r/europeanunion • u/trisul-108 EU • 3d ago
No, American monster trucks aren’t appearing on EU roads anytime soon
https://www.politico.eu/article/no-american-monster-trucks-arent-appearing-on-eu-roads-anytime-soon/51
u/redbeardfakename 3d ago
So if the industry are against it, and people are against it, who actually wants these atrocities in Europe? Whoever they are, they must be in a vast minority
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u/OkSeason6445 3d ago
Generally it's men with a very small penis. I usually don't see women or confident men driving these abominations.
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u/Fragrant_Equal_2577 2d ago
We have plenty of real penis extenders like Ferrari, Porsche, McLaren, Porsche,…., BMW,Audi,…
There‘s nothing like driving with a good car in the Autobahns with no speed limitations in Germany. US cars are not built for the Autobahns.
Many years back the Humvees were visible;).
Ford pick-up just doesn‘t do the job.
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u/barb_20 2d ago
my femal boss in toronto had one for work. she ran the hostel and farther air bnbs herself. so picking up laundry, doing costco runs etc. you can't do that with a mini cooper. still, am exeption though
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u/OkSeason6445 2d ago
You usually have more room in a VW Caddy type car than in a Dodge Ram though. Maybe it's not American culture to drive delivery vans for work but it saves tons lives and emissions in Europe that we don't drive these huge inefficient pick ups for no reason.
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u/mad_marble_madness Germany 2d ago
There’s a saying that I learned in the US, from several US citizens:
The bigger his truck, the smaller his d..k.
Unfortunately, there’ll be enough testosterone idiots going for such an atrocity to make it dangerous on European roads.
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u/ViciousNakedMoleRat 3d ago
Yeah, it's a tiny minority.
I know two people with a Dodge Ram. One of them is a gardener and one owns a nursery for fruit trees and the like. Both get a lot of practical use out of the flatbed, so it at least makes sense.
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u/SiofraRiver 2d ago
Whoever they are, they must be in a vast minority
Its all the antisocial cowards who want a way to project their intense hatred of other humans without getting into legal troubles for actually living out their murder fantasies. I mean, that's what these cars are for, killing other traffic participants "accidentally".
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u/Puzzleheaded_Lab4132 east european disillusioned by the West, everything is a lie 3d ago
why do we need to import this small dick energy cars?! they simply don't fit our roads. You gotta be a total piece of trash to get one and not care about your surroundings and environment.
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u/SilkieBug 3d ago
They’re here already, regular appearances on Helsinki streets.
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u/trisul-108 EU 3d ago
They are imported as exceptions, on a case by case basis for specific projects. It seems inspections need to be tightened in some countries.
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u/RidetheSchlange 3d ago edited 3d ago
It's politico, so do your due dilligence. If you read the story, then you'll see the headline is typical Politico: misleading
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u/SiofraRiver 2d ago
So you're saying these cars will appear on European streets?
They are already here.
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u/New-Distribution-979 2d ago
Quite a few ‘Rams’ around the suburbs of Brussels, where you would expect Politico journalists to dwell from time to time. That is courtesy of the brand being part of Stellantis, if I understand well. But also a few giant Toyota trucks.
I would say that they are not practical considering the size of the roads around here, but as other people pointed out, one might need them for some types of work, landscaping for example, where a van would not do.
So, that is just my own local and empirical observation, but I would tend to agree that Politico has not done their homework here.
The question might be: are European statistically buying increasingly large cars? The answer is that the large SUV segment saw a 13% increase in registrations in 2024, making it one of the fastest growing segments.
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u/ou-est-kangeroo 2d ago
Politco is largely missing the point. They are right - but ultimately the US strategy is to keep chipping away at EU standards and achievements. This is just another one of those.
More alarming is that we signed off digital independence - the Digital Euro's security and privacy infrastructure is designed by - you guessed it - US based firms.
The car thing is a distraction in this context - but it is still correct to say that the EU made huge concessions to the US.
In short we are confusing the battlelines. Its not about Neoliberlism or about Tarifs and trade or globalisation.
It is a battle of civilisation and a battle against Neo-Imperialism.
Don't take my word for it - this is Dominique de Villepin: https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/w3ct5t5k
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u/trisul-108 EU 2d ago
More alarming is that we signed off digital independence - the Digital Euro's security and privacy infrastructure is designed by - you guessed it - US based firms.
That is not my understanding of the situation. They had pilot with a wide variety of companies and sectors, both European and international, to test concepts at 3 different national banks. Now, they are in the process of preparing tenders for two systems, short term and long term which are to be built by EU companies.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2025/html/ecb.pr250701~f4a98dd9dc.en.html
You are probably thinking of the earlier pilots of the pre-Trump era.
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u/ou-est-kangeroo 1d ago
The list of companies involved so far were substantially American. And also if you look deeper a lot of companies that were involved were called EU based when they were subsidiaries of American firms such as Accenture.
Nevermind the fact that in Tech there is a joke going around that if you want the project to fail you hire Accenture. Competence is another issue - so this is why theEU has to
a) make a commitment not to use American Tech - which is not the case. The whole call for proposal has no indication that there will be no US tech involved. EU subsidiaries do not count. See Microsoft declaring to a French Enquiry that ultimately US law comes first - ie if the CIA demands that privacy laws of Europe will be breached - they will comply with US law.
b) We probably don’t even have the know how to do it. Or do it well. This is the issue of competence … In other words we are putting the carriage in front of the horse. We have a complete lack of industrial know how … this is why jumping a step in the industrial revolution doesn’t work. You need to build things up from the ground up.
c) slightly off topic but related. Which hardware are we using and on what OS? So you think using Taiwanese chips or American owned OS makes our Tech safe? I wouldn’t be so sure about it. To be independent actually requires the build up of a whole industrial complex.
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u/jvproton Bulgaria 3d ago
Yes, god forbid EU consumers are given the option to buy big cheap cars.
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u/trisul-108 EU 3d ago
You meant to say god forbid EU consumers are given the option to buy huge cars which are dangerous to pedestrians, the environment and also illegitimate competition to EU industry that invested huge sums in R&D to produce cars compliant with regulations.
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u/jvproton Bulgaria 3d ago
ah yes, because BMW X7 & MB GLS are totally on the same safety scale, and are not 12-15% heavier.
On the environment - if we are so eco, why not take a hit on employment and allow import of cheap Chinese EV's - they get the pollution from manufacturing, we get the clean air (and few extra thousands on social welfare).
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u/trisul-108 EU 3d ago
The Ram 3500 bonnet is over 20cm higher than the BMW X7's. That is significantly more dangerous to pedestrians. In any case, the X7 is completely compliant with EU regulations while the Ram 3500 is not.
All in all emissions are 9x that of ordinary European cars and pedestrian danger is 3x more. All of these should be banned.
In the US, companies self-regulate, in the EU we have robust regulations. It is a completely different philosophy and we like to keep it that way.
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u/jvproton Bulgaria 2d ago
Luckily the 3500 is not mass adopted in US as well. On the compliance side, if they were illegal, there wouldn't be few thousands offers for pickup trucks in mobile.de, so maybe those sellers need to go in jail?
Emission wise, F150 would make ~240g/km, the X7 ~220g/km. not exactly a 9x difference (unless someone has studied algebra in Florida).
On the safety side, EU should also ban everything that is more than 90hp, 3cyl, so that idiots can't accelerate enough to crash into a city bus with 170km/h (last week case in Bulgaria).
In the end, I would also prefer to drive European convertible coupes, but the american equivalents are cheaper and more reliable.
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