Also. You get a big truck/SUV for the same reason people prefer a big TV or a large suburban home than a 2 bedroom condo. Bigger is better, at least in the U.S.
if you're in your car for 2 hours a day commuting, driving the kids around, etc, then bigger is better and more comfortable
Overall, driving a truck is much more stressing than a car.
Germans are slightly taller on average than Americans, and the Dutch are pretty well-known for it. Both are countries where the VW Golf is the median vehicle, and the Focus is one of its main competitors.
$6-7/gallon gas probably does cause people to put up with stuff that they wouldn’t if fuel were commonly $2.50, though.
Worse though, are my tall kids. One is expected to be 6'10" soon. Does he just have to buy a bus? Getting a car would be preferred.
Cars that are compact/economy cars on the US market are midsize/midmarket here, and that might be why little things like very height-adjustable seats are in them. The Golf/Focus (plus Auris, Astra) segment is extremely competitive in the EU.
Huh. Just realized that most cars here don’t have prominent grab handles.
I've heard this position from a number of people and never really understood it. It's usually related to the ability to see over other vehicles, but in times of higher traffic density where that would be most useful, there are almost always numerous larger vehicles on the road that still significantly limit vision.
I've made cross-country trips in everything from a sports car to a 1-ton van, and definitely didn't find the van's height to be an asset in terms of comfort.
The Fusion was a joy to drive; the Expedition was a chore. Squishy driver's seat, soggy handling, and of course, three times the fuel consumption of the Fusion hybrid.
If I recall properly, the North American Fusion is a slightly reworked Mondeo, which is considered a nice-ish car over here, and would also explain why I thought it was nice: we have a Fiesta and just sold my diesel Focus wagon.
Sorry to see that just when Ford seemed to have figured out that their European division designs decent small cars, they’ve given up on bringing them into the North American market.
(I'm not referring to height)
36.2% obesity, 12th place. Beaten mostly by small island nations. It's still the 1st most obese western country.
Americans are big. They also have more fat people than other western nations.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/9345086/The...
BMI doesn't account for muscle mass. If you have decent muscle you're overweight according to BMI.
weight only < BMI < caliper measurements
Any article that equates fatness with weight is not accurate.
In this article[1] "Measuring Adiposity in Patients: The Utility of Body Mass Index (BMI), Percent Body Fat, and Leptin" you can see this dramatically illustrated in Figure 1 [2]. The upper left quadrant (different colors for men and women) is the most populous. It contains the people who are obese by body fat percentage but not BMI. The lower right is the least populated. It contains the people who are not obese by body fat percentage but who are flagged as obese by BMI.
The small fraction of the population that have devoted such attention to the cultivation of muscle over other goals, such as athletic performance, are surely well aware of their body fat levels and are unlikely to be impacted by this edge case in BMI measurement. (Their excess muscle may also not be healthy for their cardiovascular system.) Dismissing the utility of a easily applied and highly sensitive screen like BMI is a mistake, both for individuals and for public health.
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?size=...
> Men and women in the United States also experienced a growth spurt, but to a lesser degree. In 1914, U.S. men were the third tallest in the world, and U.S. women were the fourth tallest. But despite increases in height of 2.2 inches and 2 inches (6 cm and 5 cm), respectively, U.S. men are now ranked 37th and women are ranked 42nd, the study found.
https://www.livescience.com/55580-tallest-shortest-people-in...
Obviously - one gets used to these things. In India - typically for example whole family does not go to pick one up from Airport. Babies don't have to be ferreted around in cars that much. Furniture delivery is almost always free in India whereas in US either you have to pay extra or pick up.
The Avalon probably has 80% as much noise on the freeway and if you set the cruise control to 80, the sedan is going to get 2x-3x better MPG and the Avalon costs half as much as the Tahoe.
What's the adage about a fool and their money?
The chicken tax and the "cool" factor / branding must play a role over and above the raw utility of hauling lots of people, surely?
But really it's a longer story than that. Minivans had previously replaced station wagons, and the crossovers of today tend to look like a cross between a minivan and a wagon.
Their aero isn't as good as a car but it's better than a truck based SUV.
Fold the seats and you've got a trunk only slightly smaller than a minivan without the 3rd row.
AWD SUVs are readily available and generally the standard. FWD is generally reserved for people who want to go out of their way to be economical about it.
Trailer hitch is solved with $300 and a trip to Uhaul (or for the mechanically inclined: $120, Amazon and a 30% chance of needing a drill). With modern horsepower and brakes you can comfortably tow some stupidly large stuff with crossovers so long as you've got a weight distribution hitch to take some of the weight off the rear axle.
Crossovers do nothing great but they do everything passably well, just like the station wagons of the 1950s-80s they replaced.
A lot of whitewater paddling friends actually favor minivans because they find them more convenient for lots of gear and shuttling people than SUV configurations.
I would NEVER recommend a minivan to anyone, ever.
I have two kids, and we're thinking about a third, so we're looking around at options to replace our sedan. Here's what I've decided:
- SUVs with a third row suck for anyone in the third row, and they get horrible gas mileage - few sedans and SUVs are big enough for two car seats and a booster - minivans are expensive and frequently have annoying mechanical issues
I think I've settled on the Mazda 5 because:
- three kids + cargo (fold down one back seat) is doable - reasonable gas mileage - comfortable for six adults (going out with friends with a babysitter at home)
Unfortunately, they aren't making them anymore. I really have driving SUVs and trucks, but sedans are too small for my family now. Minivans, while completely "uncool", are the best option for people who need to haul people and stuff at the same time.
Store extra rows of seats in your garage until you need them.
I like being elevated from the ground, especially in bumper-to-bumper traffic. It's comfortable to sit up. But it's big and consumes gas, and we also have a subcompact. So the van mainly lives in the garage and we use our bicycles for getting around when we can.
People have told me that they got a "crossover" or SUV because the minivan carries the soccer-mom stigma. But damn, talk about utility.
The average family size in the US is a hair over 3 (two parents, one child, roughly). In 2017, light truck sales were roughly double the sales of cars.
You measure average and no one is average.
1 - http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/05/07/family-size-among-...
And sure, technically you can fit five people in a sedan, but it ain't comfortable in the slightest, especially when you have carseats. An SUV or minivan is much more practical for this 40% chunk of US families.
And as mentioned elsewhere, it's not always just the mom/dad and kids. You might have the family dog, band instruments, friends, non-core-family relatives, a month's worth of groceries, etc.
Plus, even as one person, I've gotten a lot of good use out of my Highlander because I can fold down the seats and haul relatively-large things (like furniture) and keep the seats up and drive people around without having to own two separate vehicles to do it. As a bonus, AWD and all-terrain tires means that I can do these things during snowstorms and/or on unpaved mountain roads with relative safety and ease compared to your run-of-the-mill FWD (or - worse - RWD) sedan (the latter activity is niche, for sure, but the former is typically routine for vast majority of car-owning Americans living north of the Mason-Dixon Line).
And if you want to be able to transport anyone else (kids have a friend coming over, give someone a ride, etc, etc) you need a 7 passenger vehicle?
How is that "quite small"?
I feel this is part of what's changed in the US: the 70s station wagon worked for 3-4 kids in a row, but to fit 4 enormous small-person seats you need a minivan.
We have two kids (oldest is four and still in a booster) and we're considering a third, which is also making us seriously consider a larger car. We'll either need a larger car or a smaller car seat because we cannot currently fit three seats in our sedan (or at least, I don't think we can).
Kei cars only seat 4 people, but people do squeeze 5 in on occasion, especially when it comes to kids.
Of course the sacrifice is the complete removal of crumple zones...
So, there are regulations pushing people in the direction of large homes and large vehicles.