Vox and CNBC explain 'Why Americans love' and 'are obsessed with big cars,' a driving update

I foreshadowed today's post at the end of Tesla recalls 2 million cars because of autopilot issues, a driving update, writing "my wife is driving Snow Bear more, so I expect to report on her car next. Stay tuned." She rolled over our other vehicle's odometer to 12,000 miles yesterday, making it time for another driving update — after I share Vox explaining Why Americans love big cars, which I have been saving for this very occasion.

It’s not just a consumer choice; it’s a policy choice.
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It’s no secret that big cars dominate American roads. But even so, some of the stats are staggering: Last year, 80 percent of all new cars sold in the US were SUVs and trucks. That’s compared to just 52 percent in 2011. Meanwhile, many automakers are phasing out passenger cars as consumer demand for them has disappeared.

Not all of this is a result of consumer choice, though. A huge factor in why SUVs and trucks are so popular in the US is hidden in a 50-year-old policy decision. In this video we cover the history of the SUV, and how its origin story and popularity is rooted in US fuel economy standards.

I just gave my lecture on sustainability to my environmental science students last week and pointed out a couple of the consumer reasons why Americans buy large cars, safety and comfort. Both of those are values, which the Cambridge Dictionary defines as "the beliefs people have, especially about what is right and wrong and what is most important in life, that control their behavior." These can work at cross purposes to values like efficiency and sustainability, but, as the video shows, it can work with profit, another value. Yes, I made that list of values with the auto industry in mind. I live and work in metro Detroit and I try to reach my students where they are.

I am also in the middle of lecturing about economy and government and how they relate to the environment, and this video works well with those topics. As the video description points out, a policy choice about fuel efficiency and exhaust emissions worked with consumer choice to promote SUVs and other light trucks over passenger cars. It would take a change in policy to shape consumer choice to reverse this trend. File this under two of Commoner's Laws: Everything is connected to everything else and there is no free lunch.

CNBC went even further back than Vox in Why Americans Are Obsessed With Big Cars, exploring "there is no free lunch" in even more depth.

America is a big country, and Americans have always favored big vehicles to traverse it. America gave the world Cadillacs with massive tailfins and oversize pickup trucks.

While in Western Europe or Japan cars are often small - quite small - American automakers churn out big SUVs, full-size pickup trucks. Even our sporty cars - like the Ford Mustang and the Dodge Challenger, are big and are often called “muscle cars” as a nod to their larger size. Research shows consumers like bigger vehicles when they can get them. Researchers say regulatory loopholes favoring trucks have helped the shift. But there are downsides: Big cars are more expensive. If they burn fuel, they usually require more of it, and are thus more harmful to the environment. Some research indicates they are also more fatal in car accidents.

As I wrote above, safety is an important value to drivers, but it's only the safety of the occupants of the vehicle itself. The safety of drivers of smaller cars and especially pedestrians suffers as a result. As I also wrote, everything is connected to everything else and there is no free lunch.

The CNBC video concludes by wondering if the shift to EVs helps to reverse the trend to larger vehicles. I hope so, but it would take a parallel change in consumer taste to make it happen. I'm not seeing that yet, but I am open to being surprised.

Follow over the jump for my personal driving update.


As I began this entry, my wife rolled Snow Bear's odometer past 12,000 miles yesterday, January 18, 2024. That's 262 days since Snow Bear's odometer passed 11,000 miles on May 1, 2023, which translates to averages of 3.82 miles per day, 116.41 miles per standard month, and 1,393.13 miles per standard year. This is much less than the 5.99 miles per day, 182.63 miles per standard month, and 2,186.35 miles per year my wife and I drove her between November 15, 2022 and May 1, 2023 and more in line with the 3.56 miles per day, 108.54 miles per standard month, and 1,298.23 miles per standard year my wife and I drove her between February 7, 2022 and November 15, 2022 we, but mostly I, drove her February 7, 2022 and November 15, 2022. That's because, while my wife is driving Snow Bear more, she's driving her on short trips. Meanwhile, I'm driving her a lot less because, past week excepted, the current winter is milder and less snowy than last winter, so I don't need Snow Bear's handling, visibility, and heated seats, all of which are improvements over Pearl. I also want to keep Snow Bear available for my wife now she's driving more.

What matters is how much both my wife and I are driving both of our vehicles. During the same period it took Snow Bear go from 11,000 to 12,000 miles, Pearl went from less than 59,000 miles on June 1, 2023 to more than 62,000 miles on December 13, 2023, 3,000 miles. Adding in 300 miles based on the exactly 10 miles per day I drove Pearl between February 21, 2023 and June 1, 2023 and the approximately 302.4 miles I drove since December 13, 2023 based on the 8.40 miles per day I drove during the comparable period last year, I drove Pearl 3,602.4 miles during the 262 days between May 1, 2023 and January 18, 2024 for averages of 13.75 miles per day, 419.36 miles per standard month, and 5,018.61 per standard year. Those combine for total averages of 17.57 per day, 527.9 miles per standard month if I simply add the averages together, but 535.89 miles per standard month if I multiply the combined daily average by 30.5, and 6,411.74 miles per standard year if added together or 6,413.05 miles if I multiply the combined daily average by 365.  Ugh, rounding errors.  Either are increases over the 13.83 miles per day and 5,047.95 or 5,046.09 miles per year I computed in CNBC explains 'How Odometer Fraud Became A $1 Billion Problem,' a driving update last June. My wife and I are still adding to the miles driven by all Americans.

Travel on all roads and streets increased in November. The 12-month moving average was up 0.2% month-over-month and was up 1.8% year-over-year. If we factor in population growth, the 12-month MA of the civilian population-adjusted data (age 16-and-over) was up 0.1% MoM and up 0.6% YoY.

Despite the increase, Americans are still not driving as much as we did before the pandemic. That might take a while. Stay tuned.