this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2024
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Yeah, nobody wants wide cars. Manufacturers are making them wider to make it easier for them to meet NHTSA's CAFE standards.
The standards require year-on-year MPG improvements. The problem is that they require proportionally more improvement on the smallest, highest economy cars, and less improvement on the largest, lowest economy vehicles.
The standards are based on the "footprint" of the vehicle: the rectangle between the contact patches of the tires. The larger the area of that footprint, the larger the vehicle, and the less MPG increase it needs to have.
So, they are pushing the wheels toward the corners, and widening the wheelbase, approaching a square to maximize their footprints. They are making cars bigger and boxier so they don't have to make them more efficient.
Fuel economy of the cars on the road is actually falling, because manufacturers are effectively prohibited from continuing to make their smallest, most efficient vehicles. They are compelled to either discontinue those vehicles, or embiggen them to fall in a larger class.