Brandon Baker

Ever wonder why sedans disappeared and every car is huge now? "Thanks, Obama!" His administration changed fuel economy standards in a way that had the perverse impact of making cars even bigger. Here are all the vehicles for sale by the 3 largest US automakers. 62 vehicles, 4 sedans (6%). 20 years ago this chart would have been ~50% sedans! What happened? Obama administration changed auto fuel efficiency rules to tie fuel economy targets to vehicle size. Under the new system: -The bigger the car's footprint, the easier the MPG target was. -Light trucks (including SUVs and crossovers) had far lower requirements than passenger cars. -Crossovers were quietly reclassified as "trucks," giving them a huge regulatory advantage. Instead of building lighter, more efficient cars, automakers simply made everything bigger, and made more trucks and SUVs. Notice that cars that used to be sedans are now crossovers? They do this so it counts as a light truck - they raise ground clearance, square off the rear for cargo capacity, and meet off-road approach minimums so they get qualified as a light truck. Think Subaru Legacy > Subaru Outback. As you can see in the chart, it's a LOT easier to meet MPG requirements if your vehicle is classified that way. So cars got LARGER to meet fuel efficiency goals. The new Honda Civic is 20 inches longer and 4 inches wider than it used to be, about the same size as an old Accord. By making the Civic larger, Honda slightly shifted it into a more favorable regulatory category. ...and smaller cars disappeared. The Honda Fit was a great little car, but would have had to hit 67 MPG in 2026, which would be nearly impossible... so instead, Honda stopped selling them. So, the only way to make small vehicles now is to make them EV's (Chevy Bolt). The Slate truck that is all the rage now is only possible because it's an EV... otherwise its footprint would have demanded an overly onerous MPG target. So in short - Obama era CAFE standards had the opposite of the desired impact: sedans died, vehicles ballooned in size, and America's streets turned into an SUV parking lot. All thanks to a policy that accidentally incentivized bloat instead of efficiency. Don't get me started on "cash for clunkers!"