Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

"It's your fault you didn't expressly disallow what I ended up doing to get around what you asked me not to do"

Ford no longer makes traditional passenger cars. They now only sell SUVs, trucks, and sports cars.

You can see this if you go to https://shop.ford.com/showroom/ and select sedan or hatchback in the left filters. No results.

If gasoline is expensive because of carbon taxes, people will vote for a party that tells them that climate change is not a problem, and that, if they win, gasoline will be cheap again.

Tell that to the literal constant flow of old men I see driving pristine F150s in the metropolitan center of the Canadian city I live in.

> We aren't mindless zombies buying whatever we see on TV.

But we are. I don't want to turn this into a political slap fight but it became apparent to me the extent in which people are swayed by advertising when I read an article that talked about how one party in the US was concerned that the other was going to win an important seat becase the other party had done a recent spending surge on ads in last few days before election day and they were concerned that they couldn't match it.

That article right there forever changed my view of the average person on the street. In a highly polarized campaign and political environment with months to years of knowing who the candidates and policies are and they can still be swayed by millions in TV and radio ads? Like it sounds like these people could literally be on their way to vote for a candidate and then switch their mind at the last second because they hear an ad on the radio as they're pulling into the polling station.

That's absurd -- but it's real.

People are completely enthralled by advertisements to the point where they'll buy a stupid truck that they can't fit anywhere, that they need a ladder to climb into, that has terrible sight lines, simply because advertising tells them to.

> customers will demand more efficient vehicles

The problem is those vehicles don’t exist, because the manufacturers only want to build the high margin gas guzzlers.

Look at fuel economy of US made vehicles vs those in Europe. It’s beyond a joke.

Of course you can. And for the rest, you just discontinue the product they want so they have no choice.

You can, but it’s easier to convince them to want something that they don’t need or is actively harmful.

You can make them want things. Ad money is what powers some of the most successful companies.

Car insurance. Low flow showerheads. Fuel-inefficient vehicles. Electric dryers. Electric stoves. Appliances that don’t last. Lawn care.

Taxes. Social Security.

The list is gigantic. Your claim could not be more false.

That's the entire point of the trillion dollar advertising industry

A Hyundai Elantra of today is significantly bigger than it was ten years ago. It also used to be the second-tier model above the Accent, which was discontinued.

Ditto with the Sentra and the Versa.

This is my point exactly.

Large vehicles are safer for the occupants of the vehicle, however they do increase danger for pedestrians and drivers of other vehicles in a collision. There is a reasonable argument that reducing vehicle size would save lives overall

Domestic manufacturers used to build & sell compact pickup trucks. Nowadays, the only pickups on the market are huge fatmobiles. The profit margin in trucks is much higher than the profit margin on passenger cars.

Pedestrian deaths, including children, have risen in lockstep with light truck adoption in the United States, while they have fallen in countries without this phenomenon.

The VW Up electric sold really well but was discontinued.