There's more on each of these points + how on earth we start to unravel this mess in the article, but suffice it to say: never let anyone tell you that Americans drive huge cars just because "they love them." Some of them do? But that "love" is downstream of so many structural forces. /🧵

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These bloated vehicles take up too much space on the road. They take up more parking on street parking-only roads. Bicyclists can't fit past them. They are terrible all around.

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When *enough* high-status people drive huge cars, they also become a symbol...which, IMO, is where consumer demand creeps back in, albeit not in the way we usually talk about it. That's Reason #6: mega-car culture, sometimes called "petro-masculinity."

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And then there's Reason #5: The fucking tax code. A surprising number of small business owners are eligible for the so-called "G-Wagon Loophole" to buy "work vehicles", with stronger incentives to buy light trucks over smaller cars ... even if you're, say, a realtor rather than a farmer.

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"But used cars still exist, right? We can just pick up a small one of those!" Aside from the dwindling supply as the market tilts to SUVs, though, we have Reason #4: the "SUV arms race." AKA: everyone's terrified of getting crushed unless they're in the biggest car on the road.

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