The US gov’t is finally doing something about giant pedestrian-killing SUVs
After a decade and a half rise in pedestrian deaths, the US government is finally starting to take some action to stop huge pedestrian-killing SUVs.
Cars have been getting safer and safer over time, but the same has not applied to pedestrian safety.
While theoretically many of the safety improvements on cars ought to help protect those outside the car (emergency braking, crumple zones, etc), statistics have shown this has not been the case. Currently, pedestrian deaths are at a 40-year high in the US.
There are multiple culprits here, including insufficient infrastructure for non-car road users (cyclists, pedestrians, etc.), and distracted driving due to the suffusion of technology into our lives.
But most of all, the culprit is gigantic vehicles. And vehicle sizes have ballooned for multiple reasons in recent years, both due to automaker profits and consumer preference (which are in turn led by automakers who preferentially advertise larger or more polluting vehicles), and a perception of safety despite the significant danger that huge vehicles bring to the road.
It’s gotten so bad that even Jim Farley, CEO of Ford – which sells the F150, the most popular large vehicle in the US (and one of the deadliest) – said that America needs to “get back in love with smaller vehicles.”
But one of the less-talked-about reasons that vehicles keep getting bigger is the matter of government regulations that create a perverse incentive to increase vehicle size, like the EPA’s so-called “footprint rule” and various other credits or incentives for large vehicles.
Thankfully, the US government seems to have noticed its part in creating this problem, and is finally signaling that its ready for a change.
NHTSA, EPA make moves to reduce vehicle size
The latest move in this respect comes from the NHTSA, which published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) this week which brings pedestrian deaths into focus.
The NHTSA is a government agency, part of the Department of Transportation, which among other things is responsible for automobile crash safety testing.
While most of its safety tests focus on the safety of car occupants, NHTSA wants to add a new test focused specifically on reducing the danger of pedestrian head-to-hood impact – both adults and children.
One problem with giant SUVs and pickups is that their high, blunt front ends tend to result in impacts with pedestrian torsos, rather than the legs. A torso hit will tend to send a pedestrian onto the ground, rather than onto the hood of the vehicle – and vehicle hoods tend to be softer than asphalt, and less likely to result in the pedestrian being run over by a vehicle.
This is why pedestrian safety regulations focus on the height of the bumper – something that has not been a significant part of US safety regulations before now. But this new NHTSA rule would seek to change that, and to harmonize US rules with “Global Technical Regulation No 9,” an international safety standard which would also have the benefit of making US cars more interoperable between territories. This rule harmonization process was part of Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Not only are huge vehicles dangerous for pedestrians, they also create more pollution. After all, a recent analysis showed that emissions could have dropped 30%, but SUVs ruined it for everyone.
Part of the reason for this is because the EPA gives some leeway to larger vehicles, allowing them to be slightly less efficient than smaller vehicles.
While that is still the case, EPA signaled it’s interested in changing that recently. In the most recent final emissions standards, EPA included one line that we here at Electrek noticed and were thrilled by: “EPA is finalizing the proposed approach to flatten the slope of each footprint standards curve and to narrow the numerical stringency difference between the car and truck curves.”
Essentially, this means that EPA is going to reduce the amount of “extra credit” they give to SUVs, which means that automakers won’t have as much incentive to go bigger. While it’s a minor change and will take a while to settle and affect vehicle designs, it at least shows that the EPA acknowledges its part in the mistake, and that it intends to improve the situation.
Electrek’s Take
The situation in the US is really desperate. In a time of so much focus on car safety, the fact that pedestrian deaths have risen so sharply is unacceptable.
But it’s not just about pedestrian deaths, but the absolute unavailability of reasonable vehicles in this country.
Virtually everything available today is a huge SUV. And this applies to EVs as well – while in the early days of EVs there were a lot of small hatchbacks available, now almost everything is an SUV. Some of them are smaller-sized (though the most reasonably-sized one was stopped by ill-considered tariffs), and there are a few sedans like the Ioniq 6 and Model 3. But it feels like almost all the new EVs coming out this year are giant three–row SUVs (and, uh, whatever this is).
Even the electric trucks that are coming out are far too big – meanwhile, the Ford Maverick, a small(-er…-ish) truck is flying off the shelves. Imagine how well an EV Maverick could do.
But rule changes like this give us some hope. Not only has the government finally realized the gravity of the huge-car situation, but it certainly feels like there’s some societal pushback against enormous cars brewing.
For example, when Rivian, a company not known for its large-car shyness, revealed its much-anticipated R2, it followed with the surprise R3, a likely Golf-ish-sized hatchback… and promptly received much more excitement, by our measure, for the hot hatch than for the mid-size SUV.
It just feels like it’s getting to be that time again, when we’ve finally reached the point of too much, and we might rebound and see the pendulum swing back towards some normal-sized vehicles again.
Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but we sure hope so.
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Yadea, which has claimed the title of the world’s largest electric vehicle maker for seven years running, has just announced a new electric motorbike powered by the company’s innovative HuaYu sodium-ion battery technology.
Yadea has long dominated the electric two-wheeler and three-wheeler market globally, but has generally relied on both lithium-ion and lead acid batteries to power its vehicles in different markets.
The newly unveiled electric scooter uses Yadea’s recently introduced sodium battery technology, offering what the company says is outstanding performance in range, charging speed, and safety. Using the HuaYu Sodium Superfast Charging Ecosystem presented by Yadea, the battery can reach 80% charge in just 15 minutes, providing greater convenience for riders.
Yadea’s sodium battery has successfully passed more than 20 safety tests, many focusing on its resistance to fire and explosions under extreme conditions like punctures and compression.
Yadea’s new sodium battery offers an energy density of 145 Wh/kg and a lifespan of up to 1,500 cycles at room temperature, with the company rating it for a five-year useful lifespan. It also includes a three-year warranty for added assurance.
With excellent low-temperature capabilities, the battery retains over 92% of its discharge capacity at -20°C, making it well-suited for colder climates.
Sodium batteries present major advantages
Most electric vehicles used in the West, especially electric two-wheelers, rely on lithium-ion batteries for their high energy density. But sodium-ion batteries offer many benefits over traditional lithium-ion batteries.
Sodium is an abundant element on the planet and is easily accessible, unlike lithium, which is concentrated in specific regions and often expensive to extract. This abundance can make sodium-ion batteries cheaper to produce, reducing costs for EV manufacturers and potentially making electric vehicles more affordable.
Lithium mining also has environmental challenges, such as water depletion and habitat destruction. Sodium, on the other hand, can be sourced from seawater or common salts, offering a more sustainable and environmentally friendly option.
Sodium-ion batteries are less prone to overheating and thermal runaway compared to lithium-ion batteries. This makes them inherently safer for electric vehicles, reducing the risk of fires and improving consumer confidence in EV technology.
Sodium-ion batteries perform better than lithium-ion in cold climates. Lithium-ion batteries struggle with capacity retention in freezing conditions, but sodium batteries maintain efficiency, making them ideal for EVs in colder regions.
Sodium batteries still have challenges to overcome
While sodium-ion batteries are promising, they currently have a lower energy density than lithium-ion batteries, meaning they store less energy per unit of weight.
For EVs, this translates to shorter driving ranges for the same-sized battery. That’s especially important in electric two-wheelers like motorbikes and electric bicycles, which don’t have much extra space for storing bulky batteries.
However, advancements in cathode materials and battery architecture are quickly closing this gap, which Yadea has demonstrated. These sodium-ion batteries still can’t match the energy density of lithium-ion batteries, but as they continue to improve their energy density, the technology’s other major advantages provide encouraging signs for larger adoption in the industry.
Yadea’s status as a major electric motorbike maker also means that its adoption of sodium-ion battery technology could help lead the entire industry towards this battery chemistry, bringing safety and performance benefits along with it.
Last year I had the unique opportunity to visit one of Yadea’s global manufacturing sites.
To see inside the company’s massive and highly-automated manufacturing processes, check out the video below!
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At CES2025, the impressively built-out John Deere exhibit was all about automation. Autonomous job sites, autonomous farms … but it was this new, battery electric, autonomous lawn mowing robot that stole the show.
The self-driving Deere mower robot was positively dwarfed by the giant farm machinery surrounding it, but it continues to prove that humans will pack bond with anything as more than one burly-looking and grizzled man asked what its name was. (It’s Howard. I’ll fight you.)
For his part, Howard packs a 21.4 kWh battery pack that runs a suite of electric motors that includes a drive motor and three cutting blade motors spread across a 60 inch cutting deck – but it’s not the electric motors that make John Deere’s little robot mower cool, it’s the way it works.
See, instead of using “just” GPS data or “just” repeating a pre-recorded run, Howard can do something in between. The way it was explained to me, you would ride the stand-up mower around the perimeter of the area you wanted to mow, select a pattern, then hop off, fold up the platform, and let it loose. Howard mows just the way you would, leaving you to focus on edging, planting, or (let’s face it) schmoozing with the clients.
It’s exactly the sort of help landscapers are looking for.
But that should come as no surprise, of course. John Deere, perhaps more than most companies, knows its customer. “We’ve been in the turf business for 60 years — it’s a core part of Deere,” says Jahmy Hindman, chief technology officer at John Deere, explaining things beautifully. “The work that’s being done in this industry is incredibly labor intensive … they’re not just doing the mowing work. They’re doing the tree trimming, maintaining flowerbeds and all these other jobs. The mowing is table stakes, though, for them to get the business. It’s the thing they have to do in order to get the higher value work.”
Tim Lewis, lead engineer with the commercial automatous mower, told Lawn & Landscape that the industry in general has a high turnover rate as well, making it difficult to hang to people who know where one job ends and another begins. “There’s a lot of nuances it takes to do these jobs effectively,” he explains, “so “Autonomy can help with that.”
The John Deere autonomous commercial mower (there’s no snazzy alphanumeric, yet) leverages the same camera technology as other Deere autonomous machines, but on a smaller scale (since the machine has a smaller footprint). With two cameras each on the front, left, right, and rear sides of the little guy, he has a 360-degree view of the world and enough AI to lay down a pattern, avoid an obstacle, and shut off if it thinks it’s about to mow down something (read: someone) it shouldn’t.
John Deere will have Howard on display through tomorrow at CES in the LVCC’s West Hall. If you’re in town, be sure to go say hi.
John Deere CES2025
SUOURCE | IMAGES: John Deere; Electrek.
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