If gasoline is more expensive, customers will demand more efficient vehicles.

We aren't mindless zombies buying whatever we see on TV. I'm old enough to remember when Japanese small cars practically took over the market in the 70s and 80s due to gas price shocks. It can happen again.

▲ Certhas 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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stickfigure 14 hours ago | parent [-]

You can say the same about CAFE standards, or anything else government does? This is a silly argument.

	▲	sneak 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The reason so many people buy huge trucks in the USA is specifically because heavy machinery (above a threshold) is exempt from such standards.

▲ debo_ 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

▲ asa400 15 hours ago | parent [-]

They probably won't buy Honda Civics, but they (or their children, more realistically) might buy the electric equivalent of an F150 if the market produces one that can fulfill what they perceive their needs to be.

I just bought a (small, hybrid) truck because I need to do some truck stuff. I 100% would have bought an electric if the market produced one with comparable capability and competitive price, but we're not there yet, and I don't have Rivian money (yet! lol maybe someday).

My point being: there is still a huge demand for trucks from both a capability and culture standpoint, and very little supply of a cost-comparable product that doesn't take gas or diesel. Rivian is around double what most people want to pay, and the F150 Lightning was marketed poorly and had bad towing/hauling range compared to gas/diesel equivalents.

I'm not here to defend "truck culture" but I do believe that if you offer people a better product, they will figure it out and buy it. An electric truck with 400+ miles of towing range, an onboard 2kW+ inverter, 500 ft-lbs of torque, and fast charging for the same price as a comparable gas F150 will sell. Unfortunately the battery energy density and EV supply chain economies of scale aren't there yet in North America.

	▲	United857 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		`U u u`

▲ Teever 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> 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.

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nradov 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Nah, it's not real. Your claim isn't supported by the data. Political advertising can help a bit at the margins but in the 2016 Presidential election the losing campaign spent about twice as much on advertising as the winner. Very few voters were swayed by last second radio ads.

(I would support a Constitutional amendment to restrict campaign contributions and effectively overturn the Citizens United v. FEC decision.)

	▲	Teever 14 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Again, I don't want to get into a political slap fight here, I want to keep this on the subject of advertising. It sounds to me like you're confusing the magnitude of advertising spending with effectiveness of advertising techniques. Some people have found more effective ways to advertise to people, we know all this, it isn't uncharted conversation territory. We all know about micro-targetting based on personalized data, dominating certain niche mediums like AM radio to target people when they're driving and coordinated pushes with people in industry. The point is that advertising works. It works disconcertingly well. This is why people buy stupidly impractical automobiles that they don't need.
	▲	sneak 14 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Which is it? If your first claim is true, why do we need to amend anything? They seem like mutually exclusive claims, to me. Am I missing something?

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traderj0e 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If you don't want to make this about politics, use a product advertising example instead of politics which is not even comparable.

Advertised products will sell more, but only to a certain point. Like someone who wants an SUV and knows nothing else might buy the one from Chevy instead of Mitsubishi because of advertising.

▲ testing22321 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> 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.

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traderj0e 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Whatever your standard is for an "efficient" vehicle, more efficient things than those 15-20mpg trucks or SUVs do exist in the US. Every automaker sells a serious car that gets at least 30mpg combined if gas-only, or like 50mpg if hybrid.

	▲	testing22321 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The really wild part is you think that’s good. You’ve never driven a BYD because your government blocks them. You’ve also never driven a fuel efficient car because they hardly exist in the US