this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
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Every time I see a complaint about truck sizes, I make it a point to share this video explaining how it's actually the EPA's fault trucks have gotten so big.
https://youtu.be/azI3nqrHEXM
🤨
Plus those corporations are the ones lobbying for those regulations.
While regulatory capture is a huge problem, in this case, auto manufacturers definitely didn't write this. They would like nothing more than to see it go away, or at least rolled back to where it was a couple decades ago. Overall that would be bad for fuel efficiency standards, but it would allow for small pickups again.
In my completely amateur opinion, a solution would be a cutoff on the wheelbase where a vehicle was no longer a car/light truck, but a new catagory with different higher standards. Or maybe a carve out for vehicles with a bed that allowed a little wiggle room for smaller vehicles. I don't like the idea of allowing less fuel efficiency, but if the choice is between a small truck that misses the fuel requirements of a similarly sized car by a few MPG or a behemoth with half the MPG, I'll come down on the side of a carve out for little trucks.
I feel like its the categories that are the issue. Flat tax by fuel unit per distance unit, then offer tax credits to farm and small business vehicles. This incentivises everyone to go for the most fuel efficient vehicle they can manage
It may not be only the EPA's fault, but an unintended consequences of the CAFE standards and how they change over time is a perverse incentive to increase wheelbase and track, lowering the fuel efficiency instead of raising it.
If you haven't yet, watch the video. It does a good job explaining why you can't make the Chevy S10 we used to see all over the place in the 90s without a big penalty that would make it too expensive.
so what? that doesn't make the shitty trucks, the car companies do. "It incentivises it" fucking whatever, electric car subsidies and etc also do that , and they're still making combustion cars.
They make things people will buy. No one is buying an S10 that costs 20% more after penalties because it can't be as fuel efficient as a Camry.
Edit: I'll stipulate that the auto manufacturers are, and always have been, run by a bunch of fuckers. Fuckers that have worked against public transit, fuel efficiency standards, and emissions standards. No one is arguing with you about that. But they don't do it for fun. They're not supervillains that want to ruin the environment. They're not aliens trying to terra form the planet. They do it for money. If there is no profit in small pickups, they won't make them. And if the only choice for people that want/need a pickup is a giant truck, that's what they'll get. These standards as written take away the option of small pickups.
but it's what they're doing, so fuck them. They buy and sell politicians for worse things, and they are responsible for their own fucking actions. They manipulate the governmental organizations for dumping waste wherever they fucking want, I think they can do it to make better vehicles.
And you're advocating for these pricks.
Jesus dude, I know the average person's reading comprehension is bad, but you really take the cake.
I'm not advocating for auto manufacturers, I'm advocating for updating the CAFE standards that unintentionally incentivize large pickups. They already make the things and sell them down in Mexico, they're very popular. The reason US customers can't buy them is the EPA.
But I think you know all that. You're just uninterested in learning the causes so effective adjustments can be made. You just want to impotently piss and moan to absolutely zero effect.
Trucks, cars, all of it. I praise Mazda for keeping the Miata/MX-5 small when almost nobody else has.
if only they didn't give it headlights that blind people
nearly drove into one last night because it was coming up a small hill in front of me in my neighbourhood (on a curve) and I drifted left as I slowed down to ensure I didn't hit the pedestrians to my right. couldn't see a fucking thing because of its 'lowbeams'
I feel this with so many new cars. Particularly when driving my car instead of my wife's which is pretty short.
People don’t properly aim the headlights anymore.
I finally bought some polarized driving glasses to cut down in some of the glare. They're like sunglasses but bright yellow. They... Help slightly. I'm sure there are some better than the cheap pair I got, though.
Polarization is to cut out sunlight. Headlights do not produce polarized light.
... Neither does the sun. Polarization cuts off all the waves that DO NOT ALIGN with the filter. It reduces the amount of light going to your eye.
Ok the sun doesn’t produce polarized light, but the atmosphere polarizes it. So sunlight is polarized. All sunglasses reduce the amount of light going into your eye…that’s the point of sunglasses.
The light does not need to be polarized for a polarizing lens to have an effect. Polarized sunglasses eliminate glare, unlike their non polarized cousins. This is why they're prized by fishermen-they can see into the water. Works for windshields too.
It really seems like you don't understand how this works.
Or this one.