this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2026
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Fuck Cars
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The US auto industry is absolutely to blame for pushing gigantic gas guzzlers on people. But the people who buy those monstrosities and get hugely into debt to do it are very much to blame too.
I think its the EPA for not regulating truck emissions as stringently as they do for normal cars.
DOT is in charge of CAFE regulations. The original law specified standards that were for "passenger vehicles" and "automobiles which are not passenger automobiles".
DOT interpreted that as trucks, which made sense back then. Unfortunately, every manufacturer just declared their cars to be trucks (invention of the SUV) and the DOT let them.
Then they made it worse by scaling fuel economy to vehicle size, so manufactures just made cars have a larger footprint to be allowed to have worse fuel economy.
It's also the auto industry for regulatory-capture of the EPA. It's an ouroboros of corruption with plenty of blame to go around.
They passed a fuel economy law that had to do with vehicle weight, auto industry response was make bigger heavier vehicles to get around new fuel economy requirements. That's the reason all of the reasonably sized personal trucks got massive like 15 years ago.
I've seen quite a few videos about "rolling negative equity" and didn't even know it was a thing. Also, you hear someone threatening the car dealer for suggesting they buy a car for ONLY $20K when he's never been seen something in less than a beamer and being in debt so they have to take a loan for the down payment (which doesn't even make sense to me)... I hope these videos are fake 😢
The first time I heard about rolling negative equity I gasped audibly.
Cars are a depreciating asset unless they’re very rare. They’re always going to have negative equity. This is financial flim-flammery disguised with fancy corpo words.
I just want a manual awd wagon. But I'm not allowed. Wrx was the last one. America gets shit for cars.
Look for a VW Alltrack they were made from 2017-2019
Definitely look for that. I had a Rabbit before so the Alltrack was a tempting next step, but was able to get a new 2021 Crosstrek with a manual. It's somewhere between a lifted hatch and a wagon. Managed to fit some 8ft 2x2s in there so I'd say it's pretty functional.
Shit how awesome didnt know this existed. May have to sell my car and get one
I've had mine for four or five years, its my forever car since you just can't get cars like it anymore
amazingly they seem to still be normally priced!
They weren't when I bought mine so act if you find one you like
But think about what we get instead: massive diesel trucks!
Expensive to own, ass to drive, impractical!
Dont forget road noise!
I did not ask for even more interesting times, but the car loans and car insurance industries have some pretty interesting interactions with rising oil prices and climate change.
I don't really like that I'm paying $15-20 more a tank than I did a couple years ago, but I have no sympathy for the price of diesel and the guys with dumb ass monster trucks.
The issue with diesel is farm equipment and shipping. Basically everything we need to survive is impacted.
I don't feel bad for the idiots that bought a lifted truck that gets 9 miles to the gallon though. They got what's coming
The issue with shipping is that it could have been partially avoided with more reliance on rail and less on long-haul trucking, but that's a choice that was inflicted on us rather than one we made ourselves.
Unfortunately freight rail often uses diesel as well. It is more efficient of course pound for pound, but the cost is still felt. Even nations with better rail are feeling the price because of this
Yeah, but electrifying rail didn't require technological innovation the way batteries capable of long-haul trucking did. We could've had electric rail freight decades ago if the political will had been there.
We did, check out the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension. About 2/3rds of the rail line between Chicago and Seattle was electrified from roughly the 30’s until the 70’s. It was slated to be closed down in 1973 and the oil crisis gave it another year or so.
It was always profitable, but the Milwaukee Road execs didn’t understand it, and didn’t like that it was different from the rest of the network using diesel. Real disappointing stuff.
a nice side effect of diesel prices on shipping is that I'm seeing a lot more electric delivery trucks on the road, it's gonna suck for long haul, but maybe that will move to rail.
They're working on hybridization atm
Yes, it's the victim's faults! They had no choice but to buy these things thanks to lack of alternatives , therefore they are to blame!
The guy who buys a luxury RAM 1500 to pick up groceries definitely had alternatives.
The Hyundai Venue is $20k and can get 50mpg highway.
People have a choice of what vehicle they buy.
But how is that going to help with your petromasculinity?
I like this sentiment the most. I worked in the oil and gas industry for a long time. (Ethically opposed the entire time, but thats not my point here.) And drove a subaru, worked with guy that drove a prius. Lots of Honda and Toyota sedans... the people doing the "manly" work aren't even driving big personal vehicles because there is nothing to prove.
This is a funny part about being a carpenter. The new carpenters buy huge trucks to try and impress people. Meanwhile my boss who has been doing this for decades drives a Honda Civic to work lol
And abuse victims have the choice of leaving their abuser.
What a monumentally stupid comparison.
The poor person about to spend $100k+ on a truck, tearfully signing the papers at the dealership: sniffle And could you do that thing where you raise the truck up a few more feet and put monster truck wheels on it? I can’t believe you are making me do this.
lol This is exactly how some people picture it. Poor Americans. In hypercapitalist America, consumers just have no agency at all. Maybe your culture really is gullible and stupid?
Aw, those poor people had no choice but to buy that F-150!
The other guys at the construction site will make fun of them if they aren't in six-figure debt for a truck that never tows or hauls anything!
Not sure why you're being downvoted, but judging by the replies it seems like everyone is assuming that by "people have no choice but to buy a personally-owned vehicle" you must have meant "people have no choice but to buy a giant gas-guzzling truck."
It's a crazy leap and a strawman and precisely the kind of lack of nuance that makes it all but impossible to have intelligent discussions about issues that matter. But then again, this is the internet...
I was specifically talking about gigantic gas guzzlers in my original comment. Not even in the US do all cars fall into that category. People do have choices and they choose the monstrosities. I was not in any way trying to blame people for owning a car.
Okay I get it, I was reading the comment in light of the post which talked about "mandatory expensive vehicle in order to be employable because we abandoned trains."
Like, you're right, nobody needs those giant trucks.
But also, even relying on smaller, more efficient POVs as a society is still a bad thing, and being required to buy something in that category is still an injustice that individual people don't have much agency in, at least if they want to be able to get a job without uprooting their lives (and usually living somewhere more expensive in order to have pedestrian access to public transit)
No argument there. I was just pointing out that people do have choices and unfortunately many people make dumb choices.
Yeah you can always just buy a civic
I mean, given the comment the reply is to it's not a crazy leap in logic or strawman considering the comment itself specifically was talking about gas guzzling vehicles and not having sympathy for people who bought them.
Perhaps as a reply to the original post it would be read differently but the context it's in makes it so it reads the way it does.
Ah, yeah, I read it as if it were a top-level comment. I see the connection now.
I'll still give her the benefit of the doubt and say she likely meant it in the broader sense, because her takes are usually fairly reasonable.
But yeah, the giant trucks are unnecessary in probably 98% of cases. Honestly even in the 2% where one is needed, a smaller one will do. But those are harder to find these days.
The problem of compulsory POV ownership more broadly though is systemic in the US, and people trapped in that situation don't really have an alternative option.