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by giobox 1433 days ago
What meaningful limits does the US government put on size/weights of cars? A rivian R1T has a gross kerb weight of like 9000lbs, the new electric hummer over 10000. With the move to electric cars, especially large commercial ones, they will generally get a lot heavier as batteries plus motor is typically much, much heavier than combustion engine + gas tank.

A quick google says you can pretty much drive anything on a single axle in the US so long as its 20,000 lbs or less- thats so huge there might as well not be a limit...

1 comments

Most states restrict non-commercial licensed drivers to well less than 20k an axle so I'm guessing you might have mixed up per axle limits and non-commercial license limits. Not to worry though I get your point and non-commercial licenses vs commercial ones were not part of the discussion. Perhaps it is a distraction to even mention them at this point. I only bring them up as they also serve as practical governmental restriction on vehicle size. I don't really see there being a demand for commercial driver's licenses so that one can drive a bus for fun.

I do agree that the maximum for a non-commercial driver is "a lot" in the context of everyone driving a motor coach around town. However, as you point out, there is a limit to weight and I can assure you there is also a limit to size.

We can agree that we feel that the limits are not restrictive enough but they are clearly there and I feel it would be wrong to suggest otherwise.

YMMV as they say.