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.
I think there have always been a few aggressive, angry-looking cars. Case in point the 1950 Buick Super Eight https://imgur.com/a/OvwFNQa
I wonder what is the oldest angry car.
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.
Its not unreasonable to point out that having your own car unlocks a lot of personal freedom and independence. That post is obvious flame bait but I find it hard to argue the underlying truth.
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).
I didn't really get handgun culture (I'm in the UK, everyone has rifles and shotguns, handguns aren't a thing any more since we had a school shooting in the 90ss) until I read an exchange on Reddit which was full of comments like "Ah yeah but what you do is you unscrew that top part, drill and tap it a size larger, and then you can bolt on <some part off a different gun> which allows you to mount <some sort of otherwise incompatible accessory> and by taking a bit off the grips it'll actually be lighter and better balanced and easier to get the sights dialled in and then..."
Wait a bloody minute, I get it now - you guys are geeks! Just like the synth geeks and Landrover geeks I know, it's the same conversations with some different nouns in it.
We do still have some handguns, such as single-shot flintlocks, muzzle-loading revolvers of 1850s design, and some modern handguns which have been extended with long barrels and counterweights to make them >= 60cm in length (IIRC).
I think that these aren't very common at all compared with shortguns and rifles though. From what I've heard, when modern handguns were banned some shooters switched to modern reproductions of the mid-19th century models only to find that they didn't much like the cleaning (black powder makes a lot of mess), fiddling and slow loading that goes along with these guns.
> From what I've heard, when modern handguns were banned some shooters switched to modern reproductions of the mid-19th century models only to find that they didn't much like the cleaning (black powder makes a lot of mess), fiddling and slow loading that goes along with these guns.
One cleans black powder firearms with regular old soap and water, which is really interesting to me. I hear some people even just put them in the dishwasher!
A practiced shooter can load faster than you'd think, but using a powder horn and the plunger is still considerably slower than loading a cartridge revolver with a speed-loader or by hand. It is possible to make paper cartridges with pre-measured powder charges that can just be dropped in and then plunged. In that case it's almost as fast as loading brass cartridges one at a time, which is still considerably slower than modern alternatives. This is why American cowboys would carry at least two revolvers for a total of 10 rounds, or 12 if they were feeling brave. The reason why 10 is that there were no firing pin safeties, so if you got banged hard and there was a round in the top chamber it could accidentally discharge.
As an aside, in the USA a 19th century design muzzle loader isn't even legally a firearm under federal law. You can buy one on eBay and have it mailed straight to your door. I don't know if any of the states have restrictions, but so far as I know black powder firearms aren't really used for any kind of criminal activity except maybe poaching.
Cleaning is indeed quite easy and could indeed be done with a bit of hot water and soap. It can take a while, though.
I've heard that about the sale of these guns in the US. Presumably there's not much demand given the prevalence of better modern designs.
Over here, an original antique revolver of that period could also be posted directly to a purchaser who could hold it without a licence, as long as they weren't a known criminal. If the owner wanted to fire it they would need a licence.
I am reminded that there are a small number of modern revolvers using smokeless powder that have been converted to a loading mechanism resembling that of the mid-19th century. These are also legal here.
Before the 19th Century, black powder was so incompletely combustible that firearms, despite allowing a huge amount of windage (the difference between the diameters of the barrel and the ball), would become too fouled to load after as few as 4 shots. That's why smoothbores were used long after the rifle was invented. During battles, soldiers peed down the barrel and used their ramrods to clean them.
I don't think that's what GP meant, rather the common trope amongst cyclists is the the ideal number of bikes to own is `n + 1`, where `n` is the number of bikes you currently own.
Spouses come and go. A limited edition PRS is forever. Besides it is probably going to end up a collectible and increase in value. Can't afford not to buy it really.
That's easy. You watch a few FortNite videos on YouTube and slowly but surely end up with a small motorcycle collection.
You're going to want to work on your own bikes and eventually fabricate your ow-- basically, you need the space for your $250,000 CNC machine anyhow, so..
The data I looked up suggested it was 1.2 guns/American (not over 2.0), but in any case, I think the majority of both parties own exactly zero (56% of Republicans and 80% of Democrats per a survey in the same article).
Yeah, there's just tons of 922r compliance going on down at everyone's local range. And everyone's "solvent trap" keeps springing a leak right at the end, some how. /s
922r is basically just a buy American regulation that has the added bonus of letting ATF hassle people selectively. On the other hand, "solvent traps" remind me of wine bricks[1]. Both are obviously legal. Sure you could do illegal things with them, but you could do illegal things with a coke bottle too.
But what does this have to do with illegal guns as any ordinary person understands them? Maybe some Republican bubba's Benelli duck hunting gun is technically illegal because he put a mag extension on it without swapping out enough Italian made parts, but frankly you're grasping at irrelevancies.
Meanwhile, plenty of Democrats in Chicago own illegal sears for their Glocks along with drum mags[2]. Now that's something that maybe we should care about, because those are real criminals hurting real people and not just criminals on paper for violating frankly ridiculous regulations.
Edit: Added easily Google-able link for illegal sears in Chicago.
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.
Small nit: ‘double parking’ does not mean ‘parking in two parking spaces’. It generally means parallel parking next to a car that is already parallel parked - ie, parking roadside in a second row alongside a first row of parked cars.
More generally it refers to doubling up two cars in a parking space in such a way that one car blocks the other in (eg parking two cars nose to tail in a long parking bay)
At least in my region, the phrase is used about evenly to refer to both:
- Parking in the roadway next to the row of parallel parked cars/in other ways such that parked cars are blocked in
and
- Parking a single car such that two parking spots are obstructed (unjustifiably so, e.g. nobody would likely talk that way about an RV taking two parallel parking spots).
The difference in usage seems to depend on whether you (and your local cohort) spend more of your time parking in parking lots or on the street.
Double parking is a legal term for a specific traffic violation.
People who use it to refer to parking across two bays in a parking lot are using it wrong.
It’s like saying ‘well people in my region use the word “speeding” both to refer to going over the speed limit, and for going through a red light’.
People in your region have heard a term and misunderstood it.
Laws commonly include exceptions like;
> Vehicles used ordinarily for transportation of merchandise may double park for the purpose of, but only while engaged in, the expeditious loading or unloading
- that doesn’t mean delivery vehicles can park across two bays in a parking lot.
I’m as descriptivist as the next enlightened linguistic scholar, but this phrase has a specific meaning in traffic codes. Misunderstanding it is dangerous.
Presumably the same place they would park the Mercedes Sprinter that they would have otherwise that is about the same size. The people driving American pickups in the Netherlands are almost all contractors and they're a bit shorter and a bit wider than a Mercedes Sprinter.
> The people driving American pickups in the Netherlands are almost all contractors and they're a bit shorter and a bit wider than a Mercedes Sprinter.
I imagined all these people who are only a bit shorter but a bit wider than a van. :)
I would assume that if you go out of your way to have a company and buy a massive pickup that is more expensive than a Van and less usable you probably do not give a shit. The fact that they can basically ignore BPM on company cars is absolutely stupid.
>how do you carry pigs or a pile of dirt in a van?
With less convenience and more difficulty.
I've done that kind of stuff, not great but it works. I can definitely see why people who don't very, very, very frequently need the enclosed cargo space prefer the pickups over vans.
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 :)
For anyone who is curious what means, it means they must have 1311 cars in the database.
(1311 cars for the first choice * 1310 cars for the second choice assuming you can't compare a car against itself, divided by two since order doesn't matter. 1311*1310/2=858705.)
If anyone wants to hire me as a data scientist, my email is open :) I code Python, R, and the major languages (a bit of JavaScript, Go, whatever is needed) and am interested in AI, my latest project is here: https://github.com/robss2020/computerplayverysexymusic
Very cool! I just did some car shopping and compiled a spreadsheet of the various dimensions of the cars we were considering. This would have been a perfect tool for us. It's kind of hard to really get a sense of the numbers otherwise. Looks like it doesn't have a way of visualizing interiors, unfortunately.
+1 for the interiors. I'm doing car shopping right now, and this is the type of thing I've been looking for. I wanted a way to visualize the approximate height difference of sitting in the cabin of a CUV vs sedan.
I agree on the sentiment. Take some old "large" car and newish midsize car. While the old car will be huge on the outside, steering wheel to backseat distance will be pretty very much comparable. And aside from general ergonomics, that's the thing one usually cares about when looking for larger than micro cars
+1, this would have been super to me too when buying a car with the constraint of having a tiny garage with a weird shape.
What I really wanted was a tool that lets me draw the plan of the garage and then tells me if I'll be able to park my car, and the margin (min offset to wall during the whole maneuver).
This is pretty cool, but IMO a missing feature of this website would be to show cars in front/back of the side view to display what it looks like trying to park. The biggest reason to get a smaller car IMO is the easier time you have parking in tight spots. That would really highlight the differences.
For some reason this reminds me of the video games that taught me to aim RPGs with iron sights by memorizing the dimensions of in game vehicles and comparing it to a little measure on the sight to estimate distance and so how far to adjust the aim upwards..
Information regarding what common objects your front sight is the width of at various ranges is pretty a standard inclusion (though not a particularly emphasized part) training in professional armies.
Many optical sights also incorporate similar features.
I was very excited, but it seems external dimension only, and I've found time and again that outside dimensions have lose relationship to inside dimensions. Choices and tradeoffs around engine orientation and placement, front vs rear vs trunk sizes etc, can all make a massive difference. They include cargo volume in numbers but not front/rear seat sizes, which is critical to me both as tall driver and with children seats :-/
So the Citroen looks taller even though it’s shorter by measurement.
Isn’t this exactly the effect they are explaining in the FAQ? (Link at the bottom of the page). Depending on the curvature of the roof line, if you stand closer or further away, perspective will make one car or the other look taller.
Thanks, I did not see the FAQ which was hidden underneath the cookie banner :)
You may be right. When looking at the side view, the rear of the 5008 seems a little higher, while the height of the front part is pretty similar in both cars.
In case whoever operates the site is reading this: you have to add a way to dismiss the cookie consent banner without agreeing to the use of cookies, otherwise it makes it harder to use the site by partially obstructing the content, at which point it's no longer consensual and you might as well just set those cookies without asking. Don't try to be cute about privacy laws. It doesn't fly.
I love how obvious this makes the fact that truck headlights are perfectly placed to shine directly into the rear window and mirrors of a car. I've had to angle my side mirrors down sitting at a light with a truck behind me. They don't have dimming, and I end up just repeatedly blinding myself peeking in the mirror.
Great idea! I hope to see improved search and size filtering in future versions. It's annoying to select the maker first and later model. It would be great if I can type the model, select year, and get results.
This is a good example for an interactive non-SPA. JS only for cosmetics and all state is fully stored in the URLs. The main pages could even be statically generated (858705 combinations * 3 views * 8KB = 20GB).
So, no tanks for comparison? Guess some would be smaller.
> At over five meters, the Mercedes GL X166 is one of the largest SUVs. According to the German Transport Club, it is even bigger than a tank.
(Actually, "than a Panzer", and discussing what is a tank and what is not is the same w/ the Panzerwaffe in germany, e.g. a Marder, not a Leopard, here)
It was no further than 1 week ago when I was talking with my spouse about how could we compare the size of some cars. We found it very tedious to even find the official dimension. And we had no idea how to visualize the differences. This is absolutely fabulous!
This is beautiful. It must have been a lot of work to collect all that data and images. Although the UX is a little shaky. When searching for a vehicle the UI jumps around. And it would be useful to just search for a vehicle in a single query and not have to go always through the manufacturer first.
This is great, its always difficult to see comparisons online. Of the the big 3 row SUV looks as big as the smallest compact. I'd love to see trunk space too.
Does anyone know of a more generic version of this site? One where you can upload pictures with known dimensions and they can then be scaled accordingly.
No Toyota Tacoma…probably the most popular truck in many US states. No Ram trucks. No Subaru WRX, nor BRZ. Really neat concept, but I wish it had more US vehicles.
The Hilux works if your goal is to compare a random compact car to an average midsize truck, but if your goal is to look at how a Ford Ranger compares to a Toyota Tacoma then you are out of luck.
I am currently shopping for a new vehicle, and this comparison could be very useful if it had the models I am considering.
>probably the most popular truck in many US states.
Wealthy inner suburbs where white collar professionals live they absolutely dominate. Everywhere else people buy half tons because you get so much more vehicle for your dollar, the fuel economy penalty is marginal and with modern tech they're not really that much more unwieldy to drive.
"Dodge Ram" hasn't been a thing since 2010, when they spit Ram out to be a separate brand. However the site does have a 2010-2019 (a.k.a 4th generation Ram) listed under the Dodge brand, which is technically fair, because the initial units of the 4th generation were Dodge branded.
However to add the 5th generation they would really need to split it out as a sperate brand to be correct, and if they do so, they should duplicate the 4th generation into the new brand.
I used to love cars and driving, now they disgust me, along with the whole my-car-is-my-identity culture.