[acjacobson]

In the US there are strong incentives for light trucks / SUVs and that's the result we see - they're the most popular vehicles. In Europe / Japan the incentives are different and we see an entirely different class of vehicles on the road.

The point is that marketing and incentives matter. Trucks are not objectively better, they are subjectively preferred among certain demographics in the US because of marketing. He addresses very clearly that manufacturers make more money selling SUVs due to regulation - so it tracks that those are the vehicles pushed by manufacturers

[twblalock]

Culture matters too. Americans want different things than Europeans and Japanese people. We see this in most areas of life and it's not always because of marketing.

There are also an increasing number of SUVs and automatic transmission vehicles on European roads compared to a decade or two ago...