All Cars with Jon
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2023–2024
12:07 · 2M views · Jul 3, 2023
All Cars with Jon explains how EPA fuel economy rules, especially the footprint-based CAFE formula, push automakers away from small trucks.
Cited in threads on vehicle bloat as the explanation for why small pickups disappeared in the US.
7 comments from Hacker News
This video this video explains why small pickup trucks can't really be sold in the USA anymore. This explains the drive to larger pickups, but I don't know what explains the drive from cars to trucks/SUVs. We were considering a wagon when we bought our last vehicle, an SUV. The ability to occasionally carry more than five people was the deciding point. I believe crash standards prevent the selling of wagons with a "wayback" anymore.
They are not making trucks bigger despite CAFE regulations. They are making trucks bigger because of CAFE regulations. This video details why: this video The short version is there is an exploit to meet standards by increasing footprint that is easier to implement than to make vehicles more fuel efficient. That exploit needs to be nerfed.
You can thank the EPA for that. The gov mandates that vehicles achieve a certain calculated efficiency, or there’s an extra fee/fine attached to the vehicle. Reasonable enough, right? Unfortunately the way this is calculated is absolutely fucking retarded. Basically, the larger the wheelbase of vehicle, the lower fuel efficiency the vehicle can get away with. This is why these fucking things keep ballooning in size, have a dogshit turning radius, and are causing an epidemic of frontovers and backover accidents killing or injuring thousands of children every year because there’s no up close visibility. Video explanation: this video Old small trucks can actually command a premium because of this bullshit. Very few people actually like these huge stupid boats, but there’s just nothing else to buy when you need an actual work vehicle. Please consider contacting your legislators and putting this on their radar, and keeping it there.
I came of age to drive in the 90s, and the first two pickups I drove were a 1984 ford ranger and a 1990 Toyota Pickup. Those were both what I would call "value" pickup trucks. They weren't fancy, but they moved shit around well. I know everyone says that the EPA killed small trucks in 2008[1] but Toyota replaced the "Toyota Pickup" with the less-practical Tundra in '95, and embiggened it in 2004, so I'm not convinced that companies would make them even were they legal. 1: this video
this video TL;DW: In 2008 CAFE introduced a formula that calculates the required MPG based off of the track times the wheelbase (basically the rectangle formed by the tires). Trucks are less aerodynamic than sedans, so small trucks can't be made that get sufficiently low MPG to meet this standard, and thus even though a smaller truck would use less fuel than a larger truck that meets the standard.