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At least around here if you ask people why they, as the only person in the vehicle, drive something so big many will answer, "so, I win". The idea being that in an accident the larger vehicle will provide more protection.

Soon we will all be driving semi-tractors just so we can "win" against the largest vehicles on the road.

> A pollution tax would certainly help but is far too big of a thing to accomplish in the short-term.

There's no need for a big car tax or a pollution tax. We could just end the massive fuel subsidies we have in the US. Of course that is also unlikely to be accomplished in the short term.

Just to add a little context, people were buying huge cars back in the early years of the century (remember Hummers?). Then rising gas prices, the financial crisis, and Obama's election made that unfashionable. Now many people feel better off economically and are buying the large cars they secretly wanted anyway.

Granted some people buy gratuitously large vehicles, but for many there is a practical purpose: moving large amounts of stuff. Whether it's multiple bags of mulch, dorm room furniture, sports equipment, more than 3 kids, or just lots of luggage for a family road trip, there's definitely an advantage to a big car there. Not to mention better performance in snow depending on model.

In any case, one we get non-luxury electric SUVs the point will largely be moot.

I think people delude themselves into thinking they're purchasing an SUV to transport a lot of stuff or to travel with kids, when in reality drivers nonetheless drive alone.

Anecdotally, as I've said, SUVs have simply replaced Sedans as the "default" car on the road. And as you may know, the "default" car in America has a single driver.

> In any case, one we get non-luxury electric SUVs the point will largely be moot.

I disagree on the basis of the positive reinforcement cycle causing people to buy larger cars in the first place. From speaking to other drivers and listening to them as they think out their thought process when deciding what new car to buy, the #1 reason people want to drive an SUV is safety (which may include the point you made about performance in snow).

Not that I have anything against safety itself, but you must see the arms race that can occur from seeking safety in a larger vehicle. When other people are driving larger vehicles around you, you may feel endangered and thus buy a larger car yourself. That causes other drivers to buy larger cars in turn. No one can have "the biggest car". They only keep getting bigger.

So this notion that electric SUVs are going to save us is moot, I believe. People will still clamor for larger (now-electric) SUVs for their safety, reducing their eMPG (electric-equivalent MPG).

My fiancee inherited an SUV when her parents moved back to their country of origin, and it really is much better than my compact sedan for moving furniture.

A U-Haul is even better for moving furniture, and is cheap & easy to rent occasionally. Optimize for the common case, not the rare.

My utility trailer is far better than your SUV for hauling furniture, appliances, mulch, etc. And for the 363 days of the year that I'm not hauling anything needing that much capacity, my economy car gets far better fuel economy than your SUV while also being safer to drive because it's smaller, faster, and more agile, and doesn't roll over so easily so I can avoid accidents better.

Well sure SUVs, even electric ones will never be the most efficient forms of transportation. But if most or all of that energy comes from carbon neutral sources that relative inefficiency doesn't hurt all that much.

And I don't see the safety slope going much further than Vans/Pickups/SUVs. Are people going to start demanding de-militarized MRAPs for safety purposes? I doubt it. The safety cycle you describe is driven by the original users of the vehicles. Ex: Someone buys an SUV because they do a lot of kayaking/camping. That person gets in an accient with a smaller car and totals said smaller car while the SUV has a few dents in the bumper. Some people see this on the news, freak out and buy SUVs so now all things are equal. End of cycle. The kayaker doesn't buy another, bigger SUV, or upgrade to an 18 wheeler just to compete.

I used to drive a four door sedan(Chevy Impala) and was perfectly happy with it (My then 17 year old daughter totaled it, going up against another Impala). When the time came to find it's replacement I had to meet a certain pragmatic requirement. My wife has now had six back surgeries. When her mini-van needed to be in the shop for a few days we realized that she has a substantial amount of difficulty getting out of even a large car like my Impala. We needed a second vehicle that she could basically enter/exit easily. I now drive a small'ish SUV (Kia Sorento). My Impala was probably more sturdily built, I certainly didn't feel un-safe in it.

> I think people delude themselves into thinking they're purchasing an SUV to...travel with kids...

There has been a big change in the US that pushed many families to select SUV's and bigger cars in general: child seats became mandatory. These were rare during the 70's and earlier. They take up quite a lot of space when rear-facing (and if you use them strictly according to guidelines, they will be installed rear-facing for a very big part of their service life).

During the 70's it wasn't unusual to see families cramming groceries and shopping items in between where their children sat in the car, and anywhere else the items would fit, for that matter; you can't do that any longer, and in fact higher child safety awareness in cars even discourages that practice because of the possibility those items become missiles during an accident.

Nor is this practice recommended for where the adults sit. So a lot of families end up going with SUV's or minivans (why station wagons are not picked is another tragic story), to have enough to safely carry passengers, shopping, and sports/activity gear.

So yes, you can advocate for smaller cars, but you should be up front about the trade-off. Either more trips are made, wasting time, money and fuel, and/or safety is compromised, and/or lifestyles are drastically altered. To sell these compromises, you have to offer a benefit more compelling than "catastrophic outcome that doesn't affect you now might be averted". I'm not saying we shouldn't adopt small cars (I bike most days myself), I'm laying out the reality on the ground to convince the mass of developed world citizens to adopt them.

>multiple bags of mulch, dorm room furniture, sports equipment, more than 3 kids, or just lots of luggage for a family road trip

How are these practical purposes? The mulch can stay on the lawn or you could compost it at home; moving dorm room furniture twice a year for 2-4 years does not justify a large vehicle; sports equipment sounds like an attempt to justify a few trips each year into the mountains for a trip to a Ski resort; kids make sense I feel sorry for my parents when I was a child with two siblings stuffed into a 1993 Kia Sephia during road trips, but you could also just not have kids, this is a discussion on ways to reduce climate changes effects and drivers not increase them; and if you have an occasional need for lots of luggage you can do what my parents did for the Kia and put a travel box on top.

You have to transport the mulch from the store somehow. If you've got a dozen bags, it adds up. Doing summer and winter sessions I moved in and out of dorms at least 4 times a year. My family also took 5+ hour multi-week road trips to see distant relatives when I was a kid. You'd be surprised how much luggage that can entail.

These types of things things might be occasional, maybe every few weeks at most, but to me that justifies buying the larger vehicle. It may not be the ideal solution, but that's hardly a reason not to use it.

As for not having kids... yeah no. I don't understand how anyone who wants kids can even entertain that thought. Like telling me I should just chop off an arm so my body can conserve resources.

>You have to transport the mulch from the store somehow. If you've got a dozen bags, it adds up.

See I thought you meant yard waste from your own yard to a landfill. Arguing that you need a SUV for a purchase of mulch from a store still can't be justified. Rent a vehicle for like $20 for the day. You cannot not live long enough to beat an entry level sedan and a yearly one day rental compared to even an entry level SUV, much less a full-size SUV. Heck get two entry level sedans for the price of one entry level SUV, now you can haul 8 people and your mulch, while using less gas than the full-size SUV and being able to improve your routing.

>Doing summer and winter sessions I moved in and out of dorms at least 4 times a year.

"Hey when I do this really odd exception it throws a wrench in normal plans." I really don't know what entails needing a SUV to move in and out 4 times a year. Renting a Uhaul will be cheaper than the yearly insurance premium difference between a small vehicle and a large SUV. Or if you could stand to be away from a lot of it when staying at what I assume is your parent's fully furnished house when you aren't in school you could rent a storage unit instead of dragging all your knick-knacks across the country.

>My family also took 5+ hour multi-week road trips to see distant relatives when I was a kid. You'd be surprised how much luggage that can entail.

My family did that same and we'd just attach the cargo box to the top of the vehicle and make my sister not pack 2 giant suitcases. The occasional need for lots of cargo capacity doesn't necessitate always having the capacity.

>As for not having kids... yeah no.

What about less kids? What about not having them all at the same time, i.e. you can have a little car because the kids are separated by 15+ years?

>Like telling me I should just chop off an arm so my body can conserve resources.

Well why did you grow that extra arm? Child bearing is relatively optional.

If you need to move more than 3 kids, you need to get a minivan. But most suburban people don't, they get the more gas-guzzling SUVs instead. Minivans can also haul a lot more cargo; SUVs are generally rather poor at that.

For most people who rarely move cargo, and don't have so many kids, a much more sensible solution is to get a small/midsize car, and use a utility trailer when you need to move things. My economy car can easily move a washing machine and dryer, or a large riding mower, something that pretty much no SUV can do, thanks to a trailer. While I'm pulling a trailer I get fuel economy similar to a midsize SUV, but it's not often I'm pulling the trailer so the rest of the time I'm getting 40mpg.

Electric SUVs will still consumer significantly more energy than electric cars. You can't change basic physics.

Depends on the SUV. Minivans are fine, I grew up riding in one. Trailers are cool if you have a car with a hitch. I'm not even sure if my sedan's even capable of having a hitch attached without some sort of bumper replacement.

Regardless, my point isn't that SUVs are the perfect solution, just that they have their uses. Could those uses be accomplished by something slightly more efficient? Maybe, but that doesn't make buying the SUV borderline criminal like some here seem to believe.

Case in point, if 10 years from now we have electric SUVs that are completely powered by solar/wind/clean energy, why do you care if it's slightly less efficient? Talk about splitting hairs...

>Depends on the SUV.

No, it doesn't. The requirement is more than 3 kids. A small or midsize SUV has the same passenger capacity as a sedan (5: 2 in front, 3 in back), so now you're talking about a large 3-row SUV. There's no possible way a large 3-row SUV gets better efficiency than a typical minivan.

> Trailers are cool if you have a car with a hitch. I'm not even sure if my sedan's even capable of having a hitch attached without some sort of bumper replacement.

Wrong. Any normal sedan has a hitch available. Check out Curt, Hidden Hitch, Reese, etc. etrailer.com carries most makes. I'd be surprised if you could find any car other than maybe a Smart which doesn't have a hitch available. Even a Prius has a hitch available.

>Regardless, my point isn't that SUVs are the perfect solution, just that they have their uses.

No, they really don't, except for off-roading, which isn't something you need to do on a regular basis anyway unless you're some kind of far-out rural dweller (and even there, a Subaru will probably work just fine). Other vehicles can do the same job but much better. People: minivan. Cargo: 4x8 or 5x8 utility trailer. Worse, SUVs are dangerous: they're far more prone to rolling over, and can be rolled even by high winds.

>Case in point, if 10 years from now we have electric SUVs that are completely powered by solar/wind/clean energy

Why would you want something so inferior, even if you could reduce the energy requirement? And it's still never going to be that low. Electric is better, but not that much better: hundreds of millions of people driving eSUVs is still far more energy than those same people driving e-cars. You can't get around the basic laws of physics: more mass and higher wind resistance = more energy.