Comment by erikig
7 years ago
That’s so true, trucks and SUVs like the Mercedes G Wagon, the Ford Raptor (the F150’s rowdy cousin) and maybe even the Range Rover HSE are typical Veblen Goods. They do really well in urban areas specifically because they are over-engineered and are overkill for the purpose they are used for and are not afraid to show it off. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cybertruck does well for the exact same reason.
"overkill" may be an unfortunate word choice, if you're the pedestrian who has a close encounter with one of these.
A pedestrian encounter with any vehicle is likely to have the same result.
No SUV's and trucks are wildly more dangerous to pedestrians.
The design of the vehicle has a significant impact [sorry!] on the pedestrian's chances. All those sharp edges can't be good.
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Should be safer with self-driving versus human-driven pedestrian crushers (SUVs)
Not that it's a guarantee but at least tesla's emergency breaking detects pedestrians already. We're still a couple years from release. I'd like to think the long-term solution is to just stop hitting pedestrians with cars.
TIL what a Veblen Good is. Thanks
To save others the googling
> Veblen goods are types of luxury goods for which the quantity demanded increases as the price increases, an apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve.
TIL what TIL means (also Veblen Good). So today I learned 2 things.