Hmm, these huge trucks are killing pedestrians, causing worse crashes due to crash incompatibility, destroying the climate, and now smashing through guard rails and flying off cliffs. We’d better change our entire country’s infrastructure to accommodate them.
It’s the good Christian thing to do
Lol you apparently didn’t read the article… it’s calling out EVs because they’re usually heavier than the ICE counterparts. Small sedans are pushing 5k pounds now being EVs. Batteries are very very heavy.
It’s worth highlighting that this study isn’t really about the merits of EVs. After all, you can buy an EV that weighs less than 5,000 pounds. You just can’t electrify your favorite already-large car—or even buy a hulking gas-powered car—and expect guardrails to work as intended. “Weight is a universal problem; it is not unique to electric vehicles,” Stolle said. “We have similar concerns about the compatibility of the biggest gas-powered cars with our guardrail system.” The 6,700-pound Chevrolet Silverado 1500 already weighs too much, based on the result from this research, and the 8,500-pound Silverado EV weighs even more.
Yes but you called out trucks like they’re the only issue. An electric leaf is almost 5k pounds…a leaf…
A leaf is 3500-3900 lbs, not almost 5k lbs
Curb weight on them is 4,900, yes it’s not 5k that’s why I said nearly 5k…and the point I am making is that a tiny car like that weighing that much shows that batteries are not light.
You added an extra 1000 lbs to the heaviest version, then rounded up. The whole entire point of standard weights is so numbskulls don’t just make up numbers for how much things weigh, like you are. The leaf is 350-3900 lbs, not 4900 lbs, not 5000 lbs. Please go back to elementary school.
https://www.autoblog.com/buy/2022-Nissan-LEAF-S__4dr_Hatchback/specs/
Should have clarified that I meant gross weight.
It doesn’t help that the first EVs most manufacturers are focusing on are their large SUVs and trucks. The Chevy Bolt and Tesla Model 3 both certainly aren’t small cars in a general sense, but in the land of EVs they are. Both weigh under 4000 pounds which is less than the best selling vehicle in North America, the F150.
Totally agree, but to act like it’s only trucks pushing this weight is silly. The electric leaf is nearly 5k lbs and it’s a very small EV.
The 2024 leaf is 3509lbs according to the Nissan USA website.
3500-3900 depends on what you get for options. Add in people and their shit and you’re pushing 5k (curb weight is 4,900bs)
You keep misusing the term curb weight.
From teh googs: Curb weight is the weight of the vehicle including a full tank of fuel and all standard equipment. It does not include the weight of any passengers, cargo, or optional equipment.
If that’s the fact then it absolutely is 4k+
Tax the heavy cars much more, they cause more dammage in crashes and way more wear and tear in general.
Fuck that. The problem isnt that people want bigger cars. The problem is that NHTSA’s CAFE standards favor manufacture of larger cars.
CAFE slowly reduces the amount of emissions that vehicles can have, but they fucked it up: the required reductions are greatest on the smallest, most efficient cars, and lowest on the largest vehicles. Manufacturers “comply” with these standards by dropping their smallest cars from their lineup, and increasing the sizes of everything left on the market.
Fix the fucking standards to favor smaller cars, and manufacturers will follow.
I don’t see how that’s a better solution than taxing heavier cars…? We can tax the sales of the vehicle directly which negatively impacts manufacturers because in the USA each vehicle dealership is brand associated rather than retailers.
For a tax to be effective for such a purpose, it has to be avoidable. They have to actually make a small car. But the CAFE standards as they currently stand prevent them from cheaply producing a CAFE compliant small car. So nobody gets the tax break on the small car, because there are no small cars to be had.
The tax approach cannot be achieved until the CAFE standards are fixed, but once we fix the CAFE standards to favor smaller cars, the problem solves itself.
CAFE works by requiring a certain percentage of the total number of a manufacturer’s vehicles to comply. Small cars are currently non-compliant. Only big cars are compliant, so they need to sell more of them. When we correct CAFE standards to favor small cars, they will need to sell small cars, and their marketing departments will get to work at adjusting consumer demand.
If it’s cheaper to produce a small car because of the tax, then the tax is effective. Making the bigger cars more expensive incentivizes the smaller cars.
Taxes, fines, and regulatory fees in economic theory are supposed to represent the costs incurred by the general public (in this case the environment as well as infrastructure maintenance) being paid by the parties responsible. This often is not the case in practicality, such as the costs to reverse methane emissions not being covered by the fines associated with flare stacks.
If the companies can’t produce cars cheap enough then they’ll have to raise the price. If less people can afford cars, that’s fine, then more investment will have to be made into public transport, bike lanes, and walkable communities. I do not see any downsides to a tax on larger vehicles.
If it’s cheaper to produce a small car because of the tax, then the tax is effective.
It is not cheaper to produce the small car. You’re not quite understanding this.
The small car does not comply with the perverse CAFE standards. The big cars do comply. If they sell too many of the efficient, but non-compliant small cars, they get penalized. That penalty greatly increases the cost of producing the small, non-compliant car.
Without CAFE standards, your argument is reasonable and valid. With the asinine standards currently in place, your argument is completely irrelevant.
It is not cheaper to produce the small car. You’re not quite understanding this.
The small car does not comply with the perverse CAFE standards. The big cars do comply. If they sell too many of the efficient, but non-compliant small cars, they get penalized. That penalty greatly increases the cost of producing the small, non-compliant car.
Do not sit there and tell me that it’s impossible for a small car to comply with standards. That’s ridiculous. Charge them extra for selling a big car so that making a big car is more expensive than creating a small car. You can’t just say that this is impossible and deny the obvious solution, this is the clear solution.
Do not sit there and tell me that it’s impossible for a small car to comply with standards.
Clearly, you do not understand the problem with how CAFE standards are currently implemented, because that is, indeed, the case. The mandated reductions on small cars are too much, and the mandated reductions on large cars are not enough. Manufacturers did the math, and the most feasible solution was to increase the size of cars. Cars are proportionally wider now than they used to be, to maximize their footprint and bump them up into larger classes.
Manufacturers will do anything they need to to avoid violating CAFE standards. With current regulations, that means “sell fewer small cars”. If we try to solve the problem with taxes on large cars, manufacturers will simply increase the MSRP of small cars. Add a $5000 tax on large cars, and they will add $5000 to the sticker price on small cars, or otherwise ensuring the large car remains the better value.
Correct the regulations so that smaller, intrinsically efficient cars are feasible, while forcing manufacturers to go to extraordinary efforts to continue manufacturing large cars, and the problem solves itself.
EVs are extremely heavy too.
Yes, as mentioned in the article they can be 30% heavier for the same vehicle
Electric cars often weigh around 30 percent more than a gas-powered counterpart, because big vehicles require enormous batteries to propel them hundreds of miles between charges.
Yes but the sedans still come in under the guard rail safety limit.
Sure, so will bikes… The concern is that the infrastructure is unsafe for a good portion of current and future vehicles on the road. Say what you will about people buying vehicles that are too big for their needs, they still deserve safety never mind all of the people with legitimate needs for those vehicles.
They sure do deserve safety, So we should make sure the vehicles they can buy are safe. Upgrading the entire country’s safety infrastructure for the ego of pickup and full size SUV drivers is not acceptable.
And those who have legitimate needs for those vehicles deserve to die?
Not very many people have a legitimate need. And if you want to upgrade safety to the point it would stop a Semi/Box truck then you’re spending way too much money. That’s why those vehicles require a special license to operate. It would be more feasible to put in massive amounts of light rail freight if you’re that worried about safety. Also, work vans are a thing in 90% of the world.
Ok now you have to be trolling… Work vans are like 9000lbs
I’m in Texas and will have to pay a $300 registration tax on my ev for it being “heavy and destructive and not paying fuel tax”. My ev is a 2018 Fiat 500e and weighs 2900lbs. I’m tired of this argument especially when plenty of trucks weigh anywhere from 4500lbs (for the smallest examples) to quite literally 80k. Raise the fuel tax and you’ll solve heavy vehicles virtually overnight.
Before anyone gets on my case I’m fully aware that not all evs are as light as mine, but plenty are lighter than an f150.
It’s an interesting problem. We want people to ideally just drive less, and use EVs when they do, but EVs are heavier for the same vehicle and don’t buy fuel that’s usually taxed to help cover vehicle infrastructure costs. So they can cause extra wear and don’t pay for it. I’m not sure how to solve that future problem other than tolls maybe?
Same way we can fund everything else: tax the rich, cut mitary spending.
Yes, but they wouldn’t have to be, if not for people wanting a giant SUV with 400 miles of range. The weight goes up nonlinearly, because people aren’t willing to compromise on lifestyle for the benefit of those around them. And then they expect us not just to tolerate their lifestyle, but actually subsidize it.
Without them necessarily being SUVs, in North America, distances between cities or municipalities are pretty big. Such a trip would be 2 hours in Europe, but in North America it can easily go up to 5 hours or more.
Either we find a way to charge a car in 2 minutes, or find an alternative, otherwise we need big batteries and they will inevitably increase the weight of the car.
I regularly drive 6 hours to see family. I wish there were reliable chargers partway. I don’t think they’d have to be 2 minutes. 40-50 minutes and near restaurants would be fine for me. Most importantly, they have to have similar uptime to a gas station. Eg, the current out-of-order rate for Chargepoint, Blink and other non-Tesla charging networks is far too low in my experience to rely on for long distance drives. Too high a risk of being stranded.
But he noted that in the real world, a guardrail is much more likely to be placed next to a steep [drop-off] than a concrete barrier.
Thankfully it was a test, but there’s probably already instances where an over-weight vehicle has smashed through safety devices.
I’m willing to bet the super tall pickups and SUVs are more likely to hop over those steel guardrails, too. Related: Those sloped concrete dividers that have a slightly shallower slope at their wider bottom? Those are super effective, because that bottom slope deflects the vehicle’s front wheel, causing it to turn slightly away from the barrier instead of continuing to smash through it.
It’s called a Jersey barrier.
They have other issues though. They cost more to produce, cost more to install and cost more to maintain. They also accumulate snow, which would otherwise blow through an open W guard rail.
A third option are wire guards. They’re cheaper on all accounts, don’t get tagged with graffiti and statistically save more lifes. They work best on long straight stretches, but because of the flexibility, they are not ideal for inner city streets where it’s best to avoid any lane breaches at all.
Wire guards are wildly unsafe for motorcyclists though.
Everything is wildly unsafe for motorcycles though.
That’s a myth. It may look like a “cheese grater” but statistics show that they have saved more motorcycle lifes than any other barriers, and there are no records of anyone actually getting grated.
I hate to be the “sources” guy, but the last time I looked at what few studies there where on the topic they weren’t positive. Could you direct me to where you found that info?
Maybe car sales taxes should scale by vehicle weight.
If you consume more of the road, you pay more
Should the same approach be taken for the obese?
The current version of MGS was developed to withstand cars weighing a maximum of 5,000 pounds
Seems like yet another case of a flawed study or a flawed article based on a misunderstanding of the study.
Statements like the quote above make no sense as “withstanding a 5,000lb vehicle” makes no sense. A 5k lb vehicle traveling at 70MPH is carrying several orders of magnitude more energy than a 5k lb vehicle traveling at 5MPH. Likewise a direct, perpendicular hit will impart more energy than a glancing parallel blow, so what are they really rated for?
In any case, these guardrails are used in places where 100k lb semis are traveling at highway speeds, and there have never been any other doom and gloom articles written about that. I don’t think we need to completely rebuild our highway system simply because heavier cars exist.
Maybe heavier cars and vehicles should have a lower speed limit then.
Maybe we should make car accidents a felony crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
For the trucks and land boats that weight more. Lol, that’s is all.
The article literally says that the problem will just get worse as we move to electric cars since they’re heavier.
I dislike people having useless pickup trucks as much as the next guy, but I don’t think they deserve to die either. Or how about semi drivers? You know, a crucial part of our delivery infrastructure?
Maybe take the time to read next time and think with the smart part of your brain.
Yes, have you looked at the weights of actual electric cars and not electric SUV and trucks? The average weight of a electric car is between 3-6k in weight. Secondly, where was the outrage when people were complaining about semis and safety? NHTSA has been at the mercy of the semi industry regarding safety updates. How long have people been fighting regarding undercarriage protectors to protect car drivers from losing their lives to the semi industry? Where has the outage been about the weight protection of those guardrails for semis? I didn’t know semis are so new to this country.
Again, SUVs and trucks drivers that just drive those for status… Boofuckinhoo.
Here a link for your average weight for electric cars.
Even a Tesla weighs less than the max weight allowed for the rails. But I guess my brain is useless.
Edit: a whole documentary for you about the undercarriage guards link.
-
If the average of an electric car is 3-6k that means that is it sometimes above the 5,000 limit, am I wrong?
-
You just did a whataboutism with this undercarriage thing which is irrelevant
-
Yes, let’s send the pickup truck drivers to their death and do a fake sob about it, yeah? You feel good about that?
-
