the wheels would be parallel and lifted it. Making it so the body rolls more, providing a stiffer chassis feel, compounded by the additional weight for now larger components like the rear hatch. And you get a worse riding vehicle. I mean if the scope of the vehicles you've driven is just SUVs, then yeah, they might seem very sporty. But most of that is just marketing. That's why manufacturers don't really make sports cars into SUVs, because there's a lot of compromises in doing that.
On the contrary, having driven plenty of cars with and without AWD, adding AWD is a massive boon to handling for me, even outside of "rough" conditions like mud/ice/snow/gravel.
Especially since most vehicles’ AWD systems (especially if you’re talking crossovers) are really just “2WD but we can briefly engage the other two wheels if you’re trying to get moving on a patch of ice”. (One axle is not being driven except when the other is slipping, and in many cases there are speed limits above which this won’t engage. Many of these systems rely on clutch packs that, if they were engaged continuously, would overheat.)
CUV is far lighter duty, and far better in handling, driving dynamics and efficiency. Especially in models tuned for enthusiast drivers.
As for the efficiency of a sedan, you'll be hard pressed to convince me that putting non-cabin over the majority of the frame is an efficient design. Heck even a prius is a hatchback, not a sedan.
I've driven these a few times as rentals; I don't know if that counts as "serious". They are more expensive, they handle worse, they are heavier, they are less stable because they are significantly higher off the ground, they have poorer visibility as a driver especially of nearby low objects, all else equal they get worse gas mileage, and are basically the same size inside so that the seating and cargo is not appreciably different compared to a wagon.
In my opinion and for my use cases they are worse in every way except for profit for the manufacturer.
This is such a good idea that I've never heard before. Are there any good blog posts ot whatever that explore it?
I do not miss the 3.6L Pentastar. I thought the rocker arm ticking would eventually kill the engine but the electrical system took care of that way ahead of time. (Buy a refurbished TIPM while they're still available). I see people around me proudly driving their tricked out Grand Cherokees and all I can think is "you got screwed".
If it's 50 sheets of 1.25" lignum vitae, it's about 13,100 lbs.
3000 lbs seems like a reasonable estimate.
How heavy is a sheet of unspecified plywood?
We're renting a car in France soon for 4 adults and luggage - I assumed the venerable Espace would be the move, but the hire websites didn't offer them
Looking at the wiki page, it now seems to have turned into an SUV...
"This is the biggest one we have" was the only answer we got, so we made it work.
[edit: corrected a typo]
Having low inventory of minivans is consistent with people not wanting them, right?
The simple fact is that they just aren't very popular, and consumers (at least the ones who buy brand-new) really want SUVs and pretty much nothing else. Stop whining about the manufacturers, and look at your idiot neighbors who are all choosing these monstrosities. (Also look at your crappy elected government that gives highly preferential treatment to SUVs with their "regulation".) The manufacturers are just giving people what they want; anything else would be leaving money on the table and losing to their competition.
I’m not an expert on this but minivans as passenger vehicles could be less desirable for the automaker as they have more stringent safety and emission regulations that cut into their margins in those vehicles
Are we talking actual SUVs only (eg. Cadillac Escalades), or also the far more popular crossovers?
As a van person (grew up with an 1987 Aerostar, ordered a 2017 Pacifica in 2016 (sold to Carvana this year when I got engine trouble), bought an 1981 Vanagon recently that might move on its own power soon), the problem is Stow and Go is clearly awesome, but owning a Chrysler isn't. Having a hybrid would be nice for fuel efficiency, but Chrysler removes features in their hybrid (no power rear seats, no Stow and Go), Toyota doesn't even let you take the middle seats out in the Hybrid Sienna. Minivans that aren't flexible aren't really worth it IMHO. If Honda figured out how to fold the middle seats into the floor, I'd buy an Odyssey in minutes.
All the commercial small vans pulled out of the market too; I wanted to get a Ford Transit Connect, but they left, and the used market for them is weird: mostly 100k+ miles. Nissan NV left, Ram Promaster City; neither offered a passenger model. I think I left something out. Mercedes Metris is still in, I think, but it's very basic. I'd like something more on the basic end, but still with fold into the floor rear seats at least.
It’s out as of last year. What’s on the lot is all there is.
That said, if you are ok with basic it’s a really hard vehicle to beat. It’ll tow 5000, has a legitimately flat load floor, and can carry 2,200lbs if you take out the seats (without hitting GVWR). Fuel mileage is pretty good (20ish in town, 28ish on the highway).
We were in the market and ended up getting a 24 Ody exl. There are some discounted models here and there because of the 25 (very mild) refresh.
I think your issue comes from fuel consumption standards (smaller greenhouse takes less AC) and the unstoppable proliferation of curtain airbags, which won't stop until A, B and C pillars of all vehicles are supplanted by The Pillar, with no windows or ability to see beside one's vehicle, save by cameras.
They seem to be making a small comeback in the UK recently though, with the Lexus LM (which is basically the same as my Vellfire) and Maxus Mifa 9, a Chinese EV, both being released here.
We all voted for the people who voted for... <repeat for several dozen layers> ...wrote the rules that incentivized the current dumb status quo into existence.
The US auto industry is basically a case study in layers of unintended consequences.
Modern SUVs and Minivans are converging on something that's not really as good as either. A minivan was a box on four wheels maximizing internal space. An SUV sacrificed that for better towing, maybe offroading. Nowadays they're making minivans with no internal space and SUVs that can't tow or offroad.
I actually think it really is because it is uncool. A whole generation of kids growing up spent too much time in the back of a minivan and now refuse to ever subject someone else to that. Minivans of the 90s were pretty bad (most vehicles in the 90s were). Your mom drove a minivan. Your mom's minivan smelled bad, the air didn't work well, it rode poorly making you sick. The minivans of the 90s were incredibly practical and incredibly bad at the same time.
for Cars and SUVs:
- A Chevy Equinox starts at $28k MSRP.
- A Toyota RAV4 starts at $29k MSRP.
- A Toyota Prius (PHEV) starts at $33k MSRP.
but for minivans:
- A Honda Odyssey (gas only) starts at $42k MSRP.
- A Chrysler Pacifica (PHEV) starts at $51k MSRP.
Minivans are actually really popular for families in the midwest, for folks who can afford it. If you can't, the option becomes "Get a Minivan, or get an SUV and save $15,000 USD", which obviously skews a lot of families towards the SUV.
So shoving two or three kids in the back of a cheap SUV is pretty normal, event though it's less convenient in a lot of other ways.
The same sort of thing happened to trucks which turned into giant impractical luxury vehicles. I think with trucks it is worse though because minivans are actually sleeper cargo haulers where as a lot of trucks its pretend or for show.
Our family was shopping last year for a new minivan to replace our aging Odyssey--our kids are bigger now, but we still go on trips together. We looked for Siennas and Odysseys, but nobody had a good selection in stock, and the newer models felt more cramped with worse visibility than the old ones. I felt that we were not being given the choices we wanted and were being herded toward SUVs.