It's crazy to see how much trucks have blown up in the last few years. They clog up parking lots, barely fit in parking garages (let alone personal garages), blind me at night with their too-high too-bright headlights, and completely block cross-street vision for anything except other trucks when they park on the street.
A complete failure of US govt regulation. At this point I hope gas prices go through the roof and punish these truck owners for their selfish decisionmaking.
This guy makes some good points, but jeez he is so condescending and pretentious. It's really easy for a guy who makes YouTube videos and lives in a crowded European city to pass judgement on people who live lives completely different than his.
I am literally going to take my F150 and haul some lumber after work today, and the economic opportunities that having that ability affords me are so valuable to me as someone trying to build a home for myself and my family.
It just smacks of condescension to me when this guy writing this script sitting in a European cafe pretends that he understands all the possible uses that normal hard-working people use these cars for.
I'm not even disagreeing with him on a lot of his points, there are plenty of people who don't truly need one of these big cars, but there are also TONS of people who have uses for them.
> This guy makes some good points, but jeez he is so condescending and pretentious. It's really easy for a guy who makes YouTube videos and lives in a crowded European city to pass judgement on people who live lives completely different than his.
He has lived in those "completely different" places. He grew up in one of those areas: he moved to a crowded European city. He grew up in London, Ontario ("fake London")—which has typical post-WW2 car-centric layouts which he features regularly in his vides—, lived in Toronto, lived all over the world. He used to consult all over the world and has visited many cities around the world: see his video "Why City Design is Important (and Why I Hate Houston)" for some of the backstory:
After seeing all the different options, and initially trying to settle in Toronto—see his video "Suburbs that don't Suck - Streetcar Suburbs (Riverdale, Toronto)":
he and his wife decided to move to Amsterdam to raise their kids.
It wasn't random chance that he ended in Europe, but a conscious choice. He looked at the options and chose the one that he though was best.
And he has been asked about the 'tone' of this videos: his answer was/is: he doesn't care about how he comes off because (in his opinion) trying to be "nice" to the dumbasses that try to justify the stupidity of car-centric society that is destroying our planet is pointless. Either you have a brain and can see how bad this way of thinking/designing is, or you don't have a brain. He's tired of pussy footing around the (in his view) stupidity: there is no reason to bankrupt cities/society and destroy the planet for this lifestyle when you can (and people do) have high quality of life without car-centric living (in his view).
> Either you have a brain and can see how bad this way of thinking/designing is, or you don't have a brain.
Your description has further solidified OP's claim that this person is condescending and pretentious. This kind of thinking is extremely narrow and doesn't take any other factors into account (like having the means and lack of family responsibility to move wherever you want). It also implies that believing a dumb idea means you are a dumb person, which also isn't necessarily true and lacks any real insight.
> Your description has further solidified OP's claim that this person is condescending and pretentious.
It's not the GP's claim that "this person", Jason Slaughter, "is condescending and pretentious." Jason Slaughter has (IIRC) himself said that he makes videos with the tone of condescension on purpose.
Slaughter is tired of (in his view) the bullshit of trying to justify lifestyles and urban design choices that are killing people, bankrupting communities, and damaging the the planet. The specific tone is on purpose and a conscious choice in the scripting and creation of his videos. He wants change, and he seems to be (AFAICT) tired of 'being nice' and reasonable while policy barely moves forward.
(Whether the narration in the videos is a bit of 'character' he plays on Youtube to get his view/frustration across, or his actual personality, is something I do not know. I'll have to find the interview where he talks about this 'style'.)
In general most people making a certain point will not disagree that there are exceptions to it. Just assuming that they are not aware of those exceptions is dishonest or at the very least not very perceptive.
Also, quote directly from the video (14:25): “And if you do live in a rural area you might need to drive a light truck and obviously that’s fine and I don’t care. But we are talking about suburbia here …”
I've got uses for my own pickup, which is a 2000 Ford Ranger.
Really about all I need is a 1980s sized Toyota Pickup/Hilux with a long bed would be great, updated for modern standards.
The idiotic way that trucks are turning into massive 4-door tanks with tiny 4.5 foot beds is not what I want as a consumer who wants to own a truck.
The market seems to very much be driven by people who aren't hauling lumber based on the bedsize. There's more and more pics showing up on social media now of idiots with 2x4s sticking out of the passenger compartments of new trucks because the bed size is so shit small.
I'm a big fan of all the derision that he pours on the trucks that are being sold right now.
Well, yeah, US government regulation (the chicken tax) ruined consumers' ability to get a nice small truck. Truly a case of failed regulation since we could have had a better result without it.
Got a link to 2023 +/-1 Toyota truck for sale in the US that has only one row of seats? I couldn't find it on their website, but maybe it's hidden away somewhere?
Chevy's small truck doesn't come with a regular cab either. I expect you can probably get a chevy commercial truck with a single cab, but those are big trucks.
EDIT: I looked on a bigger screen, and Chevy does sell the Silverado with a regular cab; but that's a full size pickup. You used to be able to get an actual small truck in America. And you can still get one in Australia.
At this stage, they’re so intertwined with every day life that additional regulation—or removal of subsidies—will cause widespread impacts across many commercial industries, let alone unnecessary personal transport.
The only ‘saviour’ from the environmental perspective is the introduction of electric platforms like Rivian. The thought of the battery market being further constrained by mall creepers terrifies me.
Electric cars are here to save the auto industry, not the environment or society. Powering a 2000-kg vehicle to move a 100-kg human is beyond wasteful.
More mass means more kinetic energy when moving. In the vast majority of cars, all the kinetic energy is wasted as heat when braking. More mass means more rolling friction on the tires. More energy wasted means more gasoline burned, more resources used, more pollution generated.
Here's another way to frame it: If weight is not waste, would you volunteer to manually pedal a 2000-kg quadricycle to drive yourself to work? Do you not appreciate the vast increase in energy to move a heavier vehicle?
Finally, look at the GMC Hummer EV versus their e-bike: https://www.gmc.com/electric/hummer-ev/insider/awd-ebike . The car weighs 4100 kg and has a 213 kWh battery. The bike weighs 43 kg and has a 48 V × 17.5 Ah = 0.84 kWh battery. In this case, one car battery has as much capacity as 250 bike batteries. Every electric car manufactured takes away natural resources that could transport many more people on lighter vehicles.
Obviously heavier things require more energy to move. But why is that a bad thing when we have the energy and are capable of using it without emissions? Again, who is harmed?
And repairing/maintaining those things more often does require natural resources and creates emissions (and waste). It also takes money, which could be used towards other things like education, healthcare, or simply lower taxes if we didn't have to fix things as much.
Doing that would also price out all EVs, because they are all heavy because of batteries.
2023 Tesla Model 3 weight: 3,648 to 4,250 lbs depending on trim level.
2023 Ford F150 weight: 4,021 to 5,740 lbs depending on trim level.
Most of the Model 3s sold are the dual-motor variety, because of performance and range, and most of those weigh more than the 2wd F150s.
We should build our roads to handle that and stop shaming weight. The future is going to involve heavier cars for both emission and safety reasons. Fixating on weight is a bad idea.
>Doing that would also price out all EVs, because they are all heavy because of batteries.
They are slightly more heavy, but I'm not convinced it's all because of batteries. Fwiw, there are plenty of EVs that are much, much lighter - you just forgot to include them: e-bikes (regular and cargo), e-scooters and electronic microcars. In any case, we could just have a different "starting point" when considering electric cars, making this a non-issue.
>We should build our roads to handle that and stop shaming weight. The future is going to involve heavier cars for both emission and safety reasons. Fixating on weight is a bad idea.
I doubt that this is an engineering problem that can actually be solved in an economically feasible manner. If you have any evidence of being able to do so, go ahead.
Barring that, there are plenty of other reasons besides road wear to fixate on and shame weight for vehicles - energy consumption and collision lethality being two important ones that come to mind.
Because if you want people to buy EVs, higher taxes are a disincentive.
If you put people in a position where an F150 costs as much to own as a Model 3, they will almost always choose the F150. Is that really what you want?
You can have regulations either completely banning fossil-powered vehicles, or keep raising carbon pricing to encourage the move to EVs. But if those EVs cause road damage, people should pay for that damage.
All that is being done in both cases is forcing people to pay the true cost of these things (pollution, road damage), and bringing to light what have been externalities until this point. Let The Market™ decide.
If people want to reduce pollution, and not have to pay for the damage their vehicles cause, then perhaps they should use lighter vehicles like (e-)bikes or (e-)scooters / -motorcycles. Or transit.
And it doesn't have to be a legal ban: just bring in the cost of externalities. You can drive an Old School Hummer all you want: just be willing to pay for the pollution you are causing.
You can drive the New School EV Hummer all you want: just be willing to pay for the road damage you are causing.
I think everyone knows the deadlines that are set for phasing out fossil fuel vehicles are not going to actually be enforced. They are nothing but virtue signalling from politicians.
If those things are actually enforced, you can expect a blowback that will make the election of Trump look like a minor detail compared to the insane populists that an angry population will put in power.
Manufacturers are planning to phase out fuel-powered cars (perhaps completely, but at least in some countries/regions), so governments may not have to do much enforcement themselves:
Heavier cars are safer than lighter cars but it's an arms race. People keep buying bigger cars until their wallets are drained, the planet is paved, and pedestrians are all murdered.
> Heavier cars are safer than lighter cars but it's an arms race
Only when hitting "light" "objects" like people and smaller cars, against trees, building, reinforced poles all that mass behind you will crush the driver.
> The future is going to involve heavier cars for both emission and safety reasons. Fixating on weight is a bad idea.
This part implies that future safer cars will have to be heavier to be safer better.
I do not particularly want an EV future, I do want a future with less ICE cars on the streets, I would prefer less car dependence and stronger public transit.
EV ameliorate a lot of problems of ICE, but are not a panacea. In particular I would consider myself lucky if I would never have to see an electric SUV.
And if we wanted more fair taxes to pay for "roads", we should add an average vehicle weight (empty weight + fully loaded weight / 2 ) times miles driven. And it should probably be "regressive". The rate goes higher as the average weight does since heavier vehicles do more damage to roads (it's not linear). This would also require going in occasionally to have odometers read.
> But let's be honest, you didn't actually care about that. You just hate large vehicles and you believe you should be able to control the decisions other people make. That is a bad impulse and the government should not enable it.
There's no reason to be like this. The parent is just pointing out an external cost of driving larger vehicles and suggesting a mechanism to pass on some of the cost to the owner. They did not suggest that a Camry should somehow be exempt from this same requirement.
For what it's worth I drive a large vehicle. In my country I do pay a larger registration tax for the priviledge to drive it, and I was also required to prove that I had a place to park it when I bought it (street parking isn't really a thing here). This doesn't bother me in the least, because I recognize that there are real social costs associated with driving a larger vehicle, and I am happy to pay my fair share.
It's crazy to see how much trucks have blown up in the last few years. They clog up parking lots, barely fit in parking garages (let alone personal garages), blind me at night with their too-high too-bright headlights, and completely block cross-street vision for anything except other trucks when they park on the street.
A complete failure of US govt regulation. At this point I hope gas prices go through the roof and punish these truck owners for their selfish decisionmaking.