Oil companies invented a psyop in North America centered around male insecurity with their masculinity. That's why the best selling vehicle in North America is a massive gas guzzling pickup truck that the average person can't come close to affording but drives anyway.
Also car seats are enormous and don't fit well into compact cars unless the passenger side seat is all the way up and maybe not even then. Good luck if you have more than one kid that needs a car seat too.
I'm just explaining why parents might opt for a larger car especially if they have multiple children. It used to be mini vans, now it's SUVs or crossovers which are probably not much bigger than station wagons.
They're needlessly taller. That's why I mentioned the hood height. You lose fuel economy and you make it more dangerous for kids crossing at cross walks.
I forget which gen we were in, but once I was a passenger with a driver who worked sales a Hummer dealership. We were driving back to a summer camp, and as we're passing the top of what in the winter is the tobogganing hill, he goes "guys hold on, check this out." He goes offroad down a significant incline, mowing down saplings and dodging trees, rocks, etc, with all of us kids just trying to hold on in the back because the seats lack bolstering. We get to the bottom and he's just like "cool right?" It was kind of cool, and it's also what made it the perfect karenmobile.
You don't sound like you're from NA, but here in the US we have trucks that are colloquially known as "Child Killers" because when you're driving them, you literally can't see what's in front of you. They are all over the roads, and make for an extremely bad experience for people in smaller vehicles, people on bikes, and pedestrians. Not to mention, they're often driven by people that lean heavily into road rage.
That whole culture is cancer. A lot of Koreans here think country music is typical American music, and i have to explain to them how that whole culture is super, super fucked and how they need to turn off that fucking music
Yes and you can also enjoy anyone modern who plays in that style. So many nights me, whiskey, and Johnny Cash. Somehow that multimillionaire loved by all gets me.
Imho, the problem is that North American roads are not safe for small vehicles. If you're a suburbanite who spends an hour in your car every day on expressways full of trucks and SUVs, you don't generally want to be in a slow, tiny, short, vulnerable vehicle where you're beneath the consideration and sightline and possibly wheels of traffic.
Am in Texas (Dallas area) I commute 33 miles each way in an electric Fiat 500. I actually do feel plenty safe (car is insanely stable but also far safer than my other commuter which is a klr650 motorcycle) but do have issues with road rage. I legitly don't care if someone hits me in this car as it wouldn't be the first time and I have full confidence I'll be safe.......on the other hand I don't appreciate how unsafe large vehicles tend to be nor how difficult they can make visibility.
I used to drive semi trucks for a living and I'd personally pick the Fiat over the Freightliner every time.
Right? And sane laws about safe vehicles that would clamp down on these land-tanks would never pass because muh freedoms.
If your vehicle represents a higher risk to other people around you, then there should be firmer laws about driving it safely. Give Miatas a higher speed limit, and F-350s firmer penalties for dangerous driving and speeding.
There's also the matter of snow in a large part of the country. Any car with less than 6" of ground clearance is going to get stuck all the time. AWD or 4wd saves a you a lot of grief too.
I drive a Prius and I live in Canada, a vehicle with like 3 mm of ground clearance. The trick is to live in a place with actual civilized government that plows and salts.
I live in Chicago. They are good at clearing the main streets, but they don't do the alleys. They also can't help burying cars parked on side streets. On top of that the wind causes huge drifts.
Chicago. The wind off the lake blows huge snow drifts and the city doesn't have the manpower to clear the side streets or alleys. If you park off the alley, you will get stuck. If you park on the street, you will get buried by the snow plow and you will get stuck.
While I totally agree with what you are saying, unfortunately, the Chinese EV revolution may be largely a lie.
Google fake Chinese ev sales if you are interested.
Because Americans spend WAY more time in their cars than most other countries and I'll be fucked if Im spending an hour+ each day in a cheap econo-car.
Having spent a lot of time in China, I have not seen a huge uptake on electric vehicles because they don't have the infrastructure or charging stations for it. That said, I haven't been there in the last three years or so but I don't expect that to be changed radically.
I know that the Chinese government has spent a lot of money trying to entice people to buy electric cars by allowing civilians to use the coveted green parking pass that is good anywhere if their vehicle is electric.
This led to some major expansion of their electric vehicle brands. I don't know what kind of percentage change it is but it's big enough to shake up their automotive industry.
Although it seems a bit of a weird move to me considering how good their public transport is.
The bus and train in China can be pretty wildin so I get why a lot of people hate using it. That said Guangzhou subway is pretty nice and Japanese like.