401
‘Seismic shift’: driving unaffordable for many in US amid push toward SUVs
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
401 points (97.9% liked)
News
35749 readers
1921 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They sell them in the EU, which has stricter safety regulations. If they set out to do it, they'll flood the market and get the traditional manufacturers in trouble.
EU allows all sorts of stuff that isn't allowed in the US. Believe it or not, US safety regs are generally higher than the EU (for passengers, anyway). The Ariel Atom, for example, needs some hoop jumping to make it US street legal, but can be driven without issue much of the EU.
Wow, I didn't realize there were Chinese cars on the European market. Are the cars being received well? Are there major issues with them and if there are major issues, does price still make them worth it?
They’re surprisingly good, particularly BYD cars, in my experience.
Americans’ vehicles tend to be huge, wildly inefficient for their daily usage, and they throw off externalities like pedestrian and cyclist risks, road damage, and support for countries who use our gas spending to make the world less liberal.
VW, Honda, Toyota, and Datsun capitalized on American vehicle bloat to build massive, multinational companies with products in every segment. The Chinese are going to ruin our domestic manufacturers, once they decide to build bridgehead plants here.
Today, I’m driving an Acura that is made in Marysville, Ohio. Not assembled; it is substantively made here in the States. And, the chain reaction that led to Honda, a Japanese company, exporting profits made from American productivity in 2024, started with the Big Three making massively bloated, inefficient, expensive, poorly designed cars, leaving a gap in the market that foreign companies exploited with right-sized, efficient, affordable, reliable vehicles, starting in the ‘60s and exploding with the ‘73 oil crisis.
I don’t have time to find a link, but there have been studies that demonstrate that the exact choices being made by American manufacturers today—to not fully serve the bottom of the market—sow the seeds of their own future declines in the middle and upper markets.
I truly feel car manufacturers are doing everything in their power to make sure that I personally regret every car decision I make. I hope a new comer starts at a low price point and eventually takes their higher margin stuff as well.