[raverbashing]

Blaming regulation removes agency from people.

Or maybe yeah, most consumers just mimic other people and cost be darned. Then when gas eventually becomes pricier they complain because they had the foresight of a goldfish.

(And theoretically no efficiency laws need to be passed. Increase taxes on fuel and there you have it)

[ascagnel_]

I disagree -- I'd love if my last car was a station wagon, but there were eight station wagons on the market in the US at the time, made by five manufacturers. And of those eight, four have an MSRP under USD$50,000, and only two have an MSRP under USD$30,000. And the market hasn't substantively changed (Jaguar and Buick have dropped out of the market, but Mini entered the market and Porsche added a second model) since 2020, when I got my car.

I'm calling this out specifically because, in another era, the station wagon would have been the preferred option for a "family vehicle" that needed more space than a sedan. But since it's "easier" for an automaker to get an SUV on the road, the regulatory environment dictated how the market went.

[raverbashing]

I agree, I certainly think manufacturers are to blame as well

[stouset]

Individuals have agency. Populations behave statistically in line with the structural incentives of the systems they operate within.

[_cenw]

If people exercised this level of agency, no economic incentive would ever work.

[Tanoc]

No, not necessarily. Starting in 1996 there was an update to CAFE regulations (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) that set tighter restrictions to start 2005 which only got tighter year over year from there. Conveniently thanks to the Jeep Cherokee XJ, the Chevrolet/GMC S-10 Blazer/S-15 Jimmy, and the Ford Explorer moving into a more luxury oriented direction, SUVs became the fastest growing segment starting in 1994. So how did the companies targeting the U.S. market react? They started pumping out SUVs, and later, crossovers, also called CUVs.

The CUVs started as cheaper ways to make SUVs using sedan platforms and showed up with the Toyota RAV4 and the Honda CR-V first. The third major crossover, and the first made to exercise a loophole in CAFE was the Chrysler PT Cruiser, which was a mid-size hatchback built on the second generation Dodge Neon's platform that was classified as a compact due to them purposely engineering the interior to be smaller, since vehicle sizes are partially determined based on interior dimensions in the U.S. for some odd reason. Chrysler then got it shadily certified as a "light truck" with the EPA for emissions thanks to how the unibody was designed and the rear hatch. At the same time other companies also started exploiting this loophole, such as Ford with the Escape, which was based on the then brand new Focus.

As the 2000s wore on the loophole was closed slightly, but still left open with the so-called "footprint" rule. The footprint rule dictated that light trucks with longer and wider wheelbases were subject to lessened emissions and CAFE regulations, meaning they could pollute more and get worse fuel economy with fewer or even no penalties. As a result smaller more efficient sedans and hatchbacks became less and less profitable and thus manufactured less because they were subject to stricter and thus more expensive regulations, the exact inverse of what was intended to happen with CAFE. This caused a growth in vehicle wheelbases and thus overall sizes to try and lower costs, and the eventual death of several models and even market segments outright. Three door hatchbacks ceased to be in the U.S. market sometime around 2007, as did nearly all hatchbacks. Minivans also suffered because they couldn't always be reclassified as light trucks due to some shenanigans Chrysler had pulled in the 1980s to try and lock out Ford's Aerostar and Chevrolet's Astro, and so prices went up, creating another reason minivans pushed further upmarket in the late 2000s.

The Cobalt was replaced with the larger Cruze in 2008, the Neon replaced with the larger "light truck" classified Caliber in 2007, and the long-in-the-tooth first generation Focus was given a half-hearted exterior styling change and neglected for the updated Escape and Taurus X/Freestyle come 2007. Suzuki replaced the Aerio with the SX4 in 2007, Nissan tried supplanting both the Versa and Altima with the Rogue in 2006 but failed, Mitsubishi shifted all their focus to the Outlander and Endeavor in 2008, and Honda doubled down on the CR-V with it's third generation in 2006. The 2008 financial crisis shuffled things up a bit and thus Ford finally brought over the Fiesta and the fourth generation Focus from Europe in 2011 while Nissan gave us the new Versa and the brand new Leaf that same year, but GM doubled down on CUVs and Chrysler just gave up and put all their money into Jeep in order to make the new Compass and Patriot they'd introduced in 2007 because it was the only thing they could afford. European brands meanwhile jumped on the same bandwagon of bigger CUVs because they realized they could jack up the prices just by jacking up the ride height, and thus developed the MINI Countryman in 2010, FIAT 500X in 2014, and the Opel Mokka which was brought over as the Buick Encore in 2012.

At this point in 2023 nearly all new vehicles sold in the U.S. are either SUVs, CUVs, or full size pickup trucks. Ford infamously axed everything not in those categories except the Mustang, Chevrolet only has one sedan left in the Malibu, Buick has nothing but CUVs after killing off the Opel-filched Insignia sedan and it's Crosstour X branded station wagon version, and Dodge and Nissan are the only ones left in their respective market segments as non-luxury full size sedans with with Charger and Maxima. Even the mighty Honda Accord and Toyota Camry in the venerable mid-size category are falling, with the Camry selling 408,000 units in 2013 and only 120,000 sold so far this year with a projected sales number of only 250,000 by the end of the year. And that's in a ravenous market desperate for new cars.

In short, yes. Fuel economy regulations in the U.S. are to blame because they backfired when it comes to vehicles. And since the U.S. and China essentially dictate world trends for vehicles, the U.S. has set in motion the death of the small car.

[raverbashing]

> the U.S. has set in motion the death of the small car.

Small cars sell fine everywhere else in the world

[Tanoc]

Not for very much longer outside of insulated markets like Japan and central Italy where big cars physically will not fit the streets. In the UK for example nearly half of all cars on the road now are SUVs or CUVs which are inherently larger than their hatchback counterparts regardless of what size and tax class they're weaseled into. Two of the best selling cars there in 2022 were the Kia Sportage and Nissan Qashqai, both compact CUVs with Nissan having completely dropped hatchback offering in that size class. In the EU and U.S. crash regulations have dictated cars be wider to accommodate side-impact airbags and side-sill reinforcement bars on doors, while hoods grow taller to adhere to pedestrian impact regulations. In China it's starting to be seen as unsightly or lower class to still be clinging to an A or B-class city or subcompact car, and so the market has trended towards mid-sizers. Combine this with the small car profit problem, and cars like the Ford Fiesta and Kia Picanto won't be around for very much longer. Ford's already discontinuing the Fiesta this year with no announced replacement.