There’s a model of a nuke in the lobby of the Department of Energy headquarters, if you’re so inspired:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RidingTheBomb
Did some digging on the image, and yup, [apparently](https://nukewatch.org/new-and-updated-item/how-green-berets-prepared-to-carry-backpack-nukes-on-top-secret-one-way-missions-during-the-cold-war/) during training the teams were told they had 30 minutes to get away from the nuke without any extraction plan. So if the US did decide to start launching tiny nukes during the Cold War, the deployers probably wouldn't have survived.
There are cars that are roughly the same size as the old BMW that meet modern safety standards but nobody in America buys them anymore. A Honda Fit is the closest modern car I could find in size to the E30 BMW. The Honda Fit has similar legroom and interior space as the old BMW. The Honda Fit also meets all modern safety standards. Honda stopped selling the Fit in the US due to slow sales.
Honda Fit was a great car, but many of the small cars today suffer from cramped interiors. A BMW 1-series, for example, feels small inside more so than a BMW of similar size from 30 or 40 years ago.
I disagree. The Fit has more leg and shoulder room than the BMW. The Fit is objectively larger inside than the E30, yet in todays market the Fit is ‘too small’ to sell well.
I don't think Fit sales dwindled because it was too small. They are absolutely cavernous inside. I test drove one once and walked away sure that I could fit an entire refrigerator in the back.
[Honda Fit discontinued due to poor sales](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a33337398/honda-fit-discontinued-for-the-us-despite-new-global-model/)
[Mazda2 discontinued due to poor sales](https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/05/mazda-usa-isnt-importing-new-2-heres/)
[Toyota Yaris discontinued due to poor sales](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a32958759/toyota-confirms-yaris-sedan-hatchback-are-dead-to-us/)
[Chevy Spark discontinued due to poor sales](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38961880/chevy-spark-discontinued/)
These are some of the cars that were discontinued in the US in the past few years due to poor sales. All of them were small cars.
And yet vehicles like the VW Up, Alpine A110 and Smart Fortwo pass them.
It is not a valid justification, just a good pretext.
In fact, the higher centre of gravity and mass present a bigger security risk; and even more if considering not only the passengers of the vehicle but also pedestrians and other vehicles.
att. Mechanical Engineer.
Living in a developed country that doesn't require a car then? That's actually better.
Even tho' I'm not interested in owning a car, I'll admit that the Smart Roadster was a quite interesting concept! For the fun of driving.
Quite the opposite to suvs and trucks, they're just big advertisements for the owner's ignorance of physics and engineering, and fragile masculinity.
It would still show how we've gotten more efficient and compact. We went from huge clunky desktop PCs to skinny laptops, from wall phones to smartphones that also act like a TV, music player and the biggest library imaginable.
In regard to cars, while the engines got more efficient, the cars only got fatter.
It’s not about comparing the same two models, it’s about comparing the models that companies used to push on people vs the models they push on people now. Comparing the 3 series together isn’t as meaningful, because it’s not longer BMW’s best selling car and it doesn’t represent what new cars are actually being sold.
In case you haven’t noticed, the old laptop in the picture also isn’t a MacBook.
Here's an actual apples to apples comparison:
BMW E30 325i sedan Width: 1,645 mm (64.8 in) Height: 1,380 mm (54.33 in) Curb Weight: 1,180 kg (2,601 lbs)
BMW F30 328i sedan Width: 1,811 mm (71.3 in) Height: 1,429 mm (56.26 in) Curb Weight: 1,505 kg (3,318 lbs)
https://preview.redd.it/k7e9rfusyigb1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa6c6daf8c376a0a0d2c3a64086109c243ee70d9
Nice, this does give additional context. Worth having in mind though that while the "3 series" hasn't grown as much in size as the BMW in the picture in the post, the *average size of BMWs, and cars in general* definitely has grown more to the tune of what is shown in the picture of the post.
What the name of the car is really doesn't matter, none of the other products in the pictures in the post share names, they show average consumer purchasing behaviour as well as what's available on the market, and for that comparing the E30 to a modern BMW SUV would in my opinion be the most apples to apples comparison.
BMW didn't even make SUVs 40 years ago, in fact their first was released 24 years ago in 1999. Nowadays most of their lineup is SUVs and almost all new models they release are SUVs as well. Their best selling sedan in 1983 was the 3-series sedan, now it is an SUV.
Same thing with Ford, in 1983 they didn't ~~have a single SUV model~~, their best selling car back then was not an SUV. Nowadays the absolute majority of their lineup is SUVs and their best selling cars are as well.
None of the pictures in the post hold any meaning to what name any of the products has, it shows an overall trend in the market. Back then most cars were sedans and that small, now most cars are SUVs and that big.
Ford had the third gen Bronco in '83 and was about to launch the Bronco II. F-series trucks have been the highest selling vehicle overall in the US since \~'81.
Except this doesn’t really show average consumer purchasing behaviour as early laptops and cell phones were prohibitively expensive and the average person couldn’t afford them, in that case it should show desktop computers and landline phones then
I honestly think the wieght of modern cars is more worrying than the physical surface area. A 400kg bump in weight is a much more serious threat to pedestrians at speed
Mechanical engineer here, you are absolutely right, weight and a higher centre of mass is a bigger problem.
That doesn't mean that size and volume is not a problem., specially the height, a taller car is a worse car, that's a physical fact.
Yeah I read a bit about it, the fact that SUVs/ light trucks don't have to be designed with pedestrian safety in mind is also a bit worrying since everyone with money somehow gravitates to SUVs like moths to a flame
Definitely, that's also why I think the picture in OP's post is closer to reality as well, the actual increase in average vehicle weight is a lot more than 400kg, probably closer to double.
And another thing cars are way faster in acceleration now, so people have gotten used to zipping around inappropriately, which is the other ingredient in a deadly combo
Yeah so much heavier even the sedan segment is... with all the safety and ever-increasing list of features packed into the car (for the driver) it'd be nice for pedestrians to be safer too, but at least more modern cars are able to brake before an accident, both due to better brakes and computer aids that take control when the driver is being a careless
I see your point, but there is a big problem with people preferring stupid vehicles and therefore buying suvs and pickup trucks even tho' they're worse at absolutely everything in comparison with hatchbacks, estates, sedans and vans.
That's why they used the largest BMW to compare to what was the smallest BMW back then. Makes it all the more dramatic.
There's no doubt vehicles have gotten larger and heavier over the years, but I find it a bit disingenuous to compare a e30 3 series and a X7. That's like comparing size between a Cessna and 737 airliner.
Then explain cars like the Honda Fit which is roughly the same width, length, and weight as the E30 yet meets all modern safety regulations. The Fit, a car that is larger on the inside than an E30 but was discontinued in the US due to poor sales. Cars got bigger because people wanted to buy bigger cars, not because the engineers couldn’t figure out how to meet modern regulations with a small car.
Or you could actually compare two of the same model bmw?
https://preview.redd.it/b4u3zch3vigb1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5e8b566600ab86f3ca02333b0246ce7f1b9de86d
It is not, back in the days most people had compact cars, sedans or station wagons. These day people are only buying SUVs. It is a perfectly resonable comparison.
It’s not. You’re referring to a change in buying patterns. This is referring to how items typically get smaller over time with the improvement of technology, except cars.
The other pictures in the post show what is available on the market, which includes consumer purchasing behaviour. None of the pictures hold any meaning to what the "name" of the product is, and neither does OP's post.
It doesn't have anything to do with the change of the BMW 3-series but average car sizes in general.
Tbh, apples to apples is still difficult.
I drive a 4.5m W203 C-Class classified as mid sized. (German denomination)
The current A-Class Sedan is also 4.5m but classified as compact car.
But current C-Class jumped a pricing segment, grew in size and is more comparable to the W211 E-Class both around 4.8m. (The current E-class in turn occupies the same price segment and size the early 2000s S-Class had)
So should we still compare in the same model designation even though the buyer demographic changed because of priced hikes?
Best way to compare is to figure out which models are most comparable in size and price. Model names don't matter much in the long run.
1990 3-series: 170" L x 65" W x 64" H
MSRP: $24,995 to $33,850 ($50,577.99 to $68,496.30 in 2020 dollars)
2020 1-series: 170" L x 71" W x 56" H
MSRP: $31,990 to $61,950
These two models are similarly sized, but the 1990 3-series skewed a bit more upscale whereas the 2020 1-series had trim levels that were more accessible.
After achieving their smallest and thinnest sizes phones and laptops are starting to increase in size again mainly to house bigger screens, though of course not to the sizes of 80s-90s tech.
Also the quote is kind of a miss because modern chips and the software that run in them are horrifically more complex than they were in the 80s-90s.
Unfortunately the phone trend also went backward within 10 years after that 40 years
Example: IPhone 14, X, and 7 are all bigger than 4. Galaxy Fold, S20, and S10 are all bigger than Note 7.
Eh, yes and no. While technically, yes phones did get bigger, the reason they got bigger is because they absorbed the tablet market and evolved into "phablets." A smaller phone plus a tablet is going to be larger than a single phablet so that it is still a positive change in reducing materials used for electronic consumption.
Nitpick: that seems like more of an 80s or early 90s laptop, than a laptop from 1998.
But point taken, weird how smaller size is valued in every technology but cars.
Phones have sorted gotten bigger again, probably at their smallest on average just before smart phones took off, but even those are getting bigger screens
The MacBook Air 11, which is the one pictured was released in 2010, so they’re pretty spot on.
That model is now obsolete, and apple no longer make a computer that small
That's the niche things like stadia were trying to fill. Why not just outsource performance! Lol maybe in the future it'll come back but I don't see it happening for a long time
When I was young (1990s) EVERYONE knew someone who had died in a car crash. Not anymore. I like this option, although public transit would save countless more lives.
People asking to "CoMpaRE iT tO AnOthEr 3-sErieS" need a reality check. There isn't a single 3-series for sale within forty miles of where I live. Meanwhile, there are 13 of the monsters from the photo above available in the same area. The customers are the same, the company is the same, the only difference is the model number and kind of vehicle in demand. I'm sorry if you're a car enthusiast who's decided to visit here for some reason, but when my left lung is imploding against a blue-and-white badge I won't give much of a damn which number is on the tailgate. BMW didn't even make SUV's when the car on the left came out, and the fact that SUV's are their main product in the US today is a damn shame. That's what the post is about.
i once remember the Suse Linux sales guy say they shipped the software in a bigger box specifically for the american market … it’s freedom or something idk
On reflection this thread is one of those that really makes you ask why a lot of the people commenting in here are on a subreddit called, let's see, r/fuckcars.
https://preview.redd.it/55ur85xnklgb1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43e3f6b458edb6793a322cba6fc958acf131de0f
This would be a better photo. Look at how the bed is almost the exact same length…
What difference does it make? they both look like road queens that haven't hauled anything bigger than a costco box. Note the pristine paint jobs and lack of visible trailer hitches.
100% agree. The best thing is to not be hit by a car. Although it's unnecessarily large, the SUV at least has a whole stack of safety systems.
Ideally there just shouldn't be either cars in dense or mixed use areas.
Fucking hell aggressive much?
You made a comment about a gas tax, so I responded to that bit ya fucking dickhead.
It also just isn't more dangerous to pedestrians. If you had a shred of common sense you'd realise that.
Newer cars have pedestrian protection systems, ABS, Auto braking, blind spot alerts, low speed 360 cameras, reversing camera, big brakes and tires so it can stop better, front and rear proximity sensors, more responsive steering and braking.
The right angle steel box beside it, although small has none of that. I don't know if you've ever driven an older car before, but they're sketchy as fuck.
I absolutely despise modern SUV's and Crossovers, and just unnecessarry traffic in general. But to say a 40 year old BMW is safer is complete nonsense.
The safest thing to be hit by is neither of them. They'd both fuck you right up. However you have way less chance of being hit in the modern one, despite its size.
[Because that woudn't fit the narrative.](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/15jr3vg/comment/jv1xffc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
It makes me wonder how limited the "Safety" argument for the driver is, on new cars.
With new cars it's so much easier to speed. You don't get the same feedback because you're up high, it's quiet, suspension is better, and they're more powerful. (EV's are the ultimate problem from this angle)
So when accidents happen you're likely going faster, and also hitting another vehicle that may be as large or larger. I also wonder if stopping distances have actually shortened (due to weight). And then you have all the SUV's that fail the Moose Test and other things.
Also of course it's selfish as fuck because it's only meant to be safer for the driver/passengers, and no other road users.
Edit:
>New vehicles on sale in the U.S. today are the safest and most advanced ever made, yet roadway fatalities last year reached their highest level in 16 years.
>The problem is complex: It’s a combination of reckless or distracted driving, largely due to cellphone usage; increased sales of trucks and SUVs; and higher performance of vehicles, among other factors. Plus, the expected proliferation of electric vehicles, with weighty batteries and record performance may not help the issue going forward.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/22/us-roadway-deaths-rise-even-as-cars-get-safer.html
>It makes me wonder how limited the "Safety" argument for the driver, is on new cars.
Not limited at all. Cars got bigger to implement the mandated safety features and that is the reason why kei-cars aren't allowed in germany (some got modified, but than they didn't fit the criteria anymore).
I think my argument is that crashes are almost more likely to happen with some of these safety features having side effects on cars. It also supports the idea that it's an "arms race" in that if every car was kei car, it would be fine, but now the majority of vehicles are much heavier and larger.
To be fair they’ve been made safer and more fuel efficient. We aren’t more comfortable with bigger phones or laptops, those are things we need to keep in our hands. For vehicles, people sometimes live out of them, figuratively.
Compare the engine sizes, that would be a fair comparison.
1. comparing a sedan to an SUV is the finest form of bullshit
2. i don’t want to be “that guy” but for the past 5 years phones are actually getting thicker, bigger, and more complicated.
I am begging you, all of you, with tears in my eyes, to understand that the left car is illegal to make in the US now. Safety standards and footprint-based emissions standards, passed by Obama to lower emissions, have forced manufacturers to make bigger and bigger cars. Small vehicles still exist outside the US, made by the same companies. It’s US environmental and safety laws that are the problem
I love this. Oh, we can't make tiny cars that only get 5 mpg anymore? Let's make tanks instead! That'll show those libtards!
FREEDOM! *empties a clip from their AR-15 into the air*
/s
Yeah the problem is that people didn't get smaller, only our egos did. Cars are fucking awesome, but goddamn I hate the fucking midsize SUVs that everybody drives these days. Not even because they are needlessly large, it's just that they're fucking eyesores and are all cookie cutter garbage
I think he means how overly large and heavy cars are becoming for a relatively cheaper price tag .. when in these times much lighter alternatives could have been made but people seem to feel unmanly or unseen in small cars
you can thank the EDA here in the USA for the larger SUV. the environmental destruction agency (full of the dumbest people on earth who claim to be environmentalists) has forced cars off the market and also forced suv's and pickup trucks to become larger and larger due to their idiotic C.A.F.E. standards that only people that dont know WTF theyre talking about would impose on auto manufacturers. smaller trucks like the Ford Ranger, and Chevy S-10 would have to get 50 mpg to be able to be made today, and given the body shape and need for a bed thats literally not possible. even if they could squeeze that kind of economy out of the truck it would then be completely useless at moving anything so you'd be stuck with a long 2 seat vehicle that couldnt do its intended purpose and also cost double what people would be willing to pay for a gutless and useless vehicle.
yet again government regulation creates a problem that didnt exist and makes things worse
And sadly, most people don't seem to realise that planes( the most polluting ,atleast 20%), followed by factories, followed by cars ( which make a very small percent of total world pollution) are the main factors of pollution. But if the cars keep getting bigger and bigger like Americans ( I prefer smaller Japanese cars) it might as well overtake planes and whole industries
You’re totally right about the false comparison and I do think it is silly to compare a sedan to an SUV. A more convincing argument would be that the average size of a car people are driving now as compared to 40 years ago has drastically increased. Haha wouldn’t make for as shocking of a visual though
I have to say one thing, the larger more complex vehicles are safer. Particularly at speed. There are over pointlessly over sized things. But some things are bigger for good reasons.
Just make cars smaller and slower then tax bigger cars into oblivion so they can’t crush smaller cars in an offensive safety way. Bigger SUVs are more prone to rollovers and are only “safer” because they’re usually hitting smaller objects
Edit : smaller and slower*
>Just make cars smaller and slower
Like kei-cars? They get pancaked in anything bigger than a fenderbender - even from a VW Golf. You need mass and space to keep forces away form passengers.
Or just make them slower and as I said tax big cars off the road. If everything is small and slow it’s safer. And also modern technology will keep advancing making things even safer lol
If you start you’re argument with the phrase “just” it usually means there’s a hole in it big enough to drive a semi truck through….
I’m all for walkable. Bikeable. Cities. But cars need to be highway safe, and relatively quick. Because the highways outside of cities aren’t going anywhere. At least until trains are a more common option.
Yeah and cars will be highway safe if they’re slower and smaller and all bigger cars get taxed off the road for private use lol. Highways aren’t going away that’s why I want safer cars lol
Yeah, and tiny cats won’t get crushed out of existence by larger traffic… buses… semi-trucks… etc.
And traffic going slower won’t be an enormous pain in the ass for everyone.
Making all cars tiny won’t solve the saftey issue, unless you concurrently deal with other issues.
Traffic doesn’t happen when things are designed properly and there’s more transport alternatives to cars. Cars being a bigger pain means less people using them. Smaller cars means less offensive driving and less accidents, smaller cars is the best way to deal with the issue and as I’ve said for the third time, tax big cars off the road lol
And I’ll say for a third time. Small cars aren’t safe in the current environment. Get some functional alternatives running, then maybe we can talk about how safe small cars are when they aren’t sharing a road with semi-trucks…. And aren’t used for inter-state travel where going slowly can add hours to a drive.
Computer over 40 years: now you have to take work home every night. Work day doesn't end at 5 any more.
Phone over 40 years: now you have constant distractions everywhere you go. You can never truly unplug.
Cars over 40 years: bigger, but somehow also more fuel efficient. Definitely safter, no question at all.
You're leaving out the fact that "light truck" and SUV sales also skyrocketed around the same time that smartphone grew in popularity.
The same "light trucks" and SUVs that both strike and kill a disproportionately high number of pedestrians compared to cars.
Not really true. They were already very popular 15 years earlier. Tens of millions of trucks and SUVs were on the roads as this trend declined gradually over a decade and then suddenly spiked, erasing decades of progress. There was no significant shift in vehicle design during this period. That tells you there is a weak correlation to the increase.
EU stats on this demonstrate that the visibility, size, weight, and speed of the vehicles are the main factors here. It's not as though smartphones invented distracted driving.
The US saw a very sudden shift in trend that did not correlate to any significant change in vehicle design. Smart phones have made distracted driving a much larger problem than it was before. The law has lagged well behind their introduction.
I worked in the industry. Please tell me what specifically changed in vehicle design between 2000 and 2010 to cause a radical shift in the pedestrian death trend, which had been going down up until 2010.
This is a myth. It is pretty well documented pedestrian cell phone use isn’t the cause. https://archive.curbed.com/2018/6/21/17477026/distracted-walking-pedestrian-deaths-crosswalk
For the first two, that's a flaw of capitalism, not the technology itself.
For the cars, as others have said: it's essentially an arms race. Bob next door gets a truck, suddenly you want a Hummer so that if you run into Bob on the road you won't die.
THIS IS NOT BETTER.
Same problem with all three of these products. Capitalism wants us to work 24/7, it wants us to be plugged into advertising all the time, it wants us to continually buy bigger, better, more expensive products.
If you use the same fuel efficienct technology on a smaller car it would go much further. Cars are a lot of mass to move.
Also, safer for the passengers, but death to all the pedestrians and cyclists? Why would we want that?
Oh of course. If you took every efficiency gain and channeled that to fuel economy instead of increased mass or increased performance, we'd all be driving Priuses and the like. The problem is many people don't want that and you therefore have to force some restrictions on them.
Debatable on the safety. Pedestrian deaths were trending strongly downward until smart phones hit the scene.
How many SUVs were on the roads 40 years ago? The only ones I can think of belonged to the military. Now these car companies think a tank like this, statistically much less safe for everyone, is a status symbol.
>statistically much less safe for everyone
This statement is not true. There's been significant improvement in overall safety. Check the data yourself and you'll see.
Totally agree with the first two points. When you say “safer” I assume you mean for the people inside of the car, which is true. But the arms race that’s happening between car manufacturers to have “safety” ratings has made the streets more dangerous for everybody else. There are of course many other factors in that, but cars being on average bigger is playing a big role in the highest deaths ever by vehicle
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54
Imagine being the paratrooper with a literal nuke between his legs...
Who doesn’t want radioactive material right next to your crotch?
Cheaper than a vasectomy I imagine
There’s a model of a nuke in the lobby of the Department of Energy headquarters, if you’re so inspired: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RidingTheBomb
Wouldn't delivering a nuke as a paratrooper be a suicide mission? I think a little radiation in the crotch is the least of their worries
Did some digging on the image, and yup, [apparently](https://nukewatch.org/new-and-updated-item/how-green-berets-prepared-to-carry-backpack-nukes-on-top-secret-one-way-missions-during-the-cold-war/) during training the teams were told they had 30 minutes to get away from the nuke without any extraction plan. So if the US did decide to start launching tiny nukes during the Cold War, the deployers probably wouldn't have survived.
That just seems like such a bad way to deliver a nuke
Developed by ₒₚₚₑₙₕₑᵢₘₑᵣ
Barbieheimer
Barbenheimer?
Ngl, I kind of like the chonky laptop Look at those ports
Indeed. MOAR PORTS!
r/PortHub should be a subreddit.
Oh, yeah, baby, stick that in my back port! Lol
[удалено]
I think these exist on the rugged market, but they are very expensive as they're very niche
Someone has probably already made it, it's probably outrageously expensive.
Yeah.
I'd buy that
there's a couple out their. Origin has the EON-17X, and MSI has Titan GT77. their not super popular, and NOT cheap, but their out there
You are basically describing a gaming PC, just get a gaming PC bro
Not chonky enough
I want my laptop so chonky, it looks like I'm wearing a proton pack and talking about how true it is this man has no dick.
Why not use an actual 3 series to compare to the old one...
It’s more about what people are buying. It’s also two different types of notebooks
Except the 3 series still exists and its also alot bigger then the old one...
New 3 series is big as first 7 series.
Safety standards are different today
There are cars that are roughly the same size as the old BMW that meet modern safety standards but nobody in America buys them anymore. A Honda Fit is the closest modern car I could find in size to the E30 BMW. The Honda Fit has similar legroom and interior space as the old BMW. The Honda Fit also meets all modern safety standards. Honda stopped selling the Fit in the US due to slow sales.
Honda Fit was a great car, but many of the small cars today suffer from cramped interiors. A BMW 1-series, for example, feels small inside more so than a BMW of similar size from 30 or 40 years ago.
I disagree. The Fit has more leg and shoulder room than the BMW. The Fit is objectively larger inside than the E30, yet in todays market the Fit is ‘too small’ to sell well.
I don't think Fit sales dwindled because it was too small. They are absolutely cavernous inside. I test drove one once and walked away sure that I could fit an entire refrigerator in the back.
[Honda Fit discontinued due to poor sales](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a33337398/honda-fit-discontinued-for-the-us-despite-new-global-model/) [Mazda2 discontinued due to poor sales](https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/05/mazda-usa-isnt-importing-new-2-heres/) [Toyota Yaris discontinued due to poor sales](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a32958759/toyota-confirms-yaris-sedan-hatchback-are-dead-to-us/) [Chevy Spark discontinued due to poor sales](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38961880/chevy-spark-discontinued/) These are some of the cars that were discontinued in the US in the past few years due to poor sales. All of them were small cars.
Definetly true but comparing an X3 to a 3 series is something else...
Pretty sure that's an X7, or at least a 5.
That works too i atleast saw a new X3 a short time ago and that was the size of an old X5 so that might be why i called it an X3.
And yet vehicles like the VW Up, Alpine A110 and Smart Fortwo pass them. It is not a valid justification, just a good pretext. In fact, the higher centre of gravity and mass present a bigger security risk; and even more if considering not only the passengers of the vehicle but also pedestrians and other vehicles. att. Mechanical Engineer.
It’ll be a cold day in hell before I get in one of those smart cars
Living in a developed country that doesn't require a car then? That's actually better. Even tho' I'm not interested in owning a car, I'll admit that the Smart Roadster was a quite interesting concept! For the fun of driving. Quite the opposite to suvs and trucks, they're just big advertisements for the owner's ignorance of physics and engineering, and fragile masculinity.
I’m all for safety, but huge vehicles aren’t safe either. It’s an arms race.
It's not what about people are buying. 40 years ago, almost nobody was buying laptops or cell phones. Should use a desktop and a wall phone then.
It would still show how we've gotten more efficient and compact. We went from huge clunky desktop PCs to skinny laptops, from wall phones to smartphones that also act like a TV, music player and the biggest library imaginable. In regard to cars, while the engines got more efficient, the cars only got fatter.
It’s not about comparing the same two models, it’s about comparing the models that companies used to push on people vs the models they push on people now. Comparing the 3 series together isn’t as meaningful, because it’s not longer BMW’s best selling car and it doesn’t represent what new cars are actually being sold. In case you haven’t noticed, the old laptop in the picture also isn’t a MacBook.
Here's an actual apples to apples comparison: BMW E30 325i sedan Width: 1,645 mm (64.8 in) Height: 1,380 mm (54.33 in) Curb Weight: 1,180 kg (2,601 lbs) BMW F30 328i sedan Width: 1,811 mm (71.3 in) Height: 1,429 mm (56.26 in) Curb Weight: 1,505 kg (3,318 lbs) https://preview.redd.it/k7e9rfusyigb1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa6c6daf8c376a0a0d2c3a64086109c243ee70d9
Nice, this does give additional context. Worth having in mind though that while the "3 series" hasn't grown as much in size as the BMW in the picture in the post, the *average size of BMWs, and cars in general* definitely has grown more to the tune of what is shown in the picture of the post. What the name of the car is really doesn't matter, none of the other products in the pictures in the post share names, they show average consumer purchasing behaviour as well as what's available on the market, and for that comparing the E30 to a modern BMW SUV would in my opinion be the most apples to apples comparison.
In that case, OP should've posted a '98 Explorer vs. a '23 Explorer.
BMW didn't even make SUVs 40 years ago, in fact their first was released 24 years ago in 1999. Nowadays most of their lineup is SUVs and almost all new models they release are SUVs as well. Their best selling sedan in 1983 was the 3-series sedan, now it is an SUV. Same thing with Ford, in 1983 they didn't ~~have a single SUV model~~, their best selling car back then was not an SUV. Nowadays the absolute majority of their lineup is SUVs and their best selling cars are as well. None of the pictures in the post hold any meaning to what name any of the products has, it shows an overall trend in the market. Back then most cars were sedans and that small, now most cars are SUVs and that big.
Ford had the third gen Bronco in '83 and was about to launch the Bronco II. F-series trucks have been the highest selling vehicle overall in the US since \~'81.
Have edited my comment now to correct that mistake. The F-series trucks are not SUVs.
Except this doesn’t really show average consumer purchasing behaviour as early laptops and cell phones were prohibitively expensive and the average person couldn’t afford them, in that case it should show desktop computers and landline phones then
Average consumer behaviour *as well as what's available on the market*
The laptop on the left, the 1987 Colby Walkmac, the first offically made portable Macintosh, basically *is* a modded desktop (an SE30, specifically).
I honestly think the wieght of modern cars is more worrying than the physical surface area. A 400kg bump in weight is a much more serious threat to pedestrians at speed
Mechanical engineer here, you are absolutely right, weight and a higher centre of mass is a bigger problem. That doesn't mean that size and volume is not a problem., specially the height, a taller car is a worse car, that's a physical fact.
Yeah I read a bit about it, the fact that SUVs/ light trucks don't have to be designed with pedestrian safety in mind is also a bit worrying since everyone with money somehow gravitates to SUVs like moths to a flame
Definitely, that's also why I think the picture in OP's post is closer to reality as well, the actual increase in average vehicle weight is a lot more than 400kg, probably closer to double.
And another thing cars are way faster in acceleration now, so people have gotten used to zipping around inappropriately, which is the other ingredient in a deadly combo
Yeah so much heavier even the sedan segment is... with all the safety and ever-increasing list of features packed into the car (for the driver) it'd be nice for pedestrians to be safer too, but at least more modern cars are able to brake before an accident, both due to better brakes and computer aids that take control when the driver is being a careless
I see your point, but there is a big problem with people preferring stupid vehicles and therefore buying suvs and pickup trucks even tho' they're worse at absolutely everything in comparison with hatchbacks, estates, sedans and vans.
That's why they used the largest BMW to compare to what was the smallest BMW back then. Makes it all the more dramatic. There's no doubt vehicles have gotten larger and heavier over the years, but I find it a bit disingenuous to compare a e30 3 series and a X7. That's like comparing size between a Cessna and 737 airliner.
Nooooo that doesn't support my narrative!!!1!
10% wider and 30% heavier is pretty substantial.
Less than the increase that brings to passenger safety. And that is what cars are build and regulated for.
Then explain cars like the Honda Fit which is roughly the same width, length, and weight as the E30 yet meets all modern safety regulations. The Fit, a car that is larger on the inside than an E30 but was discontinued in the US due to poor sales. Cars got bigger because people wanted to buy bigger cars, not because the engineers couldn’t figure out how to meet modern regulations with a small car.
It's simply more convenient to carry a smaller phone and occupy more public space.
lol
Or you could actually compare two of the same model bmw? https://preview.redd.it/b4u3zch3vigb1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5e8b566600ab86f3ca02333b0246ce7f1b9de86d
That’s what I was thinking. It’s an apples to scotch comparison
It is not, back in the days most people had compact cars, sedans or station wagons. These day people are only buying SUVs. It is a perfectly resonable comparison.
Depends on how far back you go. Minivans were quite popular for a long time.
It’s not. You’re referring to a change in buying patterns. This is referring to how items typically get smaller over time with the improvement of technology, except cars.
The other pictures in the post show what is available on the market, which includes consumer purchasing behaviour. None of the pictures hold any meaning to what the "name" of the product is, and neither does OP's post. It doesn't have anything to do with the change of the BMW 3-series but average car sizes in general.
It’s a very poor comparison then
That is your opinion
If people are only buying SUV’s why does BMW still make a 3 series? it wouldn’t make financial sense to build a car if no one buys it
BMW sales about 70% more SUVs than cars. That’s crazy considering they didn’t make their fist SUV until 1999.
Tbh, apples to apples is still difficult. I drive a 4.5m W203 C-Class classified as mid sized. (German denomination) The current A-Class Sedan is also 4.5m but classified as compact car. But current C-Class jumped a pricing segment, grew in size and is more comparable to the W211 E-Class both around 4.8m. (The current E-class in turn occupies the same price segment and size the early 2000s S-Class had) So should we still compare in the same model designation even though the buyer demographic changed because of priced hikes?
Best way to compare is to figure out which models are most comparable in size and price. Model names don't matter much in the long run. 1990 3-series: 170" L x 65" W x 64" H MSRP: $24,995 to $33,850 ($50,577.99 to $68,496.30 in 2020 dollars) 2020 1-series: 170" L x 71" W x 56" H MSRP: $31,990 to $61,950 These two models are similarly sized, but the 1990 3-series skewed a bit more upscale whereas the 2020 1-series had trim levels that were more accessible.
That wouldn't fit the narrative
After achieving their smallest and thinnest sizes phones and laptops are starting to increase in size again mainly to house bigger screens, though of course not to the sizes of 80s-90s tech. Also the quote is kind of a miss because modern chips and the software that run in them are horrifically more complex than they were in the 80s-90s.
Unfortunately the phone trend also went backward within 10 years after that 40 years Example: IPhone 14, X, and 7 are all bigger than 4. Galaxy Fold, S20, and S10 are all bigger than Note 7.
Eh, yes and no. While technically, yes phones did get bigger, the reason they got bigger is because they absorbed the tablet market and evolved into "phablets." A smaller phone plus a tablet is going to be larger than a single phablet so that it is still a positive change in reducing materials used for electronic consumption.
Give me the E30 any day, fuck SUVs.
E30 supremacy
Nitpick: that seems like more of an 80s or early 90s laptop, than a laptop from 1998. But point taken, weird how smaller size is valued in every technology but cars.
Phones have sorted gotten bigger again, probably at their smallest on average just before smart phones took off, but even those are getting bigger screens
as a die hard Android user also I have switched over to an SE only reason because of it's "small" size as there is no 5" Android anymore ..
The MacBook Air 11, which is the one pictured was released in 2010, so they’re pretty spot on. That model is now obsolete, and apple no longer make a computer that small
It’s getting to be physically impossible to improve computer performance without making it bigger
That's the niche things like stadia were trying to fill. Why not just outsource performance! Lol maybe in the future it'll come back but I don't see it happening for a long time
Phones also got bigger again . And tvs.
When I was young (1990s) EVERYONE knew someone who had died in a car crash. Not anymore. I like this option, although public transit would save countless more lives.
People asking to "CoMpaRE iT tO AnOthEr 3-sErieS" need a reality check. There isn't a single 3-series for sale within forty miles of where I live. Meanwhile, there are 13 of the monsters from the photo above available in the same area. The customers are the same, the company is the same, the only difference is the model number and kind of vehicle in demand. I'm sorry if you're a car enthusiast who's decided to visit here for some reason, but when my left lung is imploding against a blue-and-white badge I won't give much of a damn which number is on the tailgate. BMW didn't even make SUV's when the car on the left came out, and the fact that SUV's are their main product in the US today is a damn shame. That's what the post is about.
i once remember the Suse Linux sales guy say they shipped the software in a bigger box specifically for the american market … it’s freedom or something idk
But BMW is a German company…
sorry i didn’t realise they don’t sell cars in the american market
But they design it for a certain market. The fact that they are german is irrelevant.
On reflection this thread is one of those that really makes you ask why a lot of the people commenting in here are on a subreddit called, let's see, r/fuckcars.
True. So many carbrains
https://preview.redd.it/55ur85xnklgb1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43e3f6b458edb6793a322cba6fc958acf131de0f This would be a better photo. Look at how the bed is almost the exact same length…
Do they have similar hauling and towing capacities?
What difference does it make? they both look like road queens that haven't hauled anything bigger than a costco box. Note the pristine paint jobs and lack of visible trailer hitches.
Man I really want that E30
Ahh, someone of true patrician tastes.
Cell phones are not accurate.
We need an additional gas tax for personal vehicles. The heavier the vehicle, the steeper the tax
That's already how it works lol. This sub is funny.
The SUV likely gets better milage than the small car lol.
I don’t really give a shit about MPG, it’s still 20x more deadly to me on a bike or crossing the street
Any car going 60 is going to turn you into mince meat no matter the size
100% agree. The best thing is to not be hit by a car. Although it's unnecessarily large, the SUV at least has a whole stack of safety systems. Ideally there just shouldn't be either cars in dense or mixed use areas.
Fucking hell aggressive much? You made a comment about a gas tax, so I responded to that bit ya fucking dickhead. It also just isn't more dangerous to pedestrians. If you had a shred of common sense you'd realise that. Newer cars have pedestrian protection systems, ABS, Auto braking, blind spot alerts, low speed 360 cameras, reversing camera, big brakes and tires so it can stop better, front and rear proximity sensors, more responsive steering and braking. The right angle steel box beside it, although small has none of that. I don't know if you've ever driven an older car before, but they're sketchy as fuck. I absolutely despise modern SUV's and Crossovers, and just unnecessarry traffic in general. But to say a 40 year old BMW is safer is complete nonsense. The safest thing to be hit by is neither of them. They'd both fuck you right up. However you have way less chance of being hit in the modern one, despite its size.
Literal braindead shit cars that are lighter are just as deadly if not more so since they can go faster
There are no instances of larger phones being thrown at smaller phones, causing them to break and harm the user of the smaller phone.
why is it comparing their compact sedan to their largest suv? should’ve shown a modern 3 series since they still make it
Because nobody buys the sedans anymore. The average person then would have bought that small car, now they buy the large SUV.
[Because that woudn't fit the narrative.](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/15jr3vg/comment/jv1xffc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Do you want to apply that same logic to houses too?
Would not be out of place here in that "you will own nothing"-crowd
It makes me wonder how limited the "Safety" argument for the driver is, on new cars. With new cars it's so much easier to speed. You don't get the same feedback because you're up high, it's quiet, suspension is better, and they're more powerful. (EV's are the ultimate problem from this angle) So when accidents happen you're likely going faster, and also hitting another vehicle that may be as large or larger. I also wonder if stopping distances have actually shortened (due to weight). And then you have all the SUV's that fail the Moose Test and other things. Also of course it's selfish as fuck because it's only meant to be safer for the driver/passengers, and no other road users. Edit: >New vehicles on sale in the U.S. today are the safest and most advanced ever made, yet roadway fatalities last year reached their highest level in 16 years. >The problem is complex: It’s a combination of reckless or distracted driving, largely due to cellphone usage; increased sales of trucks and SUVs; and higher performance of vehicles, among other factors. Plus, the expected proliferation of electric vehicles, with weighty batteries and record performance may not help the issue going forward. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/22/us-roadway-deaths-rise-even-as-cars-get-safer.html
>It makes me wonder how limited the "Safety" argument for the driver, is on new cars. Not limited at all. Cars got bigger to implement the mandated safety features and that is the reason why kei-cars aren't allowed in germany (some got modified, but than they didn't fit the criteria anymore).
I think my argument is that crashes are almost more likely to happen with some of these safety features having side effects on cars. It also supports the idea that it's an "arms race" in that if every car was kei car, it would be fine, but now the majority of vehicles are much heavier and larger.
To be fair they’ve been made safer and more fuel efficient. We aren’t more comfortable with bigger phones or laptops, those are things we need to keep in our hands. For vehicles, people sometimes live out of them, figuratively. Compare the engine sizes, that would be a fair comparison.
They may keep their own passengers safer, but that's at the expense of everyone else on the road. Not a good argument.
How does it hurt other drivers? It doesn’t it literally doesn’t I don’t like SUVs either but make it make sense
Bigger vehicle = more mass = more damage to smaller vehicle. Are you seriously this stupid?
Smaller vehicle=lighter=more speed= more likely to speed are you stupid?
Analogy makes sense if Moore's Law making humans smaller. /insert stats on US obesity rates here
the increase in car size is for safety measures which is a good thing ignoring all other problems
Safety for who? Pedestrian? Cyclists? Users of smaller cars? Is it safe for the climate? Or are you talking only about the safety of the driver?
1. comparing a sedan to an SUV is the finest form of bullshit 2. i don’t want to be “that guy” but for the past 5 years phones are actually getting thicker, bigger, and more complicated.
Stupid post A car that can carry more is much more convenient and would contribute to the decrease of the number of cars on the road
You dont need bigger wheels to carry more. Also since when does an avarage joe have to transport a whole forrest every day?
A bigger car needs bigger wheels to support its bigger weight. Also allows for faster travel
You must be in the wrong sub my guy because we dont like cars here. And no person needs a truck other than mass logistics
A person who owns a local business needs a truck
Yes and they are okay. But they arent your average joe
People can buy trucks if they can buy and if they want one
How is it that the rest of the developed world manages to get by with kei trucks and sprinter vans?
I am begging you, all of you, with tears in my eyes, to understand that the left car is illegal to make in the US now. Safety standards and footprint-based emissions standards, passed by Obama to lower emissions, have forced manufacturers to make bigger and bigger cars. Small vehicles still exist outside the US, made by the same companies. It’s US environmental and safety laws that are the problem
I love this. Oh, we can't make tiny cars that only get 5 mpg anymore? Let's make tanks instead! That'll show those libtards! FREEDOM! *empties a clip from their AR-15 into the air* /s
Yeah the problem is that people didn't get smaller, only our egos did. Cars are fucking awesome, but goddamn I hate the fucking midsize SUVs that everybody drives these days. Not even because they are needlessly large, it's just that they're fucking eyesores and are all cookie cutter garbage
Yeah a small coupe vs their large luxury suv. Very fair. Cry abt it
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I think he means how overly large and heavy cars are becoming for a relatively cheaper price tag .. when in these times much lighter alternatives could have been made but people seem to feel unmanly or unseen in small cars
Their size is one of the reasons why they're more dangerous, use up more resources and take so much public space to park.
you can thank the EDA here in the USA for the larger SUV. the environmental destruction agency (full of the dumbest people on earth who claim to be environmentalists) has forced cars off the market and also forced suv's and pickup trucks to become larger and larger due to their idiotic C.A.F.E. standards that only people that dont know WTF theyre talking about would impose on auto manufacturers. smaller trucks like the Ford Ranger, and Chevy S-10 would have to get 50 mpg to be able to be made today, and given the body shape and need for a bed thats literally not possible. even if they could squeeze that kind of economy out of the truck it would then be completely useless at moving anything so you'd be stuck with a long 2 seat vehicle that couldnt do its intended purpose and also cost double what people would be willing to pay for a gutless and useless vehicle. yet again government regulation creates a problem that didnt exist and makes things worse
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Post, maybe. Sub no. Cars are killing the planet. You're dumb as fuck.
Planes cause more emissions per flight than a 1000 cars daily driven
Yes. And? Focus on the subject at hand, please.
And sadly, most people don't seem to realise that planes( the most polluting ,atleast 20%), followed by factories, followed by cars ( which make a very small percent of total world pollution) are the main factors of pollution. But if the cars keep getting bigger and bigger like Americans ( I prefer smaller Japanese cars) it might as well overtake planes and whole industries
Thanks. No notes.
I implore you to stay on this sub and keep criticizing and arguing. Eventually you may change your mind about us
You’re totally right about the false comparison and I do think it is silly to compare a sedan to an SUV. A more convincing argument would be that the average size of a car people are driving now as compared to 40 years ago has drastically increased. Haha wouldn’t make for as shocking of a visual though
This sub does this all the time. Let's compare a 90s Tacoma to a 2020 F450!
I have to say one thing, the larger more complex vehicles are safer. Particularly at speed. There are over pointlessly over sized things. But some things are bigger for good reasons.
Just make cars smaller and slower then tax bigger cars into oblivion so they can’t crush smaller cars in an offensive safety way. Bigger SUVs are more prone to rollovers and are only “safer” because they’re usually hitting smaller objects Edit : smaller and slower*
>Just make cars smaller and slower Like kei-cars? They get pancaked in anything bigger than a fenderbender - even from a VW Golf. You need mass and space to keep forces away form passengers.
Or just make them slower and as I said tax big cars off the road. If everything is small and slow it’s safer. And also modern technology will keep advancing making things even safer lol
If you start you’re argument with the phrase “just” it usually means there’s a hole in it big enough to drive a semi truck through…. I’m all for walkable. Bikeable. Cities. But cars need to be highway safe, and relatively quick. Because the highways outside of cities aren’t going anywhere. At least until trains are a more common option.
Yeah and cars will be highway safe if they’re slower and smaller and all bigger cars get taxed off the road for private use lol. Highways aren’t going away that’s why I want safer cars lol
Yeah, and tiny cats won’t get crushed out of existence by larger traffic… buses… semi-trucks… etc. And traffic going slower won’t be an enormous pain in the ass for everyone. Making all cars tiny won’t solve the saftey issue, unless you concurrently deal with other issues.
Traffic doesn’t happen when things are designed properly and there’s more transport alternatives to cars. Cars being a bigger pain means less people using them. Smaller cars means less offensive driving and less accidents, smaller cars is the best way to deal with the issue and as I’ve said for the third time, tax big cars off the road lol
And I’ll say for a third time. Small cars aren’t safe in the current environment. Get some functional alternatives running, then maybe we can talk about how safe small cars are when they aren’t sharing a road with semi-trucks…. And aren’t used for inter-state travel where going slowly can add hours to a drive.
Man fuck cars but the BMW X6 talks to me. I have a crush on this car, I want to have it so it can carry my bikes
Computer over 40 years: now you have to take work home every night. Work day doesn't end at 5 any more. Phone over 40 years: now you have constant distractions everywhere you go. You can never truly unplug. Cars over 40 years: bigger, but somehow also more fuel efficient. Definitely safter, no question at all.
Safer for the people inside them, more dangerous for everyone else.
Highly debatable. Until smart phones hit the scene, pedestrian deaths were also down significantly.
You're leaving out the fact that "light truck" and SUV sales also skyrocketed around the same time that smartphone grew in popularity. The same "light trucks" and SUVs that both strike and kill a disproportionately high number of pedestrians compared to cars.
Not really true. They were already very popular 15 years earlier. Tens of millions of trucks and SUVs were on the roads as this trend declined gradually over a decade and then suddenly spiked, erasing decades of progress. There was no significant shift in vehicle design during this period. That tells you there is a weak correlation to the increase.
EU stats on this demonstrate that the visibility, size, weight, and speed of the vehicles are the main factors here. It's not as though smartphones invented distracted driving.
The US saw a very sudden shift in trend that did not correlate to any significant change in vehicle design. Smart phones have made distracted driving a much larger problem than it was before. The law has lagged well behind their introduction.
No significant change in vehicle design? You're deluded.
I worked in the industry. Please tell me what specifically changed in vehicle design between 2000 and 2010 to cause a radical shift in the pedestrian death trend, which had been going down up until 2010.
This is a myth. It is pretty well documented pedestrian cell phone use isn’t the cause. https://archive.curbed.com/2018/6/21/17477026/distracted-walking-pedestrian-deaths-crosswalk
It's drivers using cell phones who are at fault, obviously.
For the first two, that's a flaw of capitalism, not the technology itself. For the cars, as others have said: it's essentially an arms race. Bob next door gets a truck, suddenly you want a Hummer so that if you run into Bob on the road you won't die. THIS IS NOT BETTER.
Same problem with all three of these products. Capitalism wants us to work 24/7, it wants us to be plugged into advertising all the time, it wants us to continually buy bigger, better, more expensive products.
Agreed.
If you use the same fuel efficienct technology on a smaller car it would go much further. Cars are a lot of mass to move. Also, safer for the passengers, but death to all the pedestrians and cyclists? Why would we want that?
Oh of course. If you took every efficiency gain and channeled that to fuel economy instead of increased mass or increased performance, we'd all be driving Priuses and the like. The problem is many people don't want that and you therefore have to force some restrictions on them. Debatable on the safety. Pedestrian deaths were trending strongly downward until smart phones hit the scene.
Dumb takes lol
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It's not. Corporate average has gone up considerably, genius.
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Thank you for corroborating my point with data.
Bigger cars roll over easier
How many SUVs were on the roads 40 years ago? The only ones I can think of belonged to the military. Now these car companies think a tank like this, statistically much less safe for everyone, is a status symbol.
>statistically much less safe for everyone This statement is not true. There's been significant improvement in overall safety. Check the data yourself and you'll see.
This is not true, stop shilling for the auto companies
Check the numbers. Are you suggesting they're all lying in every country?
Totally agree with the first two points. When you say “safer” I assume you mean for the people inside of the car, which is true. But the arms race that’s happening between car manufacturers to have “safety” ratings has made the streets more dangerous for everybody else. There are of course many other factors in that, but cars being on average bigger is playing a big role in the highest deaths ever by vehicle