I think what you missed from that was not to do with my individual opinion. It's exactly what we both gripe about all the time. Regulations picking favorites. I don't think emission standards need to be tighter. I think they should be even across the board. Just like I don't think we should have tax rebates for buying an EV. The CAFE requirements specifically make it harder to meet requirement making a car than it does a truck. That's completely backwards. If anything the standards need to be relaxed across the board, but discouraging small car production is not the answer. It's currently 41.1 minimum average for cars and 26 for trucks, which car companies have lifted cars to get them to qualify as light trucks to skew that number. It's embarrassing and intentionally making vehicles less efficient to meet a lesser standard. Get a few 30 mpg crossovers qualified as light trucks and you can make the pickups that still have to test dumber than ever. Plus there's always carbon credits!
I absolutely despise the car market as it stands and we get the privilege of paying more for a compromised vehicle. The worst part is the average consumer will argue up and down we benefit because the average consumer is blind to it. That's why I like EVs. Regulations have only made ICE worse and the genie is out of the bottle. It isn't going back. At least an EV is an EV. I still consider buying the 2024 GTI because it's the last manual even if I don't like it as much as my current car. It's another last of a dying breed. It's all going away and the EV didn't do it. CAFE did. People blame VW all the time for abandoning the car market that made them popular. They didn't abandon anything. They're forced into making stuff that qualifies as light trucks just as Ford has done. The only thing keeping the GTI afloat is that for now a 1.4t Jetta still exists getting around 46mpg. Another raise or two in that average and they're all gone as trucks will continue as they are as more hybrids and building EVs to offset them. Now everyone is used to these stupid wastes of space and just "couldn't go back to the old days of reasonable transportation". The car is dead and the board that is responsible for efficient vehicles killed it.
We all know my two major gripes with a truck are weight and efficiency. I don't want to pay more to go the same distance. The EV version is even heavier, but at least it costs less to go down the road than a GTI which won't be here in a few years anymore. I wouldn't have originally considered going back to a truck, but somehow I'm starting to see EV trucks make sense, because what else is my option when it has more range than an EV car and doesn't have to pay for gas at 19mpg? I'm the last guy that would make that choice on my own, but here we are.
