We are in a gas crisis in all but the name, gas in my area is over $6 a gallon and even in states where it’s normally “cheap” (taxpayer subsidized) it’s still well over $4. Its been six years since COVID and since then we saw it peak, drop to slightly lower but still higher than ever before covid, and now this. It also appears that gas, even if it does go down, will never be “cheap” again.

and yet, even with all of that I still see new giant cars rolling off the logs. Giant Santa Fes, brand new F150s, brand new plates. People are still buying these. Not luxury “I can spend whatever I want” rich folks, everyday people buying these things.

What is going on in peoples heads? I know most never take gas into account when buying a car and then are all shocked pikachu at the pump, but seriously even now it’s not an issue?

I have seen maybe, maybe one new car that was a hybrid out of my anecdotal experience. No one considering those, or an EV, or god forbid biking or taking transit. (In my area both are very viable alternatives).

I’m just so exasperated at how stupid people are being. They think 50k for a car is expensive and then never take into account what powers the damn thing.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

  • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techOPEnglish
    4·
    13 hours ago

    Your comment meanders through so many propagandized items I don’t know where to begin. There’s like, 12 separate points you hit and none of them go together, it’s just a brainddump of everything you believe to be true.

    More than anyone likes to admit is safety features. If you want a unibody alloy vehicle with 11 airbags you’re gonna need a bigger outside profile to accommodate the same interior volume.

    This is called the car sized arms race, the idea that bigger cars = safer. The problem is crash compatibility, which we have lost due to the larger cars. It’s not that small cars are unsafe, it’s that when you have an F150 smash into the front of it when it’s 3x the mass and has the frontend the same shape as a brick wall, they’re no longer crash-compatible. By making cars larger the manufacturers have quite literally artificially made smaller cars less safe.

    And the aging population experiences increased suffering stooping to get into compacts or mid size sedans. And the aging population is driving farther into their age.

    The solution isn’t that older folks should be more comfortable driving. The solution is that we should have cities/towns that don’t force our elderly to drive. We should be pushing for transit and walkability so the elderly can move around without needing to get behind a wheel in the first place.

    And the infinitely rising housing market is pushing everyone to live out in the sticks where you need a car that rides higher to accommodate rutted out dirt roads.

    Agree, which is why we should stop buying places that require a car. Do the math on if you live in the sticks how much it would cost to commute into the city. Those high rents can be negated, especially with today’s gas prices. I also think we as Americans demand way way way too much living space, we do not need a McMansion, but that’s another conversation.

    And the poorer you are the older your car tends to be so the more biased you will tend to be towards what’s still rolling 20 years after manufacturing (surprise, it’s big vehicles with big engines or Hondas and Toyotas).

    This is completely unfounded, prove to me that bigger car = longer lifespan. I still see sedans from the 70s and 80s on the road.

    And even if all that didn’t matter, people might abstractly care about gas prices or getting an electric but they can’t afford to buy a car that’s good on gas because of their limited funds on hand or creditworthiness

    That’s my point, that if you take into account the cost of gas even a slightly more expensive EV or Hybrid is going to save you much more down the road.

    anyone who thinks they might want to move a couch will pick the truck.

    This is my #1 annoyance with truck owners. “What if you gotta move something”? Ha gotcha you idiot, I can move stuff! You know what I do? I rent a truck. It’s 20 bucks at uhaul or home depot. Seriously, twenty dollars. I go, I move the couch, I drop the truck off, I return the truck. I’ve done the math, if you think spending 50, 60, 100 grand on a truck is worth it because you have to move a couch, you need to sit down and do the math. It is not. I’ve done the math, for you owning a truck to be worth it compared to renting you need to use it for hauling/towing/moving minimum twice a week. If that’s what you’re doing, then congrats you need a truck. If you aren’t literally moving something every week or more, then it was a waste of money. “We need to haul or kids stuff”. False. You need a van. “We are outdoorsy” Great, you need a van or a hatchback.

    Fun fact time, auto manufacturers have a higher emission standard for smaller vehicles. This is the cafe standard, and it requires being under a certain emission amount. They lobbied successfully for the “light truck” exception, which was meant originally for Farmer Dan who has his truck who needs to haul hay around daily shouldn’t have to suffer. So Congress passed it, and surprise surprise auto manufacturers suddenly start marketing more trucks, and a brand new concept called the “SUV”, on - you guessed it - a light truck frame. American’s haven’t chosen the trucks, there’s no safety reason, it was 100% marketing from auto manufacturers to convince you that you need a light truck because thanks to that exception, they are cheaper to manufacture. You do not need a truck. Auto marketing has spent billions convincing you that you do.

    • TrollAccount69@lemmy.ml
      1·
      11 hours ago

      Car size arms race doesn’t explain everything. Basically throughout the 80s and 90s every manufacturer deployed a crazy amount of technologies to get good crash ratings. Those technologies take up space. Engineering a crumple zone into an alloy unibody design takes up space. Sticking a million airbags all over everything takes up space.

      Those technologies aren’t bad things. I’m glad my cars have had them. They contribute to the size of the cars.

      The Toyota Camry didn’t go from a compact to a mid size because of the ford f-150. To claim so would be to gloss over how literally every compact car since the beginning of crash testing has been declared a death trap.

      You rebutted some things stated with “should” statements and then talked about McMansions. I talked about how things are in response to the ops question and rooted everything in the experience of aging, poor rural populations. We’re talking about two different things.

      There are more bigger cars on the road as a percentage of sales for any given year. I see a geo metro once a month but I see about a hundred suvs and trucks from the same era during that same time. It might not even be that a large car necessitates a larger, thicker frame and bodywork that can tolerate more rust before it just breaks in half. It might be that a larger car holds value longer and stays in the “worth doing maintenance on” category longer because of that.

      I can go into more detail about the engineering reasons small cars don’t make it if you want. Idk if you want that.

      If people were wealthy enough to buy good quality boots they’d save a lot of money.

      I lived without a car for many years and did just what you describe. Renting pickup trucks to move things. Idk what you’re talking about. It sucks to rent a pickup truck and isn’t reliable or as cheap as you say.