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.

  • TrollAccount69@lemmy.ml
    1·
    6 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.