I'mma give this one to the lady on the bottom right. Not for the reason she states, but if you got 7 kids you gotta pile in, a Corolla ain't gonna cut it.
this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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Fuck Cars
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A minivan will hold as many kids, is safer than an SUV, and they are on the smaller end of the SUV sizes.
Plus a minivan is 100x easier to get kids in and out of compared to an SUV. Honestly minivans might be peak transport vehicle form factor…
They are for peak for transporting 4-6 people and some cargo. Or a couple people and a lot of cargo. They are more fuel efficient than SUVs and use all the available space for their footprint up to the roofline.
Minivans are basically the mid sized truck version of vans.
That used to be literally true: back in the early '90s, the Ford Ranger pickup truck and the Ford Aerostar minivan shared a lot of parts (along with the Ford Explorer SUV).
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...minivans and hatchbacks: purposefully-designed suburban utility vehicles, all the respect in the world for both...
I have a "midsize" SUV and went on vacation with seven people, and it could hardly hold all of us even with a luggage rack on the hitch. We rented a minivan at our destination, and it EASILY fit all seven people and luggage with room to spare and was more comfortable. It also was a hybrid and got > 30mpg. Definitely wanting to rethink that SUV purchase now.
I have a little Mitsubishi Outlander that seats 7 and I’d cut off a toe for a minivan.
My teenager has to crawl through the hatch to get in her seat lol.
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I’m now suddenly suspecting that 7 seater compact cars are not a thing in places like the US. We got 7 seater Avanzas here in the third world, but come to think of it, there might be some regulatory thing preventing this format of car from being sold in some places.
It’s good. We used taxis like that a lot in HS before anyone in the friend group was 18 (yes yes you let your kids drive at 16 in the US how open minded of you to create more car customers like that), it came out to very little per person when you had like 6-7 people sharing essentially one small economy car.
I think it wouldn’t be the most convenient since you can’t put much cargo with all the seats up, but like there are more formats out there right? First gen Honda Odyssey size is what I would have in mind - surely some manufacturer is still making something similar?
Tank-on-wheels is a ridiculous default design
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A big part of it is the lack of sanely sized options, which is driven by a combination of confirmation bias ("the best sellers are all giant SUVs" when the only real options are giant SUVs), low gas prices, and incentives to manufacturers by classifying vehicles as trucks to get around emissions rules. We could undo a lot of it if we taxed and regulated giant SUVs and trucks the same way we do smaller cars, but that hits the profits of big auto and would be politically disadvantageous for anyone to try so they don't.
Also driven primarily by the C.A.F.E. act of 1992-1993. That's why the cars in the 90s started getting bigger, and continued to get bigger. So now, like you said, small options aren't available, or are outright outlawed like kei cars and trucks.
Non-american here, can you give a rundown of what that CAFE act was about?
Corporate Average Fuel Economy, sets emissions limits based on vehicle size. Bigger car = lower standards. So rather than make more efficient engines we just make bigger cars and market the hell out of them until Americans think they need a Canyonero.
^^This.
I would have much rather purchased an EV coupe. It's useless for me to haul around 5 seats. I rarely have more than one ass in the car at a time.
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A question for big car drivers
How the fuck do you drive?
I have a slightly longer and wider than usual SEDAN and I struggle in the city. I can't imagine steering a massive hunk of shit
Drive an electric F150. It’s legitimately a skill to drive the thing. I went from a “Prius C/Aqua” to the truck because I have a horse to haul. I legitimately think there should be a special license endorsement to be allowed to drive it. I would vote to require such extra testing if given the chance.
Oh man I would be all over tiered licensing. For size and performance, the basic license probably shouldn't cover that can accelerate like a Tesla.
The fact that there's no special licensing needed for RVs despite being the same size as buses and larger than most commercial trucks makes no sense.
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Very carefully.
Went from a subcompact coupe to a "midsize" crossover, and it's terrifying. Can't see shit near me because of how high I sit. Can't see shit next to me because of the big-ass B pillars, and the short window puts the pillar right next to my head.
The main 2 reasons I switched?
1: My hybrid coupe was a horrible gas guzzler at 36MPG, the SUV gets 90+ MPGe.
2: People in big-ass SUVs kept trying to kill me. Hasn't happened nearly as much since I got a car that would do consequential damage to them if they run into me.
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This ignores the role of advertising in making people want things.
They wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work.
Also the companies either not selling smaller models at all or selling under powered econobox trash.
YSK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compliance_car
Some jurisdictions require that auto makers offer low or no emission vehicles, a vehicle is considered a "compliance car" if it is clear that the company producing it is only doing so in order to comply with these regulations, rather than viewing them as a source of profit. This is generally identified by low production volume, sales limited to only regions where the law requires it, and low effort design.
They don’t sell them because they make a bigger profit on giant trucks even if they have to pay for ads to convince people to buy them.
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It's safer for drunk driving if the other cars are the ones turned to smithereens.
The bottom right is really the only valid reason. I'd love to get a small car but between them not really being sold in the US anymore and the crash incompatibility, I gotta pass.although there is increasingly little to live for so maybe I'll just get a donorcycle and say fuck it
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We have pretty small cars but we often are transporting six people. So we end up driving two cars pretty regularly. It's not so bad when we're just going across town, but we're traveling to Toronto and Florida for two trips this summer. We have rented a big SUV for trips like that before, but it costs more overall and sometimes it's nice to have two vehicles while we're there because we don't all six want to go the same place every moment of our week.
Most big SUVs I see have one person in them though.
Ever tried a minivan?
This. The solution is a people-carrier. The ground clearance of an SUV or the cargo bed of a pickup truck won't help with anything.
The ID. Buzz looks pretty sick atm, but it's a tad expensive.
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Yes, technically I own one but it has major issues and we use it only as our version of a truck to go the two miles to the local Home Depot. It loses all power and will stop if you try to drive it up a hill. But I can fit a full sheet of plywood in the back with the middle seats out. We've tried renting minivans, but we've had two problems.
One is that they're never available - they'll take your reservation but when you show up to get it there are none available so they substitute a large SUV like a Chevy Tahoe. A Tahoe has way more space and would cost more to rent, which are benefits, but they're also far less fuel efficient which isn't great.
The other problem is space. A minivan can move six people but modern minivans don't really have space for luggage for six people for nine days in the back. I even own a nice hard sided roof luggage carrier I use with my Subaru Crosstrek, but rentals never have the roof bars you need to mount it up there.
For now, our little cars are decently fuel efficient. I would consider buying another minivan but our youngest is 15 so I think at some point soon we'll need less people-carrying capacity.
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My taxes paid for the road, I'm going to use the road. It's called getting value for your money, walklet-tier comic XD
That is eleven reasons!
I just think the mindset is a left over from the colonial days when there was so much land to settle on, that building big is not an issue. The principle carried over to many other things, like having big possessions are seen as good.
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