Taxes. Social Security.
The list is gigantic. Your claim could not be more false.
Larger vehicles are more comfortable, safe, and practical (for anyone who doesn't need to worry about parking issues). It doesn't take advertising to convince consumers about that, it's just reality.
The profit margins on larger trucks are higher precisely because that's what consumers want. No one is forcing them to buy those vehicles.
The Maverick is quite sizable compared to the original Ford Ranger too, which was still bigger than the regular Japanese trucks that were all over the US after oil skyrocketed the first time:
Ditto with the Sentra and the Versa.
This is my point exactly.
I'm pretty sure it's not, because physics. A tank is safer than a bike for the poilot, when there is a collision. This data is a little muddled, but follows common sense.
Large SUVs and Pickups: These vehicles have the lowest occupant fatality rates, averaging 14 deaths per million registered vehicles for SUVs compared to 48 per million for sedans. Large luxury SUVs often register statistically zero deaths in specific three-year studies.
https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-...
Tall grilles are a purely aesthetic choice. We could create safety standards for pedestrian impacts and end this inane trend. And still drive trucks!
We aren't mindless zombies buying whatever we see on TV. I'm old enough to remember when Japanese small cars practically took over the market in the 70s and 80s due to gas price shocks. It can happen again.
Mandating efficiency for new cars doesn't obviously hit you int the wallet every time you fill the tank.
I mean, this is obvious. Energy price increases caused by the Russian war contributed to dozens of governments to get voted out. Yet no one has even run an attack and based on a government supporting efficiency standards. Of all environmental policies, mandating efficiency standards must be the hardest to attack by your opponents.
The fact the fleet targets were implemented in Europe by the European Parliament against the wishes of member state governments, including the German one, tells you everything about the politics of this.
I just bought a (small, hybrid) truck because I need to do some truck stuff. I 100% would have bought an electric if the market produced one with comparable capability and competitive price, but we're not there yet, and I don't have Rivian money (yet! lol maybe someday).
My point being: there is still a huge demand for trucks from both a capability and culture standpoint, and very little supply of a cost-comparable product that doesn't take gas or diesel. Rivian is around double what most people want to pay, and the F150 Lightning was marketed poorly and had bad towing/hauling range compared to gas/diesel equivalents.
I'm not here to defend "truck culture" but I do believe that if you offer people a better product, they will figure it out and buy it. An electric truck with 400+ miles of towing range, an onboard 2kW+ inverter, 500 ft-lbs of torque, and fast charging for the same price as a comparable gas F150 will sell. Unfortunately the battery energy density and EV supply chain economies of scale aren't there yet in North America.
U u uThe problem is those vehicles don’t exist, because the manufacturers only want to build the high margin gas guzzlers.
Look at fuel economy of US made vehicles vs those in Europe. It’s beyond a joke.
You’ve never driven a BYD because your government blocks them. You’ve also never driven a fuel efficient car because they hardly exist in the US
Btw EVs and plug-in hybrids are fairly common here too. What we don't have is the entry-level all-petrol cars that do 50mpg because they're like a 1L 3-cylinder turbo, which seem to be common in western Europe at least. But also idk if those are as affordable in those countries as the cheapest cars are affordable in the US. Like the UK's best selling car, Ford Puma, costs more than a US Prius which isn't considered an entry-level car here.
But we are. I don't want to turn this into a political slap fight but it became apparent to me the extent in which people are swayed by advertising when I read an article that talked about how one party in the US was concerned that the other was going to win an important seat becase the other party had done a recent spending surge on ads in last few days before election day and they were concerned that they couldn't match it.
That article right there forever changed my view of the average person on the street. In a highly polarized campaign and political environment with months to years of knowing who the candidates and policies are and they can still be swayed by millions in TV and radio ads? Like it sounds like these people could literally be on their way to vote for a candidate and then switch their mind at the last second because they hear an ad on the radio as they're pulling into the polling station.
That's absurd -- but it's real.
People are completely enthralled by advertisements to the point where they'll buy a stupid truck that they can't fit anywhere, that they need a ladder to climb into, that has terrible sight lines, simply because advertising tells them to.
(I would support a Constitutional amendment to restrict campaign contributions and effectively overturn the Citizens United v. FEC decision.)
It sounds to me like you're confusing the magnitude of advertising spending with effectiveness of advertising techniques.
Some people have found more effective ways to advertise to people, we know all this, it isn't uncharted conversation territory. We all know about micro-targetting based on personalized data, dominating certain niche mediums like AM radio to target people when they're driving and coordinated pushes with people in industry.
The point is that advertising works. It works disconcertingly well.
This is why people buy stupidly impractical automobiles that they don't need.
They seem like mutually exclusive claims, to me. Am I missing something?
Advertised products will sell more, but only to a certain point. Like someone who wants an SUV and knows nothing else might buy the one from Chevy instead of Mitsubishi because of advertising.
CAFE is a great example of a well-meaning regulation failing because the people who developed and approved it didn’t think through the obvious consequences.
Allowing light trucks to turn the SUVs and replace sedans is not an "unintended consequence"--it's either stupidity or graft (not xor).
There are several laws that are "wtf -- is this the best we can do?"
Separately I've heard emissions laws blamed for large sedans losing to small SUVs and trucks due to double standards, but I doubt it would've made a difference, even though I personally prefer large sedans.
You can see this if you go to https://shop.ford.com/showroom/ and select sedan or hatchback in the left filters. No results.