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this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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No more inexpensive cars for the masses. No one is building a sub-compact or a sedan anymore. Now I have 300 "options" I don't even want on a vehicle and no way to get out of paying for them. Driving is becoming more of an upper-class activity nowadays and we all know how size matters to that crowd.
The EPA did this. It created a whole generation of customers wanting large vehicles because of their dumb emissions standards they wrote. Glad they are gone so we can make small cars again.
Edit: boy lemmings be lemming.
Epa didn't write that law, congress did. The Energy Tax Act was also congress.
Epa also did a lot of good, destroying them was throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I want smaller vehicles too. But I'd prefer the air be clean and the environment not be poisoned with industrial waste in the process.
Being this wrong takes effort.
They are wrong but there is a grain of truth to this. NTSA regulations about fuel efficiency and emissions are part of the reason that car manufacturers made vehicles bigger and more expensive. It is significantly harder to meet emissions standards and fuel efficiency standards in the US in a sedan or small compact car and on top of that car manufacturers know that people aren't generally buying compact cars for $80-150K so it's a win win for them. It's greed, and them gaming the system in order to use the fact that larger vehicles aren't beholden to the same emissions standards or fuel efficiency standards. So car companies convinced consumers they don't want small cars, that instead they want SUVs and trucks and perhaps crossovers. And they lobbied to game the system and to continue pocketing money doing it.
https://www.distilled.earth/p/the-loophole-that-made-cars-in-america
yeah its all done to avoid the law. more free dumb.
but since so many of these oversized vehicles are technically 'work trucks'...
start giving out tickets when they are doing activities unrelated to a form of work (groceries, kids, etc.) or park in residential areas that are not a job site.
The problem are not the emission standards, the problem is that authorities allowed the huge loophole which allowed to ignore them but only if the vehicle is extra large, wasteful and dangerous.
I'll do you one better. Our laws about lobbying need a significant overhaul, so that's at least part of the problem. But also it can be more than one thing at a time.
Not gonna argue about the lobbying. That doesn't mean though that emission regulations were bad, not what was required was bad, what was exempted from that regulation was terrible. They allowed loopholes so huge, you could drive the entire car industry through it.
Loopholes are a problem with a standard. But a problem that probably needs revision rather than just scraping the standards.
That I can agree to.
This is just another way of saying the policy lead to bigger vehicles.
No That is like saying that outlawing a cancerous die in fruit juice but not in lemonade lead to unhealthier diet because lemonades were exempted and remained exempted even when it became obvious that there was a huge loophole.
You say, the problem was that they outlawed that cancerous substance in fruit juice, rather than that the problem was that authorities failed to include lemonades in that ban and insisted on not expanding it either. That is not the same because your position implies one should not ban that cancerous substance because that only pushes lemonade sales.
The problem is not too much regulation it is deleberitely or by incompetence, too little regulation (vast exemptions)
No regulation is a problem, and incorrect regulation is also a problem. Both led to terrible outcomes.
That I can agree with. But in this concrete case, the regulation on cars was not what was off, it was the lack of extension of that regulation on oversized personal vehicles, ie private SUVs and pickup trucks. That is a key difference.
It wasn't emission standards it was the way they were enforced that was wrong. Smog filled cities were real things.
It was basing standards on vehicle footprints. Starting in 2012, a Toyota Corolla had less-strict emissions and fuel economy standards than a compact truck, so they stopped making the compact trucks after 2011.
They brought back the Ranger, but it's larger than some of the older F150s.
And as standards got tighter, it impacted more an more vehicles. All the compact cargo vans (Transit Connect, ProMaster City, and NV200) were discontinued in 2022 because they no longer meet standards at that size.
No, it was the standard that made large vehicles. Not enforcement. And yes smog is a real thing.
What are you talking about? Why would companies be more fuel efficient if not forced to? That's why the regulations existed in the first place because companies weren't doing the right thing unless forced to by law
And the law made the cars bigger
The law didn't. Companies circumventing it did. Need more regulation not less
The company's didn't circumvent anything, they followed the regulation. The regulation was the problem. Car were getting better emissions and mileage, and emission standards were getting better. The law as written made selling small cars less profitable than selling large ones. So companies naturally went to selling large vehicles.
More regulation could have helped in this situation sure, but they didn't do that. In the end they caused a generational problem instead of admitting they were wrong and changing the rules
Who upvotes this shit
Lame-brained people who think LLMs are an authority on anything.
People who work in environmental compliance. I worked for carb for 10 yrs
What about large who worked for proteins?
Usually large works for carb.
Just goes to show you can do something without learning.
“Mackerel are fish and thus all fish are mackerel.” -krisevol probably
No, that's a logical fallacy, and you are using another one called a strawman. It's common knowledge in the industry the epa created large vehicles. It's not even disputed except here on lemmy for some reason
I’m sorry I wasn’t even aware that the EPA made vehicles. That’s disappointing to hear that they were single-handedly responsible for making all these large fuel inefficient vehicles.
Or maybe…. There was a rule made to prevent a problem that the infallible Free Market couldn’t solve. Then the mfgs found a loophole to exploit.
Nah, it’s probably the first one.
Your are the only one that thinks the epa didn't cause large vehicles. Just Google "suv loophole" and get some free knowledge.
The policy had good intentions, but failed miserably. But keep defending a policy even the policy makers admit was a mistake.
Sorry, but you’re coming across as “well what was she wearing?”
Nice try though.
Your insite on this topic is amazing and we are all better of for it.
Wut.
Fat people want big trucks.
car companies advertising like 3-4 decades to the masses about the big and powerful trucks and SUVs is what caused these customers to want large vehicles not some fucking government agency
That's not what the CEO of gm and ford said when the epa started these rules
I shall disregard your opinion as rage bait
Just Google suv loophole. Knowledge is still free.
I'm not sure why ur getting downvoted, I think most lemmings must be very uneducated on the auto industry. There are regulations that define fuel economy required for wheel base x track width. Basically, the smaller the footprint of the car the larger the mpg target so manufacturers skirt around that by making the vehicles larger. The regulations literally encourage vehicles to be larger, because adding wheel base is cheaper and easier than improving the economy of the existing engine their using in 12 other model cars. If ur interested in this sort of weird regulation stuff check out how the pt cruiser qualifies as a TRUCK. There is a reason new 3 series are bigger than old, and why shit like the smart car isn't sold in the US anymore, given it's wheelbase it cannot get good enough economy to meet our regulations.
It's largely the being glad the epa is gone and using ai as a source
Cafe standards created a perverse incentive, that's not disputable by reasonable people. What is disputable is the EPA's involvement in this specific act of congress that was administered by the NHTSA.
Thanks. This is exactly what happened. And when vehicles started becoming larger, consumers wanted to feel safe so it become an arms race of size. Now we have a whole generation of drivers that demand large vehicles.
Yea the down vote bombing with no counter points is pretty telling. The regulations are what they are, and since nobody here has a logical counterpoint they all resort to downvotes or a strawman. It is what it is, I have found the average Lemmy user may be technologically inclined but certainly not mechanically. I've been in the auto industry for over a decade and will get downvoted or told I'm wrong by people that don't know what end of the screw driver to hold 😂 keep sharing knowledge despite the echo chsmber down votes its in everybodies best interest!
It is what it is. Not like i can do anything with these points anyways.