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The Reason Why Are Trucks Getting Bigger

(toddofmischief.blogspot.com)
173 points yasp | 3 comments | 11 Aug 22 13:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.212s | source
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charles_f ◴[11 Aug 22 15:14 UTC] No.32426987[source]▶
> One particular goal of the Obama Administration was to increase fuel efficiency through the typical political process: telling someone else to do it. To that end, the DOT and the EPA handed down a series of standards that nearly doubled the miles-per-gallon requirements for cars and light trucks.

As opposed to what? Having Obama and its administration build more efficient engines? Have them run a car pooling scheme across the US? Not transfer it to authorities with actual subject matter knowledge? They emitted policy, I don't know what else an administration can do.

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1. simonsarris ◴[11 Aug 22 16:20 UTC] No.32428007[source]▶
The proper answer, if you want more fuel efficient vehicles, is to simply raise the gas tax and allow every company's engineering teams decide what to build, and every consumer to decide what they want. This keeps domain expertise where it belongs while achieving the stated goals, and does not strictly reduce choice. If engineers could not figure out more efficient designs, and customers wanted more efficient vehicles, they could simply make smaller trucks to sell.

Instead they demanded companies engineer vehicles to conform to weird mpg/area curves that accidently skew towards "huge." It was in effect backseat engineering.

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2. tablespoon ◴[11 Aug 22 17:43 UTC] No.32429299[source]▶
> The proper answer, if you want more fuel efficient vehicles, is to simply raise the gas tax and allow every company's engineering teams decide what to build, and every consumer to decide what they want.

But that's bad politics. Voters don't like paying more for gas, and if you make it expensive enough to drive engineering changes, you make yourself open to attack on that issue.

Also, making gas more expensive would have a lot of perhaps bad follow-on effects (e.g. getting people laid off/lowering growth because you made many industrial/commercial activities more expensive).

> Instead they demanded companies engineer vehicles to conform to weird mpg/area curves that accidently skew towards "huge." It was in effect backseat engineering.

But that's good politics. You're saying "make things better."

3. wiseleo ◴[11 Aug 22 22:09 UTC] No.32432419[source]▶
That would have a devastating impact on existing vehicles, which just happen to be owned by voters. Consumers already decide what they want, if they can afford to. Many are locked into financing agreements for vehicles they can't afford.