I think it would be fine to Tax vehicles over a certain Size, my truck is a small truck so don’t lump my truck into the giants on the road. Or better yet force car manufacturers to provide smaller vehicles, its hard to find a small truck in today’s market unless you go used back to 2002
But the reality is the opposite! Part of the reason for the death of the small truck in America is the batshit ratio of vehicle size to acceptable fuel consumption. The current “footprint” CAFE model defines the footprint of the vehicle by multiplying the vehicle’s track by wheelbase, and the MPG target is drawn like a curve on a graph such that vehicles with a larger footprint are allowed a lower fuel economy score and vise versa. So the manufacturers, who really don’t feel like designing new more efficient engines every few years to meet the requirements, can just cheat by making their vehicles bigger to qualify for a lower MPG target.
If that scheme sounds completely asinine to you, that’s because it is. It is effectively not possible to sell a small pickup truck in America anymore unless it delivers the same gas mileage as an economy sedan – which is not going to happen. For the 2020 model year, a truck the size of an oldschool Chevy S10 would have to deliver ~39 MPG. My Crosstrek can’t even do that.
So we get giant trucks for no reason other than to be giant instead.
I think it would be fine to Tax vehicles over a certain Size, my truck is a small truck so don’t lump my truck into the giants on the road. Or better yet force car manufacturers to provide smaller vehicles, its hard to find a small truck in today’s market unless you go used back to 2002
But the reality is the opposite! Part of the reason for the death of the small truck in America is the batshit ratio of vehicle size to acceptable fuel consumption. The current “footprint” CAFE model defines the footprint of the vehicle by multiplying the vehicle’s track by wheelbase, and the MPG target is drawn like a curve on a graph such that vehicles with a larger footprint are allowed a lower fuel economy score and vise versa. So the manufacturers, who really don’t feel like designing new more efficient engines every few years to meet the requirements, can just cheat by making their vehicles bigger to qualify for a lower MPG target.
If that scheme sounds completely asinine to you, that’s because it is. It is effectively not possible to sell a small pickup truck in America anymore unless it delivers the same gas mileage as an economy sedan – which is not going to happen. For the 2020 model year, a truck the size of an oldschool Chevy S10 would have to deliver ~39 MPG. My Crosstrek can’t even do that.
So we get giant trucks for no reason other than to be giant instead.
That is Insane and extremely depressing, I love my small truck and will keep it going as long as possible.