Climate Change? Nahhh ...

People like big vehicles. They like the room. They like sitting high. They like the space they offer for kid taxi-ing. They’re not rubes of advertising or engaging in projected masculinity. They just like big vehicles.

 

I apologize for being first vague and then not reading well. I was speaking in the future tense as for a hybrid/EV households. I expect this transformation to take about 10 years.

I thought you were saying hybrids as a whole were unaffordable. I paid $4,000 more for a non-luxury brand SUV. I didn’t find it onerous and did the math. It’ll pay in six years. But it’s a legitimate sacrifice for someone who trades in cars faster. The luxury brands moreso.

 

Weird how they didn’t like them 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

1994 F-150 - 196-235″ L x 79-80″ W x 71-74″ H
2023 F-150 - 209-250″ L x 80-87″ W x 75-80″ H

1994 Tacoma - 175-193″ L x 67″ W x 61-67″ H
2023 Tacoma - 212-226″ L x 74-75″ W x 71-72″ H

The growth of the size of trucks and SUVs has been driven by the automobile companies. It has made them more dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists and drivers of sedans. It’s changed the architecture of houses and layouts of parking lots. And marketing has played a huge role in their growth.

 

There used to be a taxonomy of cars. People bought the car that did the job they needed done.

Marketing convinced everyone they needed a sledgehammer to nail up a picture frame.

 

And it’s okay that car companies found something consumers like! But let’s actually admit that marketing of more profitable vehicles works on people. People who live in the suburbs don’t just decide that they need a Jeep Wrangler.

 

It's difficult enough for my wife to park a Camry in our garage while allowing enough room for the tiny Civic. Just the other night I come home from work, stop the Civic outside the garage, back up the Camry, repark it, then enter the garage with the Civic. Bi-weekly routine.

She'd freak out trying to park something large (especially alongside a second large vehicle).

 

The fact that many people need a camera and a computerized system to not hit parked cars around them means they are driving too large of a vehicle.

This goes doubly for motorhomes.

 

And there’s nothing wrong with people buying shit just because they like it.

But the consumers were not contacting manufacturers and saying “can you make this roofline 9 inches higher and raise the body so much that a 6-2 person needs a running board to get in?” They bought what they were told to buy.

 

I drove past one of those five-minute oil change places and they were using a ladder to get under the hood of a pick-up truck.

It’s a Simpsons Canyonero gag at this point.

 

Marketing for all kinds of products works on all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons.

When was this? And where? Whoever needed a Buick Roadmaster?

 

Mrs. Has similar problems. Not that she’s careless just a spacial thing.

For some reason the previous owners of my house put in a work bench along the side of the garage so there’s just enough room to park two cars comfortably but one car doesn’t have access to the passenger side. It’s all fine if Mrs. Highlander-Spartan parks her Prius close to the wall but leaves enough space for her to get out. There are days when she needs my car to help guide her. There are days when I can’t even open my door to get myself out.

All that to say I can’t imagine having anything much bigger for her. My little man is making it apparent I’m going to need something bigger than a Corolla soon. Never mind my car is 14 years old with 175k and I just dropped $700 to fix my brakes that blew up on me. At least something with a larger back seat.

EPILOGUE: A Prius is way more spacious than you might think. I can fit a Christmas tree in there every year. Yes I’m driving with the top of the tree popping out over the middle console, but still.