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this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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nah blame the lobbying and abuse of regulations that maintains the status quo of car-reliant infrastructure
if you didn't demand the giant trucks and weren't willing to pay giant premium prices for them; manufacturers wouldn't have the profit-driven motives to make them, focus almost exclusively on them, and cut production and selection of smaller and more affordable vehicles to 'make room' for them in the market.
There are legit regulatory issues that strongly incentivize manufactures to sell giant vehicles. Fuel efficiency standards for larger vehicles are a lot easier to meet. A lot of the demand for larger vehicles is driven by advertising.
Of course people could stop letting corporations drag them around by the nose, but it seems like most of the public still likes it that way.
Just to back you up, the regulations you are primarily speaking to are the CAFE standards. While the intent of CAFE standards is to reduce overall emissions and improve energy efficiency, the footprint-based model has led to a proliferation of less efficient, heavier vehicles that contribute to climate change and air pollution.
This was predicted back in 2011, before the standards were even active and it kind of played out exactly as they guessed.