[EligibleDecoy]

Because of a quirk of emissions controls in the US. Longer wheelbases and heavier vehicles can get by with poorer emissions. It was done, at the time, to help semi trailers and other huge trucks meet less restrictive requirements without specifically calling them out but now has led to each manufacturer making vehicles as large as possible so meeting emissions restrictions is more economical.

[Amezarak]

This gets brought up on HN every time the subject comes up but it doesn't make sense. It is true that, sensibly, emissions regulations are more relaxed as vehicles get larger. But smaller vehicles are still cheaper to make and sell for lower MSRPs than the same manufacturer's larger cars, and larger cars almost always hugely outsell them. Sadly, this has meant that a lot of small cars, like the Honda Fit, have been discontinued in the US.

HN users are not representative. Kei car enthusiasts are not representative. Americans love F-150s, Tacomas, Highlanders, 4runners, RAV4s, CRVs, etc. They by-and-large buy the largest car/truck they can afford. You look up the sales numbers for this stuff and there's just no contest; e.g., CRVs outsold Fits by almost a factor of 10. The marginal gain of "parking is slightly easier in streets or unlined lots" is something most people don't care enough about to buy a smaller vehicle. They prefer the other conveniences of large cars.

Is it true that manufacturers like selling larger cars because they have higher margins? Sure; they also like to sell you on the higher trim levels of small cars for the same reason. But Americans are happily making that easy for them.

[loloquwowndueo]

Manufacturers are also not making it easy for people to choose smaller cars.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/suv-small-car-affordable-1.7239768

[sickofparadox]

Because the fuel standards for those smaller vehicles are not realistic to hit. If you go to page 24 on this pdf [1] you'll see that for a car with ~41 square foot wheelbase they need to get 55 combined miles per gallon. This essentially disqualifies anything that is not a hybrid from even going into production at that size. I'll give you its true that Americans love big cars, but even my Ram TRX driving coworkers are complaining that trucks are too big and that they'd love for a early 00's or late 90's F-150 style truck again.

[1] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-05-02/pdf/2022-0...

[rjzzleep]

> HN users are not representative. Kei car enthusiasts are not representative. Americans love F-150s, Tacomas, Highlanders, 4runners, RAV4s, CRVs, etc. They by-and-large buy the largest car/truck they can afford. You look up the sales numbers for this stuff and there's just no contest; e.g., CRVs outsold Fits by almost a factor of 10.

This is true, but even outside the US in a lot of Asian places with no apparent space for big cars everything is getting bigger, why is that?

[amanaplanacanal]

There is the perception that larger vehicles are safer, at least for the people inside. They aren’t, but that is the perception. And fuck the people outside I guess.

[consteval]

Americans love them because of advertising. It's societal wide manipulation.

For those who doubt the power of marketing, look no further than this case.

American regularly buy worse cars, that don't last as long, and burn more fuel, and require more maintenance, with virtually no upside - purely because that's what's advertised and what makes people feel cool. And they know this is the case. They understand the purchase they are making is an objectively worse one, and they (pretty often) have to create complex orchestrations of lies they tell themselves to obfuscate that.

I mean, the sheer amount of single passenger drivers buying trucks for 70,000, never towing anything, and then complaining about fuel economy is insane. I know many people like this. Little do they know they could pay half the price for a Prius, get a better experience, and get 3x as many miles to the gallon. But they do know this, kind of, but the manipulation exists on a subconscious, unreachable level.