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The Chevy Suburban is about the same weight now as in 1973 (5837lbs then, 5785-5993lbs now, according to Wikipedia).
It was huge then, it’s huge now.
The BMWs pictured are not the same class of car either — one is a coupe/sedan, one’s an SUV, so of course they will be radically different.
Don’t get m wrong, I think modern cars are too big and, in the case of BMW, way uglier than they used to be.
Exactly. This pic is comparing apples with oranges to get a rise out of us. There are irrefutable arguments for saving the planet, we don’t need this low IQ rage bait.
People would find some way to complain no matter what cars were chosen for the comparison, but the fact is cars have been getting bigger on average.
@mondoman712 @Jilanico This is ironically due to the emissions rules. Bigger vehicles are classed as commercial and allowed to burn more gas and pollute more.
My dad has a 1999 Chevy S-10 with a small cab, a 4-cylinder engine, and a long bed. Nothing like that is made today. Handy when you need to move stuff though.
In the US, but worldwide car companies push consumers towards larger vehicles because they are more profitable.
Right — and I think that is a real issue that deserves real attention, and closing these bullshit carveouts for high GVWR vehicles should absolutely happen.
That said, I take some issue with ragebaity posts when less ragebaity posts (such as the article you linked) are more informative, offer fair comparisons, and ultimately are more critical of the problem.
Just my 2¢.
So have mobile phones.
👍 Well done. But we were talking about the cars in the picture.
There are mobile phones in the picture too.
👏 Good job. Can you tell me what else is in the picture?
Sedans were the default back in the 80s, now SUVs and pickups account for around 75% of all new sales (in the US, at least).
So, in terms of what the average car looked like then versus now, it’s a perfectly valid comparison.
That’s not an average representation of the increase in the size of pickup trucks, though.
Just look at the Ford F150:
Even if you compare like with like, pickups are around 30% heavier than they were in the 90s, and around 10-15% taller.
https://www.axios.com/2023/01/23/pickup-trucks-f150-size-weight-safety
Nah the actual space you can use shrunk while the truck got bigger. That’s insane
Compare a '90s F-150 to a 2024 Ranger. Then compare a '90s Ranger to a 2024 Maverick. Arguably, what Ford really did was that it added a third, bigger-than-full-size, truck and shifted the names one notch up.
The Maverick is new and while it does buck the trend of “bigger is always better”, all it signifies to me is that Ford are diversifying their range of pickups now that they don’t make any small cars or sedans in the US any more, which is kind of emblematic of the whole problem.
That’s a good point.
That’s comparing a regular can with a crew cab.
They didn’t have crew cabs back then, which is kinda the point.
Edit: correction - they did, but it wasn’t until the mid-2000s that they became common.
As opposed to now, where I have to do a double take whenever I see a modern single cab. AFAIK, they are now special order and some models don’t even offer them.
The point is the smaller model was popular what was popular then, and the giant SUV (or even worse those massive truck things) are what’s popular now.
You’re telling me that tiny little sedan on the left is 3 tons!?
For those who are actually curious, this is because of the Light Truck Exemption in the US. long story short, the us made emissions requirements on cars. Car companies said “fine well do cars, but we can’t do it for trucks”. At the time, trucks were only used for, you know, actual truck things, so they made the Light Truck Exemption.
So of course car companies created the SUV, popularized it, and made it the standard. Now, so interestingly, everything is a light truck! Even most sedans are. Who would have guessed car companies found a way out of emissions standards yet again.
Great not just bikes video that goes more in depth: https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?si=y38n9OQz8gC5RLBq
The weird thing is that it even rubs of to the rest of the world, cars are getting bigger and higher in Europe, without the tax dodge, or even the contrary. Where I live cars are taxed by weight and even here the fuckers get bigger…
The old BMW looks so much better too.
It’s a BMW 3 (E30) series, I think. A really beautiful coupe.
It’s bigger. Does that mean it burns more fuel or has more emissions than a 40 year old car? I’m all for saving the planet, but I’m not sure big automatically means worse. I could be wrong.
They are still gonna be less effecient than smaller, lighter models with modern technology.
Another factor is bigger vehicles are deadlier.
They are still gonna be less effecient than smaller, lighter models with modern technology.
Agreed and I’m sure bmw makes smaller models, so this pic is rage bait.
Another factor is bigger vehicles are deadlier.
Deadlier for whom? My guess is the passengers of a bigger vehicle are safer. A pedestrian being hit by a small car or big car is likely ruined either way. An SUV hitting a small car, maybe the small car’s passengers are in trouble, though perhaps advancements in safety have increased survival, idk.
Deadlier for whom?
The people the driver of the bigger car cannot see.
And also people in a smaller vehicle involved in a collision. Higher bumper heights hit windows instead of crumple zones.
Fair. Tech (sensors, cameras, etc.) could reduce this risk, but you make a fair point.
Better road design and just having fewer cars would do a lot more than sensors.
A pedestrian being hit by a small car or big car is likely ruined either way.
Vehicle size actually has a huge effect on the severity of vehicle-pedestrian collisions.
I find that full-size SUVs and pickup trucks pose a particular danger for pedestrians. A pedestrian hit by a full-size SUV is twice as likely to die than a pedestrian hit by a car under similar circumstances, while being hit by a pickup truck rather than a car increases the death probability by 68%. I find that high-front-end vehicle designs are particularly culpable for the higher pedestrian death rate attributable to large vehicles. A 10 cm increase in the front-end height of a vehicle increases the risk of pedestrian death by 22%.
I stand corrected. Appreciate the data. Thanks for educating me on that! 👍
the 1984 BMW 318i gets 24 mpg the 2024 BMW x7 gets 24 mpg
Thank you for sharing actual data 🤝
i was guessing the actual models pictured, anyone know better?
The small one is an E30 3 series and the big one is an X7 (pre-2022). The X7 does get slightly better fuel consumption than that, 27-29 mpg on the petrol engine. The 3 series is probably somewhere in the low 20s based on forum posts but I’m not sure where to get actual data for that one, and I’ve got no idea which engine is in it
Bigger does almost always mean more emissions/worse economy for a given technology. In this case someone else pointed out that the economy is about the same for both, which is due to the fact that technology has improved; if you put the engineering effort of the big car into the form factor of the little car, it’d be much more efficient.
It weighs more and definitely could use a lot less space on the road and costume less fuel if it didn’t grow to this size but stayed small and with less weight
BMW does offer small models tho. This pic is comparing apples with oranges.
They’re bigger specifically so they can qualify as “light trucks” instead of regular vehicles, which means they have more more lax emissions standards.
means it’s easier to claim you didn’t see the kid you just ran over
I replaced my old Ford Focus stationwagon with a Nissan Qashqai, an SUV. It has much better milage so it’ll probably have less emissions.
Who gives a shit about cars, give me my buttload of ports back!
cellphones have been reversing the trend, we’ve gone back to phablet sized devices (but this time removing the smaller options)
With cellphones, at the very least it’s more a question of screen size more than anything. Phones got smaller, but screens got bigger. I’m guessing this is why - in part at least - folding phones are trying to become a thing; increasing screen size whilst staying small enough to fit in a pocket.
You’re right. That’s another way this image was specifically tailored to make us come to a conclusion.
You don’t know what I’d do to get massive chunky brick laptops back from the 90’s again. Look at all those ports!
If you like chunky and portful check out the MNT Reform
whoa
regretting my framework laptop about now
Counterpoint: you needed all those different ports because we didn’t have USB-C and wifi yet.
What you carry and what carries you don’t really compare though.
Actually, I’d like a bigger and thicker laptop
Gaming laptops are thicker and have quite a few ports. I have one and the only port i am missing is Displayport instead of hdmi
except phones are big again because we noticed we can watch porn on them
Yeah that meme/graphic up there seems circa 2013, judging by the size of that smartphone.
Does anyone know what that laptop is?
Courtesy of /u/idiot206’s sleuthing work when this was posted to reddit a couple years back, it’s a modded Mac SE
https://www.cultofmac.com/229732/this-13-pound-vintage-mac-laptop-was-killed-by-the-sony-walkman/
That thing is awesome. I kinda want one.
MacBook Air
Like smart phones have now bounced to getting larger again, cars used to be big and got smaller because of Korea and gas prices. But then they are getting bigger again because of regulations and showing off.
Bring back the assault-and-battery-case laptop!
Size isn’t everything. While I get what they’re trying to say, the ‘light utility vehicles’ of today are getting 20-30 mpg while the sedan of 40 years ago got like… 5. Fuck cars and all, but this isn’t really a good angle.
Removed by mod
