You don't even have to mess around with Smarts and Minis... The car I [try not to] drive (a Škoda Rapid liftback) fits four 180 cm (5'10") adults and their baggage for a week, yet I could almost drive UNDERNEATH some of the crap I have to share the roads with (LR Discovery, F-150, BMW X8).
I used to love cars and driving, now they disgust me, along with the whole my-car-is-my-identity culture.
> I used to love cars and driving, now they disgust me,
++
I live in fly-over country, and cars, pretty much all of them, are monstrously large now. I notice the change, even to 15-20 years ago. Just as a small example; the physical experience of just being in a parking lot now, it's gotten really foul. The rooflines of cars parked on the street now block the view outside my local coffee shop. Not sure if this is real, but there seems more of that casual sociopathic driving (weaving in an out of traffic, texting, tailgating, ...). I'm not exaggerating, any given day and I likely see, with my own eyes, the aftermath of a wreck.
It's absolutely insane to me. It's a true saying; "things can always get worse". I feel like we're finding that out now. The public realm is just worse. Straight up. Worse. More deadly, violent, unwelcoming. And it's cars. The only concrete thing really. Big, fast going cars. Slow them down, have them smaller. And immediately, almost from day one, life outside is better.
> whole my-car-is-my-identity culture
This is not projection, it's a core truth. Many americans have reified independence into an extremely specific material _thing_. Big cars. Even if not all, then still enough to hold everybody else hostage.
My wife recently pointed out to me that cars from 15-25 years ago all have "happy faces" and newer cars (late 00's to current) often have "angry faces".
It's silly at first, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense why driving has gotten so miserable. Our little monkey-brains see angry faces all around us, and we act more defensively. We feel the need to defend ourselves from all the scary metal boxes, leading to buying scarier looking boxes. It's an angry-headlights arms race.
And yet your "little" Skoda is the same size as a first or second generation Landrover Discovery, and a bawhair smaller than my second-gen Range Rover...
That's the thing, it's not "little" in my book, but a full sized car. It comfortably fits an average family (or a group of four adults) and their stuff for a week-long vacation.
> same size as a first or second generation Landrover Discovery
It's 25 % lower and 5 % narrower than the first generation, but I understand that the Discovery is an off-road car, and I also consider it a full sized car, just like mine. The evolution should've stopped (or been regulated) right around there.
I've found a few of these types of sites over time, and I find them pretty handy. This one gets added to the list!
There's Handgun Hero [1] for comparing ... handgun sizes, which is super handy when window shopping for something new, to compare it to something I already have.
There's Camera Size [2] which compares, you guessed it, cameras. Handy for the exact same reasons as the above. For a more technical comparison you can use DPReview's comparator [3].
I guess it's like guitars and bikes, a small group will "need" a new one/another one (guilty of both), but for most people you either need zero or you need one and never need to swap once you have one. But I agree that having a site for comparing feels quite alien to those of us outside the US (for reference, I'm 40+, made military service and still haven't even seen a handgun outside of its holster on uniformed officers).
Camera size was great--I just wish they had old cameras, now that I don't shoot digital anymore.
One of the most useful for me is https://cycle-ergo.com . The fit and riding position of a motocycle is very personal--sport bikes lean you forward, adventure you stay upright, cruisers lean you back. But beyond that, can you reach the gound (and do you care), how much of a stretch are the pedals. The site is not perfect, but gives you an idea how you will fit before you have a chance to throw your leg over.
My whole family worked for a major car manufacturer. My mother was the first woman tin smith hired there. I grew up loving cars (rural living). But now I’ve lost the love. I think mainly after seeing what they do to amazing cities like SF and Seattle my heart has changed. We need to subsidize and promote better personal mobility options. My daily driver is a Riese & Muller Load 60 e-cargo bike. I’ve had it since 2020. I’ve lived in multiple cities and it is an ideal personal mobility setup. My dog rides around with me too! Why am I the only one in this town riding around in one? It’s not a money problem. I see people buying secondary cars to drive 2 blocks to the grocery store. Is it a safety issue? Very fixable. Are people lazy? Absolutely, but they can be motivated.
In the US we had a massive infra bill pass. How much is going to local pedestrian and cycling infrastructure? Just so frustrating the stranglehold cars have on us.
I live in a very walkable city (NYC). But I don't dare ride a bike. The car traffic is too nasty, and I'm very non-confident about my bike-riding abilities. I would love a motorized three-wheeler or something where I don't have to balance on my own _too_ much. Maybe with a roof for the rain.
Perhaps I'm dreaming of a world full of personal tuk-tuks and golf-carts? It's annoying that the only real options in the US seem to be "30 pound bike" or "2-ton+ car".
I just love my car. I just love to drive it. I love to go where I want, whenever I want. I hate being driven - it's anxiety inducing and mind-numbingly boring. I appreciate the car-friendly infrastructure.
I'd wager most drivers IRL are like me, despite the vocal online minority. We should work on better infrastructure that allows for all public and private transport modes to work about equally as well in a given space.
Cars are cool tech no doubt. I just think when you step back and look at our cities the car infrastructure is overwhelming. No one should die because they were walking in a city. San Francisco had a Vision Zero goal; to have no pedestrian or biking deaths in the city. They made good progress but are far from reaching the goal
Just looked at the Riese & Muller. Looks great, but I think part of the problem with ebikes like this is that they -are- the price of a secondhand car, and most people will just go with that instead. I've got a 'normal' ebike, and I used it a lot in lockdown, and often use it to go to the local shops. Would love something like the R&M, but it's a lot of money...
People usually don’t look at the maintenance costs of owning a car. Gas, insurance, registration, tune ups, repairs. Then compare how much you’ll put into your R&M over the years. It doesn’t even come close to a cars yearly costs :)
It's part auto lobby, part ID pol. Conservatives, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, for some reason are against any mode of transportation that isn't powered by an ICE. She's said "Democrats like Pete Buttigieg want to emasculate the way we drive and force all of you to rely on electric vehicles".
Aha, loving the smell and feel of burned or non-burned degraded zooplankton matter is masculine but driving across the city with the power of lightening like Thor himself is not. Got it.
What I actually wanted to express: it's about framing and marketing and people like MTG capitalize on that. In the end, emotions will play a big role when it comes to adoption and this is where media and advertising giants come in.
Found this and thought it's neat to see the dimensions of cars properly. Mostly because there's a larger influx of American pickups in my town and I'm not enjoying it one bit.
And it's also illegal in EU. The GRPD imposes to have the choice to reject tracking cookies. And it must be easy to reject, not hidden somewhere or requiring one to manually delete the cookies with the browser mechanisms.
Yep, browsers should have per-domain cookie jars that get wiped when the all tabs/windows using that domain are closed.. and then a button not to wipe them on those few domains that you actually need them (to stay logged in).
But this is what you get when you have politicians dealing with technology.
Yours is far less useful as all cars are rendered roughly the same size and side by side. Its utility and its UX is tangibly inferior to the submitted site.
Overlapped view gives the easiest way to compare. A transparency slider might also be useful.
Going further a 3D model of cars set side-by-side on a rotatable plaform would be next step i guess though the value:complexity may not be that great. One could put a person standing next to it and make the person's height adjustable too :)
I feel like a product manager who doesn't need to care about implementation complexity :)
Readit News
I used to love cars and driving, now they disgust me, along with the whole my-car-is-my-identity culture.
++
I live in fly-over country, and cars, pretty much all of them, are monstrously large now. I notice the change, even to 15-20 years ago. Just as a small example; the physical experience of just being in a parking lot now, it's gotten really foul. The rooflines of cars parked on the street now block the view outside my local coffee shop. Not sure if this is real, but there seems more of that casual sociopathic driving (weaving in an out of traffic, texting, tailgating, ...). I'm not exaggerating, any given day and I likely see, with my own eyes, the aftermath of a wreck.
It's absolutely insane to me. It's a true saying; "things can always get worse". I feel like we're finding that out now. The public realm is just worse. Straight up. Worse. More deadly, violent, unwelcoming. And it's cars. The only concrete thing really. Big, fast going cars. Slow them down, have them smaller. And immediately, almost from day one, life outside is better.
> whole my-car-is-my-identity culture
This is not projection, it's a core truth. Many americans have reified independence into an extremely specific material _thing_. Big cars. Even if not all, then still enough to hold everybody else hostage.
It's silly at first, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense why driving has gotten so miserable. Our little monkey-brains see angry faces all around us, and we act more defensively. We feel the need to defend ourselves from all the scary metal boxes, leading to buying scarier looking boxes. It's an angry-headlights arms race.
That's the thing, it's not "little" in my book, but a full sized car. It comfortably fits an average family (or a group of four adults) and their stuff for a week-long vacation.
> same size as a first or second generation Landrover Discovery It's 25 % lower and 5 % narrower than the first generation, but I understand that the Discovery is an off-road car, and I also consider it a full sized car, just like mine. The evolution should've stopped (or been regulated) right around there.
Yeah, Rapid is a bit on the long size ;-)
But agree - I wouldn't like to drive that outside of the EU. It feels kinda weird to be (sometimes below) eye level with some car hoods...
Dead Comment
Projection much?
There's Handgun Hero [1] for comparing ... handgun sizes, which is super handy when window shopping for something new, to compare it to something I already have.
There's Camera Size [2] which compares, you guessed it, cameras. Handy for the exact same reasons as the above. For a more technical comparison you can use DPReview's comparator [3].
[1]: https://www.handgunhero.com/
[2]: https://camerasize.com/
[3]: https://www.dpreview.com/products/compare/cameras
Some ladies even have fashion accessories, you can color match your guns and purses for every occasion. Try it before you knock it. ;)
Dead Comment
[1]: https://www.eloshapes.com/
One of the most useful for me is https://cycle-ergo.com . The fit and riding position of a motocycle is very personal--sport bikes lean you forward, adventure you stay upright, cruisers lean you back. But beyond that, can you reach the gound (and do you care), how much of a stretch are the pedals. The site is not perfect, but gives you an idea how you will fit before you have a chance to throw your leg over.
In the US we had a massive infra bill pass. How much is going to local pedestrian and cycling infrastructure? Just so frustrating the stranglehold cars have on us.
Perhaps I'm dreaming of a world full of personal tuk-tuks and golf-carts? It's annoying that the only real options in the US seem to be "30 pound bike" or "2-ton+ car".
I'd wager most drivers IRL are like me, despite the vocal online minority. We should work on better infrastructure that allows for all public and private transport modes to work about equally as well in a given space.
The bill had a hard time passing as it was...
What I actually wanted to express: it's about framing and marketing and people like MTG capitalize on that. In the end, emotions will play a big role when it comes to adoption and this is where media and advertising giants come in.
https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/bmw-isetta-1955-1-d...
https://github.com/cavi-au/Consent-O-Matic
Don't waste time on that nonsense, let the software deal automatically with denying consent to being tracked.
But this is what you get when you have politicians dealing with technology.
Deleted Comment
https://www.automobiledimension.com/car-comparison.php
One thing missing is rear leg room (which is critical for me right now with a family of 4)
Overlapped view gives the easiest way to compare. A transparency slider might also be useful.
Going further a 3D model of cars set side-by-side on a rotatable plaform would be next step i guess though the value:complexity may not be that great. One could put a person standing next to it and make the person's height adjustable too :)
I feel like a product manager who doesn't need to care about implementation complexity :)