The fact that you phrased this so specifically to not mention the corresponding increased danger to other road users and pedestrians, suggests you’re a shill pushing industry talking points.
The graphs are terrible but come on, a 10% increase in weight in 10 years, doesn’t sound bad to you? Especially when the base value was anything but low to begin with? And an increased space consumption of 6% is a huge additional space consumption in absolute numbers, given the huge numbers of cars.
The weight gain could theoretically be explained by the simple fact that electric vehicles are heavier than their combustion counterpart.
Though I’m well aware these are american cars so probably just means more bigger pickup trucks that will never ever be used to actually pick things up.
Hardly, the EV adoption rate in the US is pretty poor and even if we ignore that, the share of EVs among existing vehicles on the road is way to small to be the dominating factor for the increase in weight. That said, yes, EVs will lead to an increase in weight, a necessary evil. However, that can be compensated by downscaling vehicles to actual needs. People are currently buying cars far larger than what they actually need for partly irrational and partly egoistic reasons (increasing threats to life and well being towards others in the hope to slightly decrease it towards oneself).
Yea this looks misleading as fuck. Weight graph starts at 3000lbs too. Also no mention of the cars polluting the nearby environment a lot less despite getting heavier. And why measure acceleration instead of measuring brake distance, or pedestrian survivability, or crashes per million miles etc.
“A lot less” is something I’d like to have a source for, especially as the switch to SUVs and trucks is done to a large part to evade the much stricter emission norms for officially classified “cars”. Emissions could be a lot lower if the SUV loophole for many of the car norms had not been invented.
i think this is about toxic gases emissions vs CO2 emissions. while CO2 emissions have probably gone up somewhat (my guesstimate is +30% since 1970), the toxic gas emissions have almost completely gone to zero. there was a whole lot more toxic gases around in the 20th century industry and machinery, you had to cough constantly, we just don’t remember it because it’s comparatively clean now.
Toxic emissions have absolutely not gone down to zero. High respiration activities next to a highway still get you a solid dose of toxic stuff. Yes, it would be much worse with 1970s vehicles but it would be much better if the majority of vehicles sold today would not be able to use the regulatory SUV/truck loophole to be able to pollute more. This loophole is not just about CO2.
I witnessed myself what a huge impact on air quality it had on a street to see heavy two lane traffic gone and that had nothing to do with CO2 and it was even without that loophole you have in the US.
Then goes ahead and shows a change from 48.9 to 51.8
Whoever made those charts wanted to make the change look bad, no matter what.
Where is the chart of the average heavy injuries per passenger? Or the average energy efficiency of engines?
The fact that you phrased this so specifically to not mention the corresponding increased danger to other road users and pedestrians, suggests you’re a shill pushing industry talking points.
Maybe I am just Mr. Ford
The graphs are terrible but come on, a 10% increase in weight in 10 years, doesn’t sound bad to you? Especially when the base value was anything but low to begin with? And an increased space consumption of 6% is a huge additional space consumption in absolute numbers, given the huge numbers of cars.
The weight gain could theoretically be explained by the simple fact that electric vehicles are heavier than their combustion counterpart.
Though I’m well aware these are american cars so probably just means more bigger pickup trucks that will never ever be used to actually pick things up.
Yeah, electric versions of American monstrosities are part of the same problem and completely offsets any EV benefit. They just shouldn’t exist.
Or plug in hybrids. Even a 20kwh battery is quite hefty.
Hardly, the EV adoption rate in the US is pretty poor and even if we ignore that, the share of EVs among existing vehicles on the road is way to small to be the dominating factor for the increase in weight. That said, yes, EVs will lead to an increase in weight, a necessary evil. However, that can be compensated by downscaling vehicles to actual needs. People are currently buying cars far larger than what they actually need for partly irrational and partly egoistic reasons (increasing threats to life and well being towards others in the hope to slightly decrease it towards oneself).
Yea this looks misleading as fuck. Weight graph starts at 3000lbs too. Also no mention of the cars polluting the nearby environment a lot less despite getting heavier. And why measure acceleration instead of measuring brake distance, or pedestrian survivability, or crashes per million miles etc.
yeah axes should start at zero.
“A lot less” is something I’d like to have a source for, especially as the switch to SUVs and trucks is done to a large part to evade the much stricter emission norms for officially classified “cars”. Emissions could be a lot lower if the SUV loophole for many of the car norms had not been invented.
i think this is about toxic gases emissions vs CO2 emissions. while CO2 emissions have probably gone up somewhat (my guesstimate is +30% since 1970), the toxic gas emissions have almost completely gone to zero. there was a whole lot more toxic gases around in the 20th century industry and machinery, you had to cough constantly, we just don’t remember it because it’s comparatively clean now.
Toxic emissions have absolutely not gone down to zero. High respiration activities next to a highway still get you a solid dose of toxic stuff. Yes, it would be much worse with 1970s vehicles but it would be much better if the majority of vehicles sold today would not be able to use the regulatory SUV/truck loophole to be able to pollute more. This loophole is not just about CO2.
I witnessed myself what a huge impact on air quality it had on a street to see heavy two lane traffic gone and that had nothing to do with CO2 and it was even without that loophole you have in the US.