American cars are getting heavier | Semafor (2024)

FAQs

Why are cars getting so heavy? ›

Batteries, safety, and comfort features add weight.

Electrification requires heavy batteries. All-wheel drive adds weighty components. With greater safety comes greater weight. Comfort and technology features pack on the pounds.

Although European cars are also getting bigger, American ones still have a comfortable lead: in 2022 the average car sold in America weighed 1,857kg, almost 20% more than the average in Europe. Wide roads and big parking spaces accommodate this preference for hefty rides—and so does the law.

The average vehicle footprint expanded 6 percent between 2008 and 2023, a “historic high,” according to an EPA report, which also found that some carmakers, such as General Motors, actually had lower average fuel economy and higher average carbon emissions in 2022 than in 2017.

Because muscle cars have large and powerful engines – often 5 litres or more – they are packed with power. Of course, because muscle is a word synonymous with power and strength, these heavy, strong and aggressive American cars truly earn their brawny nickname.

American Cars Have a Weight Problem

This wave of vehicle bloat began in the 1980s, thanks in part to new safety regulations. Airbags, crash-test ratings and more robust structures packed on vehicular pounds, while better construction and stronger materials reduced engineers' need to worry about weight.

If not, take the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) word for it: They've been collecting data on the weight of new vehicles since 1975, and they say the average new car in 2021 weighs 4,287 lbs, up from 4,060 lbs in the mid-70s.

The heavier the vehicle is, the more energy it needs to get moving. Heavier vehicles have greater inertia and greater rolling resistance, which both contribute to increased fuel consumption. Reducing weight is a very effective way to improve a vehicle's efficiency (RMI 2011).

Cars today are the heaviest they've ever been – the average American car today weighs around 4300 pounds (that's 1950 kilograms, or nearly 2 metric tonnes). But this increase hasn't been linear. Cars in the 1970s were big and heavy, then they shed some weight through the 1980s before increasing again.

Reliability. Even though the reputation of American cars has improved over the years, foreign car manufacturers are almost always top-rated when it comes to performance and reliability. The car buying public recognizes Japanese car brands Toyota, Mazda, and Lexus as the most reliable options on the market.

At 5,712 lb (2,591 kg), the heaviest American-produced car (excluding trucks and SUVs) is the 1960 Lincoln Continental convertible. As of 2022, these remain the longest and heaviest production cars made by American-market manufacturers.

Why do Japanese prefer small cars? ›

The aim is to make better use of the limited space on the streets of this already crowded country. With no large parking spaces and high energy costs (Japan depends heavily on energy imports), Japanese drivers need small, efficient cars to get around their cities.

Decades ago, it decided on a policy of taxing motor fuel heavily. The consequence was that only a handful of rich people could afford cars with high fuel consumption. Those are big and heavy which means they need huge engines to provide reasonable performance.

Car shapes and sizes have steadily ballooned since the late 1970s. The reasons for this increase are various and complex. The addition of safety features like lateral and frontal airbags and "crumple zones" required more space, while consumers began to seek out luxury, exotic and import vehicles.

One of the reasons why a car feels heavy during acceleration is due to the wear and thinning of the clutch pads. This is caused by the reduced thickness of the clutch pads, resulting in a decrease in their gripping power on the flywheel.

From 1975 to 1980, average weight dropped almost 1,000 pounds (from 4,060 pounds to 3,228 pounds), likely in response to rising gasoline prices and the passage of the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standard.