The new standards are part of a broad push to get more Americans into electric vehicles, and reduce the environmental cost of driving.
Don’t worry, we’ll just get even larger trucks that nobody actually wants to bypass these standards.
The larger truck exist b/c of the standards. It’s more economical to change the weight class of a vehicle than it is to make the vehicle more environmentally friendly.
Edit: “more economical” -> “more environmentally friendly”
I’m 70% sure that the larger truck exists because exceptions have literally been made to the law on purpose due to lobbying, which is why every company pivoted to them.
As far as I am aware, current fuel economy standards are primarily determined by the size of the wheel base. Some years ago, the EPA went from a reasonably managed chart to a specific formula that gets a little extreme on the ends.
So you end up with craziness like a 95 ranger required to have 60mpg to meet the standard, and a 2024 f35 super mega ultra cab long bed to have like 3mpg to meet standards. (Numbers are made up, but that is the main idea as I understand it)
People buy trucks for towing and hauling, and bigger is better and safer for towing.
The real problem is every other type of vehicle has become so useless and disposable (shittily made) to meet fuel economy standards that you can’t tow anything with them and are forced to buy a raging-mega-huge truck to get a high enough GCWR/GVWR and big enough motor to safely and reliably haul stuff.
You may live somewhere where people constantly tow travel trailers or large boats, but this isn’t the case everywhere. Loads of people buy trucks with the idea the bed will be used every other weekend, then they end up commuting to an office job and getting groceries. If they were primarily used for hauling things around, the average truck wouldn’t have a larger passenger cabin than its cargo bed.
Station wagons can just as easily go to the hardware store and pick up full sheets of plywood, load up the lawn mower and trimmer, and as much sporting equipment as a family could wear. What wagons don’t have is the aggressive design that pick up trucks have come to be.
Most cars could tow a single axle utility trailer if you needed to move what I mentioned - even appliances or furniture. I know a couple that tow a two person caravan with a Mini Cooper. Even when someone does need larger weight or volume capacity on a regular basis, a van has most of the benefits of a pick up truck with better fuel efficiency.
Just to bolster your point, I rented a U-Haul trailer for all my stuff last time I moved, including an enormous 3 piece solid oak entertainment center, and pulled it with a vw Jetta wagon.
I never ever see people towing and hauling with those machines. My Honda Civic is 16 years old and is fine, my car before that was a Nissan Sentra and died at 22 years old.
New cars are not shitty.
New cars are kinda shitty. They collect a ton of data, don’t let you actually drive, have a million unecessary features built in to try to reduce the stupidity of drivers who should be nowhere near a motor vehicle and are super ugly to boot.
I do know a lot of people who tow, but I’m in motor racing circles where people are regularly hauling race cars through multiple states every week.
