politics

people having a life and being able to afford to change their lifestyle away from fossil fuels is more important at the moment.

we really need more education surrounding the issues and better alternatives, once everyone realises how much damage cars cause and once they realise/once they have a viable alternative (i.e. trains) then people will start to switch away. in the mean time people still need their cars to get to work, because that is how the US is designed, and expensive fuel will only result in them having less spare change, rather than them actually using their car less.

sure, if everyone had enough money that they could afford to change up the way they do things or if everyone had a job that they can do from home or if everyone lived within walking distance from their job, then maybe you would have a valid argument. people are much less likely to go on a road trip, for example, if its gonna cost them 3x more than they expect it to cost, but people need to go to work to survive.

I’ll never argue in favor of fossil fuel, but making transportation prohibitively expensive only hurts the average person.

The EV thing isn’t the worst, though I’d like to see that money going towards public transportation for more people.

Public transportation spending like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that was signed into law by President Biden on November 15, 2021? source

"The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, as enacted in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, authorizes up to $108 billion for public transportation – the largest federal investment in public transportation in the nation’s history."

Maybe it’s in there and I just didn’t see it but the biggest issue with the CAFE laws is that there are exceptions for huge vehicles that no one needs which makes them cheaper to manufacture.

I agree that the "fleetwide calculation" loophole the NHTSA uses does too much to let automakers off the hook on a big part of the SUV fuel economy increase standards. I'd like this loophole closed or the rules revised drastically. However, even with the "light truck" loophole, the increased CAFE standards force SUVs to get slightly more fuel effient because of the required "fleetwide average" in place now.

You can see we get a series of small increases on "light trucks" highway mileage with a nice 3MPG bump in 2025 source

I'd like more, but its not nothing.

A smaller, lighter wagon will generally have more space, actually, and be better on fuel but no one makes them because they realized they could just pump ads at people focused on “feeling powerful” in large vehicles. You can also make the wagons EV and the smaller size and weight will improve their range, too. You’re looking at how things are instead of how they easily could be(and were not too long ago).

Okay, so your comment earlier about wanting people to buy station wagons was for a theoretical car that isn't on the market in the USA, right?

I know Biden’s done ok with some stuff but it’s still kinda weak and the fact that he’s looking for a pat on the back for the bare minimum is kinda pathetic. And people still have to vote for the dumbass because the DNC won’t let anyone better come forward and the GOP are a disaster like no other.

• Largest public spending in public transportation EVER
• Large tax credits to incentivize EV purchases
• Large increases in CAFE standards with large impacts on cars (and some good impacts on SUVs).

Besides tightening up the "light truck" loophole, can you please tell me what you'd expect that doesn't qualify for the "bare minimum" that you're calling the efforts so far?