Comment by yvdriess
7 months ago
I agree that fuel cost and tax are not the reason trucks are so popular in the US. The main incentive for US manufacturers to have a large demand for light trucks because of the chicken tax. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
That does not make any sense to me. Vehicles can and are manufactured in the US.
Bigger vehicles are popular in the US because people want to be in a bigger vehicle and sit higher up than others, AND can afford to do so (ignoring their long term finances). I.e. the politically popular policy of low gas prices.
That's the long and short of it. Buyers rewarded the sellers that sold big and tall vehicles, so obviously sellers are going to sell big and tall vehicles.
There was no situation where buying a big and tall vehicle was cheaper than a smaller, more fuel efficient vehicle, so conclusively, people chose to spend more to get what they wanted. Of course, once someone else gets a bigger vehicle, then you are less safe, unless you get a bigger vehicle, and so on and so forth.