A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
1. Be Civil
You may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.
2. No hate speech
Don't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.
3. Don't harass people
Don't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.
4. Stay on topic
This community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.
5. No reposts
Do not repost content that has already been posted in this community.
Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.
In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
More american excess we should have been stamping out the entire time.
Another one of those things we could fix if we had the political will.
Minivans are still sold. You can buy one. People choose SUV's which is why more are made. It's not a conspiracy because the SUV form factor is literally fashion sheet metal with a raised suspension.
In the words of Alec Watson of Technology Connections, "GET OVER YOURSELF!"
Car companies make more SUVs because they can skirt emissions with them. Then they market them to people to induce demand.
So since I don’t want an SUV I guess I’m never buying a new car.
There's also a supply issue. Manufacturers make more on SUVs and in the us have less stringent emissions caps, so they make a ton more. Annectodally several friends and relations have looked at getting minivans only to be confronted with months-long waitlists. The equivalent capacity SUV they could walk off the lot with that day. So, guess which they ended up with?
I think why there are more SUVs out there is because they fall into a category that is heavily subsidised. So people choose it more in the US because the alternatives are few and far between.
God I heard his voice with that awkward 1s pause in my head so clearly haha.
Also thanks, going to catch up on his channel because of your comment
Oh you’re gonna have such a good time.
I don’t think I ever knew Alec’s last name. Thank you!
Where have all the normal family cars gone?
I may be missing something here, but I don't see the problem with the newer "tank-ette"s. We have a 2025 Nissan Kicks - sure it's SUV shaped, but it's not tall or have any of the issues typically associated with SUVs (I'm not an expert on these issues - happy to be educated here) - it really is just an SUV shaped car. Where I live there are lots of oversized pickups on the road, but there are also LOTS of Honda Civics and Hyundai Elantras - both still available in the classic sedan configuration.
I'm not trying to say there are not huge issues with the car industry/culture - I just feel this article is exaggerating the issue a little. Or, maybe it's a market by market thing and Civics and Elantras aren't available in the author's market..
We have a 2025 Nissan Kicks - sure it's SUV shaped, but it's not tall or have any of the issues typically associated with SUVs (I'm not an expert on these issues - happy to be educated here) - it really is just an SUV shaped car.
I want to see one of those image overlay comparisons done between a Nissan Kicks (or similar small crossover) and a pre-WWII sedan:
"Cars" (as opposed to "trucks" or "vans") have been lower to the ground for a long time until recently, but there is precedent for them being tall if you go back far enough.