Small EVs and efficient people carriers update familiar names for the modern age.
Made for the civilized streets of Europe, not the kill-or-be-killed Mad Max hellscape of the the automotive United States.
Edit: Are we making an exception for Rome?
Tell me you have never been oversea’s (let alone drove there) without telling me you have never been overseas.
Everywhere in the world people drive like ass hats. It part of the human condition.
Yes, but the problem in the US is we have several generations of cars built to be “safe” for the driver, which means more dangerous for everyone else, meaning drivers of large vehicles drive wrecklessly with absolutely no fear for their own lives and aren’t removed from the gene pool.
I was driving from coast to coast in the US granted, a good while ago when there were still much fewer ass clown oversized trucks on the road (but still more than enough anyhow), in a Sedan. Didn’t feel too stressed to be honest. Where it gets really dangerous real fast is if you dare to walk anywhere outside of the few somewhat pedestrian friendly areas in the country.
I just sorta assumed this was true (in no small part because I accept xkcd as infallible gospel). But I was curious and just dug into it, and it appears that the fatality rate for accidents with injury in the US is among the lowest. And while the accident-with-injury rate is higher in the US than the combined EU + EFTA it’s not so different as to change this relationship. I really didn’t expect that, and I wish I could find more recent data to see how the trend has changed up to today (the best data I could find on this was from 2015 - which is well into the era of the US fixation on suburban combat vehicles, but as they may make up a higher % of all vehicles on the road now, I’m very curious to see what the current data shows)
(Chart in spoiler because I don't want to clutter up the thread:)
The report this is pulled from excludes non-injury MV accidents
This is heavily dependent on incident report rates. Incidents are underreported in countries where insurance doesn’t require police reports and/or litigation risk is much lower.
Deaths are pretty well recorded, and there you see that the US is much higher in vehicle deaths per capita. Deaths per billion vehicle-km is also useful, as you can argue that per capita the US drives a lot more, so you will see more incidents due to the traffic exposure being higher.
Summarizing: The US has well over twice as many traffic deaths per capita at 110+ vs 45 in the EU. The worst EU country is Romania with 78. The US is closer when you compare kms driven: about 7 deaths per billion km, still way higher than northern Europe (2-4) and about on par with Belgium (that’s unfortunately not something to be proud of). Quite a bit safer than the lower scoring countries though on that metric, like 14.4 for the Czech Republic.
deleted by creator
(I addressed per-captia deaths vs. distance driven in another comment earlier, I do quite agree)
I think averaging the rates across the EU is a counterproductive, or outright obfuscating, metric. While it is a basis for comparison, the data varies so wildly from country to country it serves only to obscure the realities of the situation. The report I’m sourcing from does make it clear that countries may be underreporting their accident rates:
The comparability of data is also subject to differences in road accident reporting standards. Notably, the number of accidents and the number of injuries may be underreported in some countries due to administrative or practical limitations.
And the cited article from that section is quite interesting. In particular,
For estimations of the real volumes it is not necessary to have all accidents reported by the police. By using other sources, such as cause of death statistics and medical and insurance databases, it is possible to get a more accurate assessment. These additional databases can also provide supplementary information on accidents or the outcome of an accident, including the types and severity of injuries.
which does appear to be how CARE is sourcing their data (although their dashboard is some godawful Qlik thing so I was not able to determine sources for all of their metrics)
Twice as many road deaths in the US IIRC.
FYI people drive wildly differently in the EU already.
Per capita yes - but as so often in statistics, per-capita measures are an oversimplification. By deaths/km driven, the US isn’t a particular outlier (Top score is Mexico with 27.5 (!!!) deaths / 1bil km, then #2: Malaysia with 16.2 and #3: South Korea with 8.2. Other countries of interest are Belgium (7.3), New Zealand (7.2), US (6.9), France (5.8), Australia (4.9), Canada (4.3))
(source)
Taxi drivers take it to the next level tho. First time I rode a taxi in Tallinn was pretty white knuckle.
Guangzhou, China takes the cake. I was there for a few weeks. Wrong side of the road, wrong way on one way streets, ON THE FUCKING SIDEWALKS w/ ped traffic. It was insane!
Dominican Republic is a distant second, there was order to the chaos I could see after a few weeks… China it was pure entropy at its finest!
Guangzhou isn’t that bad, have you been there recently?
I learned to ride in Hanoi, I spent a year in various parts of vietnam and was very comfortable in SEA traffic on a bike.
None of that prepared me for the chaos of HCMC. People going the wrong way, people visibly drunk on bikes, randomly finding yourself surrounded by semis on cracked and broken pavement, you and 20 other bikes making offroad detours to get around cars.
Not since Xi showed up, from what I heard China has really cracked down on the shenanigans plus they put up bollards to prevent it.
Probably, but I wouldn’t overstate it, like there aren’t cars driving at speed on sidewalks, but its not like western countries where cars simply don’t drive or park in sidewalks. Bicycles and escooters still drive however they like, which imo is fine, since they’re so much less dangerous than cars, but it is different from further north. Its a but of a transition when you go further north and remember you’re not supposed to walk or ride your bike across moving traffic.
Motorcycles are banned outright, which is bullshit.
Heres a cat I saw last night:
Its wild how many parts of the world outlaw motorcycles. As a rider too I feel for the locals…
And that cat it too dang cure, all tuckered out guarding the store :) Too dang cute!!!
Did you know that the highway scene in Tenet was filmed in one take and entirely accidentally? They just built the film around that.
Nah, on average, people in Europe are way better drivers than in the USA. To the point where it’s shocking to me as an American.
But only in Germany the Hilti Pasat is trying to breake any speed record om existence
Well, they drive better in Germany than in France, Italy, or Bulgaria (from my personal experience).
Rome is easy mode… farther south it starts to look like GTA on a slow day
Further north is an impossible quest if you are a pedestrian
civilized streets of Europe
Prolly better than USA but i’d not call any Italian street “civilized”
The E-T16 has 818 hp and torque vectoring.
That car looks like it was taken from cyberpunk or something
Looks more Cyberpunk than the Cybertruck.
The Cybertruck isn’t cyberpunk, it’s tacky and not at all punk.
Cybertruck
Isn’t that the plastic car with some stainless steel glued onto it?
Shit that’s cool. Of course america can’t have it. We get f 150s. Fucking yay.
Makes me remember rally class B.
Another thing americans cannot understand.
Why does a car need 805hp for public roads.
Does it need it? No. Do I want it? Yes.
Can you handle it ? No.
How do you know ramenshaman can’t handle that much horsepower? Is it a lot? Yes. Is it ludicrous? Not really.
Most importantly, it’s computer controlled, being completely electric, so unless they really shit the bed on the software, it should be fine. Not like literal explosions and rotating mass controlled by software
Guy guess here; with efficient electric motors, huge numbers come basically free. Larger number sounds better so might as well go for it.
Can you bullseye womp-rats in this T-16 back home?
Holy shit balls… don’t mind my drool
For a second I thought this was a proper super hatchback but the pic with it next to people makes it look huge.
Those people are in the background though. If you go off the wheel size for scale and estimate it to be around 20", the car is only 2x the height of the wheels, so not that big. Something small like that would be amazing with 800HP.
Yeah it’s hard to tell the scale here. I was guessing these wheels were larger than 20" just based on how crazy the design is, but I certainly hope you’re right and it’s actually compact.
Oh, I like this one!
Fully electric, and affordable, so of course Americans aren’t allowed to have them.
It’s freedom! We’re free to not be permitted to buy certain car brands.
Real competition would ruin their share dividends.
Even if they could have them, they wouldn’t want them. My family has a small EV and we love it, but 80% of cars sold in the US are SUVs and trucks. The Ford Motor Company does not even make a passenger car anymore (with the small exception of the Mustang, a muscle car they sell in small numbers).
It’s sad.
Have they stopped making the Escord, Focus and Fiesta? Those have always been incredibly popular cars in Europe.
But checking their website, I don’t see any of them. Now it’s the Puma, Kuga, Explorer, and apparently the Capri is back! Also an electric Mustang and the current van is called Tourneo. (And the Mustang is listed as an SUV.) (Maybe the Tourneo is an “SUV inspired car”, but there seem to be two completely different cars with that name.)
But Ford sells completely different cars in Europe than in the US. That’s why they’re the one American car company that’s very successful in Europe.
No one in the US makes those budget entry level cars anymore. No Honda Civic or Fit. No Nissan Versa. Certainly no Ford Escort or Fiesta. It’s just not a category any of the companies care about serving anymore. It used to be that companies would lose money on their entry level car to win your brand loyalty. Mose money on a Corolla so that someday you get even more back on a Lexus. But apparently ain’t nobody got time for that anymore.
As far as I know they stopped making the Fiesta a while ago, the Focus is still being offered in Europe. I think they might still sell the Ka in Brazil as a small car but obviously nowhere else.
Yeah, the Capri is back in name only. Updated for the current market by being an electric SUV…
Edit: just looked it up and not only does Ford not sell the Ka in Brazil anymore, they don’t sell the Focus at all anymore. What a shame.
And it is a sign that fuel is still too cheap in the US, even today, also, that people don’t care about others, not even about the safety and life of others.
The US is a big place with many responsible, caring people in it, so it can’t be characterized all in one stroke. But when this goes wrong, it goes really wrong.
Many are actually allergic to the idea that they are even supposed to care about others. “I’m not my brother’s keeper” is a prominent attitude here.
They see this as an impingement upon their freedom. Like having a deadbeat relative you’re stuck taking care of for the rest of your life. That kind of burden.
They have some notion of family and community but it’s very local, and I mean just the people in their lives. Anything beyond that turns into 1984 for them. Not agreeing with them, mind you, just describing.
I mean egoism of that kind is not limited to the US and to some extend also part if human nature but it is shocking indeed when not needlessly endangering the very life of others, ifte neighbours or schoolgirls and boys in the owwn neighbourhood us considered 1984 style oppression or infringement on freedom. As if if there was a freedom to harm others.
A mustang is not a muscle car, it literally created it’s own group of cars called pony cars
0 Days without Americans making everything about them
I mean… it’s an American website, not surprising to have an American point of view. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Google is telling me that Lemmy was founded in the UK. And it’s a decentralized federated service. How is it an American website?
He’s referring to Ars Technica you box of rocks.
I’m adding this to my unironic obscure insults list.
Happy to contribute!
Oops, my bad. No need to be mean about it. It was an honest question.
lmao I’m sorry. I tend to respond with the energy I’ve been given and this week Lemmy has been giving me lots of rude BS.
No worries. Hopefully next week treats you better!
I don’t think this site will return to normal until the US midterms are over, but I’ll try to be less of a dick until then.
my take on this is that whoever wrote this doesn’t know that there’s ~190 additional countries that don’t have these cars.
deleted by creator
The French have the best-looking Ev’s by far
Ev’s
EVs. Save the apostrophes from over-harvesting.
Just leave my Eevees alone.
Why? Not looking for a Jolteon? Vaporeon?
Nobody wants to over harvest Eevees! Not sure their population could handle it any further! They (and their evos) are already like a top 10 favorite Pokémon.
I prefer cycles but to each their own.
The EV possess the by
Ye’s, grocer’s everywhere appreciate 'saving the apo’strophe’s for their u’se. :)
False:
The Fiat Multipla Is Back
https://insideevs.com/news/811536/fiat-multiplay-concept-modular-suv-minivan/
Damn they somehow made it look more ugly and way less fun
Holy fuck, leave it to Fiat to make the next gen ugliest car
The original one is the only car that made it to both extremes on the top gear cool wall.
Good. The nineties Multipla may have been fugly thing, but it was fun, comfortable, super roomy and still drove like a hot hatch, especially in the upper trims. It’s the family car people should be demanding.
Integrated into the dash is a hidden display that is invisible when the car is switched off, emphasizing the concept’s back-to-basics ethos.
There is no car interior design choice I hate more than fold-away screens on the dash. It’s basically the car maker saying “we couldn’t figure out how to make this screen not look like a cheap tacked-on aftermarket peice of shit, so we’ll hide it when you’re not around so it looks good for passers-by but you’ll still need to deal with it”. If Fiat have “solved” that then more power to them.
Everyone hates the Multipla, but they sold over 400,000 of them.
That’s Italian, and if you’re falling for the Multipla trap again that’s on you.
The Multipla, the car everyone hates, and everyone bought.
Still looks better than a cyber truck.
I’m in the US, you can have any EV you want as long as it is a half baked crossover. What I really want is a maximally efficient low slung aerodynamic wagon.
It’s all fucking junk. Everybody here wants a giant tank, I hate it.
I’m a Chevy Bolt EUV driver. This 100%. I’m in the market for a mini van and want something electric. Nothing except the VW Buzz exists.
Fat people want fat cars.
Let them walk
Or like Henry Ford had it: you can choose any color you want as long as it is black.
(Wasn’t he a nazi sympathiser BTW?)
There are a few electric wagons in the USA, but they are really expensive
There are more than double the amount of car makers available to choose from in the EU vs the US, gas and electric.
Because were dozens of countries, not just 1.
It has its backsides too ofc.
I’m not sure how the “multiple countries” has anything to do with the regulatory and economic entity that is the EU that also makes carve-outs to protect local manufacturers. The cars available are not just European makers that suddenly became available to everyone because of the EU, there are tons of cars from Korea, China, and the US as well that somone living in Europe has the option to buy.
backsides? There is no perfect system.
Many countries had their own car brands because we’re historically split up.
We do integrate (other countries too) more and more now though, especially with the EU, but history changes slowly.
Isn’t that always the case?
You will drive your 15 liter Ford f150000 baby killer MAX-CAB™ big weiner edition and you will like it, mister!
🦅🦅🦅
You will drive your 15 liter
Aaaaand you lost them
I mean, we do measure engine displacement in liters
Why not in something more relatable like ammo boxes or gerbil anuses? This seems downright unamerican.
I honestly don’t think most of the cooler looking ones will release at all; the 2cv maybe. I’d be surprised if, apart from the VAG cars, any of them came to Australia
I swear had I this exact 2cv when I was 5 years old! I wonder if they fixed the annoying whining.
I have to admit that I waited until I was a little more than 5 years old to take on car ownership 😳
Tell me you’re not French without telling me you’re not French.
Weak.
Built from Lego, right?
Style and taste are back! 💪😎✌️
It is a good thing that EU car makers are developing new models, but why do they have to be ‘inspired’ by decades old models in terms of looks?
Retro-revival trends happen every few decades in the car world. We were due for another one.
As long as it means interesting looking cars, I’m all for it!What’s wrong with that? The essential thing is that those models are based on proper only electric platforms and not some max-compromise combined platform with ICE models.
I wholeheartedly agree that EVs should not be built as tanks. I just think that it’s a bit lazy to rehash 50s or 80s design in order to make a car interesting. I know, in those times they were not designed in a wind tunnel, but c’mon.
I have friends who drive an EV built by Dacia. It looks ugly, as all Dacias do, but at least it looks like a car from the 2020s. Or at least the 2010s…
BTW, I am not dissing ugly cars. I drive a Korean car, so I do not care much for looks anyway. :-P
Wtf when do you think wind tunnels started being used?
Because they look great!
