The State Made My Truck Fat

I n a recent addition to the anti-automotive genre of journalism, Axios has committed the sin of unoriginal reporting (though with snazzy graphics). This latest example coasts down a well-worn rut: Americans have big vehicles, and that is a very bad thing.

Attacks on the trend of truck bloat make for a good day at NR’s Bureau of Refutation, because the leftists who assault — like the thwacking tentacles of a ten-dollar car wash — our elephantine transports are incapable of acknowledging that the federal government’s actions are partly responsible for these monstrous vehicles. Beneath the childishness of anti-truck bigotry is a framework of regulation (such as the brackish emissions of the emissions czars), protectionism, central-planner pettifoggery, and ego — all of which have contributed to the issue.

Axios suggests that the current trend in American vehicles is driven by the market, with manufacturers’ being happy to take advantage of the more-ample profit margins on larger vehicles. Frustratingly, these types of articles are not wrong — they profess no lies — but they are deceitful through omission when they pretend that regulators have nothing to do with the undesirable outcomes of consumer choice. What isn’t acknowledged in the piece is that there simply does not exist a smaller-vehicle option. A man who can only buy red coveralls isn’t necessarily a fan of the color — that’s just the only one he can buy to do the job.

Axios offers:

Sales of these huge trucks are sustaining carmakers, bringing in record profits they can use to develop expensive technologies like electrification and automation that will drive the industry in the future. . . . In the 1980s, about half of pickup trucks were categorized as small or midsize, but by the 2010s small pickups had nearly vanished and fullsize trucks dominated. Today, midsize trucks are making a comeback, but fullsize still make up a majority of sales.

Now, we’re a DIY country, and maintaining vehicles that can tow trailers loaded with Kubota excavators or UTVs and just as easily haul the kids to school is a testament to all we do. I adore the idea that a God-fearing American can own a Ford nearly as large as his grandpappy’s M4 Sherman “Rhino” that sheared through the hedgerows of Normandy.

Trucks are fine things, but big isn’t always best. I sure wish we had the opportunity to purchase small trucks such as the Ford Ranger, Jeep Comanche, Toyota Hilux, or Datsun 520 of yesteryear. One-way safetyism, tariffs, and emissions standards have been the small vehicle’s undoing.

On the demand side, we’re in a safety arms race. Crumple zones, sensors, and cameras have all helped reduce fatalities, but they’ve also increased our reliance on things other than our own eyes. Trucks can be built to have horrid blind spots because the computers will do all the awareness work. Meanwhile, those of us scooting around in paid-for, knee-high hybrids will just continue careening off the road, blinded and dumb.

Then there’s the multipronged supply debacle.

Let’s start with the Chicken Tax, a nasty chunk of protectionism that tossed a 25 percent tariff on superior vehicles from abroad — first from Europe, then Asia. A gift from Lyndon B. Johnson to United Automobile Workers in the run-up to the 1964 election (this may sound like a familiar tactic), the anti-trade policy made inefficient, larger-than-necessary American trucks artificially competitive. After all, if you’re paying $30,000, you want all the truck you can get (never mind that it might be saddled with a shoddy Chev 4L60E transmission or a hashed 5.4-L 3-valve Triton). The Hilux could have been enough truck for most if not for a tariff that made it more expensive followed by emissions regulations that caused its ouster.

Those emissions are controlled by CAFE standards (Corporate Average Fuel Economy), an ever-changing set of guidelines for what each type of vehicle should produce from its tailpipe. The catch is that there’s no easy way to tell that a station wagon is a station wagon. The relevant metrics are the wheelbase, the ground clearance, and the weight — which means, were you a manufacturer, you could reduce R&D on more-efficient engines by stretching your existing vehicles, making them crossovers or small SUVs, saving approximately 15 mpg for each vehicle type. Do we have such crossover vehicles because the public wants them or because manufacturers are incentivized to sell them to you? Yes.

Victoria Scott capably summarizes these guidelines for the Drive:

Light trucks might bring to mind something like a Ford Maverick, but in reality, the classification extends to almost any vehicle bigger and taller than a sedan.

The legal definition of what entails a “light truck” is complicated, but the simplest way to define it (as described in Title 49, Subtitle B, Chapter V, Part 523, section § 523.5 of the Federal Code of Regulations) is that it has to be either a 10-plus passenger van, be able to “transport property on an open bed,” or possess three rows of fold-flat seating that “create a flat, leveled cargo surface” through the rear of the vehicle. Right off the bat, that describes vans, pickup trucks, and most modern minivans. . . .

With that light truck classification comes the benefit of less-strict mileage standards. Whether consumers adore the vehicles or not, there’s a clear incentive here for manufacturers to build and sell more light trucks; they can game Section 523.5 to build cars that are judged less harshly by CAFE standards.

The rules are written to favor crossovers and SUVs, big vehicles at the expense of little ones. It’s no surprise then that, as Kate Whitefoot and Steven Skerlos of the University of Michigan found, manufacturers playing by the standards would result in

the sales-weighted average vehicle size increas[ing] by 2–32%, undermining gains in fuel economy by 1–4 mpg (0.6–1.7 km/L). Carbon-dioxide emissions from these vehicles are 5–15% higher as a result . . . which is equivalent to adding 3–10 coal-fired power plants to the electricity grid each year. Furthermore, results suggest that the incentive is larger for light trucks than for passenger cars, which could increase traffic safety risks.

In short, government regulations are producing the opposite effect of what they claim to do: reduce vehicle emissions. Instead, the government’s back-seat driving has pushed up the costs of all vehicles, made them more hazardous, and protected bad manufacturers from feeling the pinch of their poor decision-making. Woof.

Thankfully, the government is fixing to do the same in the EV sector, offering tax credits for inefficient, mammoth EVs while more-efficient EVs, and possibly foreign EVs, are left out in the cold. Note: None of these should be taxpayer-subsidized, but it’s illustrative that automotive policy has not changed in 55 years — we’ve just been extending more handouts to the wealthy while they buy crappy cars.