Walking in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

The causation is explicit, like, companies exist to make money, moving towards higher margin vehicles isn't an accident, or luck, it's the explicit intentional goal of every corporation.

The "steady decline" isn't consumer choice, it's an intentional strategy by the auto industry.

I, as I mentioned before, agree regarding the effect of advertising. But to deny that a consumer influenced by advertising is still free to make a choice is quite an extreme position to take. Would you suggest a consumer in the 80s purchasing a sedan after seeing an advertisement has any more agency or less agency than someone today buying an SUV after seeing an advertisement? Is one more a "consumer choice" than the other?

I'm also curious why you think different markets (such as Europe) have consumers making different choices when, broadly speaking, the same companies are involved?

So...for why Europe is different, it is because the context is different. The government, laws, costs, and infrastructure are all different. This changes the profit motive for car companies. In some cases pickup trucks and large SUVs are simply not allowed, in others, they are simply made more expensive by policies. But in the US and Canada, the opposite is true, SUVs and Trucks are exempt from restrictions which apply to sedans. And finally, we are indeed seeing an increase of larger SUVs in Europe too.

As for whether people have any agency...that is a wildly philosophical question. I am not suggesting that you see an SUV ad and you become an automaton who goes to the dealer and buys a truck immediately.

But the point is this has been a slow progressive movement. Advertisements influence culture, but they are not the whole experience of a person in society. Now they also see other cars on the roads, have friends and family who have cars, all these influence as well...and guess what, over time, more and more of these other experiences also include trucks and SUVs...but the thing CREATING that gradual change has, IMO been the auto industry. So yes, even if you isolate yourself from advertising, you're not going to be isolated from the effects of a decades long campaign by the auto industry.