The new standards are part of a broad push to get more Americans into electric vehicles, and reduce the environmental cost of driving.
Don’t worry, we’ll just get even larger trucks that nobody actually wants to bypass these standards.
People buy trucks for towing and hauling, and bigger is better and safer for towing.
The real problem is every other type of vehicle has become so useless and disposable (shittily made) to meet fuel economy standards that you can’t tow anything with them and are forced to buy a raging-mega-huge truck to get a high enough GCWR/GVWR and big enough motor to safely and reliably haul stuff.
Stupid EPA laws sacrificed all the cool lightweight sports cars and utility trucks for giant hunks of useless metal which people use exclusively to drive on the highway.
Big 3 already deleted all their compact car production teams, they make all their bank from SUVs and mega sized trucks.
This will change basically nothing.
I’m a little confused, how is the EPA responsible for vehicle size increasing?
I’ve posted about this before so I’m just going to copy it here
No, vehicles have gotten larger because of the same problem as most of the issues in the United States: politics!
You see automobile manufacturers have to meet an average fuel economy across their entire fleet under the CAFE (Corporate average fuel economy) act of 1975. CAFE was a good idea as it forced the auto industry into actually improving on fuel economy year after year throughout their entire fleet or be met with steep fines for ever 0.1mpg off the target.
In 2011 CAFE was changed which directly caused the auto market we have today. See in 2011 the formula on how you’d calculate your fleet’s avarage MPG got changed to now factor in vehicle footprint as a variable which auto manufactures quickly caught on to mean the larger a vehicle is the smaller their entire fleet’s MPG has to be.
On top of that in 2012 “medium-duty trucks” was added as their own category with a lower MPG requirement meaning if your truck or SUV fell into that category then you would have a smaller MPG target for your entire fleet.
Now put yourself into the shoes of an early 2010s auto manufacture, would you rather design small and light vehicles that require you to meet a pretty high fuel economy level across your entire product range or would you inflate the size of your vehicles and move all R&D into finding ways to get your entire fleet classified as a medium-duty truck/SUV with a smaller MPG requirement? Of course you are going to take the latter.
The changes to CAFE in the 2010s killed small vehicles as we knew it. Ensured light duty trucks stayed dead domestically built or chicken tax be dammed. Caused the explosion of crossover SUVs to flood the market. All while making vehicles more dangerous and worse for the environment.
Regular cars are hit by the regulations, but trucks are exempt.
Supposedly they want us all in EVs, but American manufacturers aren’t producing shit except for Tesla which are safety hazards, and they effectively banned Chinese competition that could have actually accomplished it. US car manufacturers will likely ignore these new standards by pushing more “light trucks” that are exempt.
Aptera, baybeeee.
Also, ev prices are way down and their efficiency is going to keep going up.
https://electrek.co/2024/04/18/ev-prices-down-18-last-year-drastic-price-cuts/
GM has the Bolt, and now the Silverado, Ford has the MachE and the Lightning, Dodge is catching up, mostly with Jeep of all brands.
The Jeep wrangler PHEV is the top selling hybrid. The bolt and MachE are pretty great and can be found on the used market with decent miles for an affordable amount. The Lightning is a fantastic truck, better in almost every way that matters than the cyber truck. The Silverado EV is just launching but seems very capable.
Ford is the number 2 EV seller behind Tesla. If you think American manufacturer aren’t producing shit, you’re just not looking.
The only EV I can find from an American brand that is in any way appealing is the Bolt. Everything else is a giant truck or SUV, and to be honest I don’t feel safe driving such a huge piece of metal, and I don’t have the money to justify buying one. No American options are affordable or reasonably sized. The US is doing EVs in possibly the most unsustainable way possible.
Look at the Hyundais, ~300 mile range, 15 min battery charge, and they have a sedan and a cuv wagon thing. They are also some of the cheapest leases you can get, and dealers are overflowing with them. It’s basically the EV wishlist, but for some reason I don’t see many on the road.
Could you be more specific? I couldn’t find a single EV under $30k the cheapest one I could find on their website was $37.5k on their website. That’s not affordable, and 10k above where the bolt starts.
They are expensive to buy outright, but that’s arguably a bad idea anyway due to the depreciation. They are leasing Ioniq 5 and 6 for less than $250/month and $200/month: https://www.hyundaiusa.com/us/en/offers
It’s cheaper than most of the gas cars in terms of cost to own over the period. If you want to buy. The Kona electric is $32,xxx
I’m not the kind of person that wants a new car always. I’d rather have a car that will last me 20 years. With that in mind, leasing is almost always much more expensive.
I’m not the kind of person who wants a new car always either. I have a 15 year old Acura with 200k on it. At $300/month, I no longer have gas or maintenance expenses, and I don’t have to pump gas any more. Figuring in the cost savings, I figure I’m driving a $50k car around for around $100 month. Idk what will happen in 2027 when I give this thing back to them, but it definitely would have cost me more than $3600 in repairs over three years with a 200k mile Acura.
This isn’t aimed at just American manufacturers (Tesla, GM, Ford) but all vehicles sold in the US. People always seem to resort to “American protectionism” and other falsehoods when discussing stuff like this or the proposed ban on Chinese EVs, but either miss or purposely ignore the rest of the market in the US. Nearly every company that sells here has at least one EV and many others have excellent fleet MPG like Toyota with all their hybrid options.
This isn’t aimed at just American manufacturers (Tesla, GM, Ford) but all vehicles sold in the US.
Sure, but with almost no exceptions, the popular cars with the worst mileage are American ones.
Most other rich countries have much more ambitious plans that include phasing out fossil fuel only cars COMPLETELY, and are able to do so because their politicians don’t have to kowtow to the intertwined interests of their owner donors from Big Oil and Detroit.
People always seem to resort to “American protectionism” and other falsehoods when discussing stuff like this
Because it’s NOT a falsehood. See above.
People just don’t like them 🤷♂️
Most of the folks who want an EV and who can live with an EV already have one. It’s not the politicians preventing people from buying.
I’m a car guy, and I’d like to have one. I’m waiting for someone to make one fast and affordable like a tesla only not a tesla because elon is a d-bag. If he gets kicked out of the company, I’ll buy one the next day.
What fast and affordable levels are you looking for? I assume we’re talking Tesla dual motor fast and a budget of 55k? What’s wrong with the ionic?
You can get used dual motor 3’s for around 15k where I’m at. The tesla is a second quicker in 0 to 60 and the quarter mile, which is a lot faster.
