The reason why US cars are so big are because of recent (within the last decade) safety standards. Cars could be much smaller and more efficient, but because of safety standards...they're massive now.
Don't forget, those safety ratings are against similar size and weight vehicles. So I can see this as being true that safety regulations may not be the biggest contributor, but overall safety may be (eg designing for impacts with larger vehicles).
I dunno why this got downvoted. The trend of increased size and weight for a static amount of interior space (or decreased interior space for a given size/weight) is well known and documented.
EU safety standards were originally derived from US standards, and yet our cars aren’t even close to the monstrosities you have riding around in the US.
reply