Which is why electric SUVs are actually a step backward on a lot of fronts except CO2 emissions.
Their curb weights in lbs are:
Model Y: 4,555
SQ5: 4,288
M40i: 4,392
GLC43: 4,233
So, yes, a model Y is heavier, but only by about 250 lbs. At a 4th power that could be an extra 30% damage compared to an ICE, but even the lightest SUV here is doing something like 3.5x the damage compared to a Honda Civic. So, if you think road damage is a valid concern, electric cars aren't particularly special - SUVs in general should be a bigger worry.
this is crazy to consider when you know that parents with three children in car seats cannot find a sedan that can hold three car seats, and wagons disappeared to be replaced by SUVs because of... EPA emissions standards.
So it could be argued that the emission standards are the cause of this extra wear, which is additionally ironic when you consider asphalt is an oil product
I think that's only half-true. In the US, people weren't buying many wagons when they were available. For the majority of people who don't use their SUVs off road, this seems irrational. I've heard a number of people say that the higher seating position makes them feel safer, though that feeling is not reality-based.
It is based in reality, albeit a kind of self fulfilling prophecy.
As more and more taller cars (large SUVs and pickup trucks) appear on the road the more dangerous it is for smaller cars. The crumple zones on a compact or sedan don't do much good when the front and rear bumpers of SUVs and trucks clear the hoods of smaller cars, effectively putting the bumper at eye level.
I expected that to be illegal, but it seems that it is not in the US. A quick look suggests that for typical unmodified SUVs the issue affects repair costs more than occupant injuries. Homebuilt monster trucks are, of course another issue.
[0] The original "sport-utility vehicles" were built for off-road usage and had 4WD but that hasn't been true of almost anything marketed as an SUV for decades.
This is exactly why Subarus are massively popular in Alaska.
Because that's a kind of regulatory fiction, right there.
So let's cut the crap!
For the majority of the so-called SUV market the "s" in SUV is a long lost myth, and if we're being honest then it's just Utility-Vehicle (UV). But you say they sit higher off the road, perhaps that's technically correct, but actually false when compared to off-road vehicles. But we've already acknowledged SUV's are not really off road vehicles, but rather normal passenger vehicles with normal road tires, normal suspensions, and lower center's of gravity. The Model-y is really just a slightly taller/longer version of the model-3. But how much higher, well if you look at the ground clearance, then it's only ~1 inches higher off the ground. But overall the vehicle is taller, will a larger overhead canopy, and the seats are places over booster blocks to raise the eye-level higher. It's really an illusion, the Model-y is really just a sedan, that technically meets the minimum requirements to say it's an SUV. You can safely consider the modern SUV as the equivalence of old-school station-wagons.
If it waddles like a duck... quacks like a duck... you might be dealling with ducks my dude.
It doesn't magically make back row wider, so you can't fit comfortably 3 taller adults regardless of seat arrangements, but 3 child seats are easy. It then has exactly same space as usual 3-seaters like Seat Alhambra, its VW equivalent etc. but you drive much better, more powerful and also safer car (ie frontal crumple zones).
If you think about 3 solid wide seats for 3 adults, such a car wouldn't fit in regular parking spot in most EU/Switzerland and struggled on narrower roads, yeah we normally don't do that kind of stuff here since roads and parking spaces are shared among everybody.
BMW series 5, Audi A6 etc are sedans. These are strongly declining too; SUVs make more about 40% of sales of new vehicles in Europe.
"Multimac" is the first brand that came up on Google: https://thetravelhack.com/blog/multimac-car-seat-review/
Regarding car seats, they are just THAT much bigger these days. My family had 3 car seats in a rabbit, in the early 80s.
This is a categorically untrue myth. Lots of car seats are stupidly wide thrones, but there is no reason you have to buy those ridiculous things. Diono makes a full line of car seats which fit 3-across in any midsize car. They're even cheaper than a lot of seats from the biggest brands, starting under $200. [1]
People are buying SUVs because they want them and because we've made it attractive to do so:
* Externalize excess road wear costs onto all taxpayers due to gas tax
* Overall trends contributed to pathetic selection of good sedans
* Finally, Reasonable fears that since "everyone else" is driving 3-ton monstrosities, perhaps they won't be safe in a car 5 feet shorter than the truck that hits them.
It won't be easy to reverse any of this, since the only lever is to replace gas tax with a fair road tax like this Norway one -- the rest of them are functions of the trend. Sadly, anything that raises taxes on a majority of Americans (those who drive big SUV things) would be political suicide.
[1] https://store.diono.com/radian-3r/ (No affiliation with them, though I've purchased 4 of these so far personally.)
This is true for electric or hybrid, but in general, heavier ICE vehicles will have lower economy which means they buy more fuel and pay more fuel taxes. In many states trucks cost more to register too. So it's probably pretty close to proportional.
Historically gas was a reasonable proxy for road use, but that is going to be increasingly untrue. It's reasonable to see EVs as a tax dodge against road use taxation that can primarily be taken advantage of by the well-off, but in AZ it's $100-$200 a year.
Either give EVs a 1¢/mile use tax or give everyone the tax and remove the gas tax, or drop them both and become more efficient ;-).
Registration in Michigan for a Model 3 is over $500 a year and used to be closer to $700.
If you assume 12,000 miles a year that's only $720 total since the 3's release at 1 cent a mile.
Nobody's forcing anybody to buy the giant ones, though, so a few good choices existing is enough that "car seats" isn't a reason on its own to buy an SUV.
It just seems super wasteful to me the number of vehicle-miles that are driven in the suburbs by enormous and medium-sized ("Tall Hatchback Camry") SUVs with a single driver carrying a couple bags of groceries. Most of the time, most commuters and even people with up to 2 small children ought to be perfectly fine driving a 4-door compact, which is substantially more fuel-efficient and lighter than even the midsize SUVs. But the incentives don't exist to make people consider that. They figure, "Oh well, I'll spend $25 extra on gas each month but it's worth it so that I can transport lumber once a year."
https://diono.com/diono-journal/the-original-and-the-best-3-... solves the three car seat problem even in a smallish sedan.
The Kia Carnival seats 11 in Asia …
Commercial vehicles still have some variation because the purchaser is not the driver.
That's the first time I hear this argument. I thought that SUVs replaced them because car makers found that they can justify a bigger price on a bigger, heavier vehicles. Intuitively an SUV should emit more (heavier vehicle, more wind resistance).
I know that John Deere used EPA emissions standards as a smoke screen for them of their unwilling to allow third-party repairs on their tractors. Perhaps they are using the same maneuver here?
SUVs and the like exploit a loophole in various standards like fuel efficiency requirements because they are not "cars" but "Light trucks" and therefore those standards don't apply to them; which makes them cheaper to design and build for automotive companies.
The "Light trucks" category was supposed to be used for light commercial vehicles, not personal vehicles but then the law of unintended consequences had a love-child with profit seeking corporations and their linguistic games.
Literally the only reason SUVs and trucks became popular is because the automotive manufacturers could make more money doing it that way and convinced the consumers to buy them. NotJustBikes did a good intro video on the subject.
* https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-wants-to-close-the-suv-lo...
I agree about wagons though. Subaru still makes them. The Lexus CT200h is pretty much a wagon. It would be nice to see more "crossovers" that took more from the sedan side, however, none of the modern ones have jump seats except (maybe ironically) the Tesla Model 3.
We've graduated to four kids which eliminates the vast majority of vehicles from our set of options. Kia, Hyundai, Toyota, and GM all make ≥6 passenger vehicles that are not-minivans, but the options are very limited and put you into the SUV category.
Yeah, not to mention, the SUVs he's comparing are especially large.
Comparing passenger cars illustrates the point as the model S weighs almost the same as the Model Y.
Mercedes E-class weighs 3,700 lbs compared to a model S which..still weighs 4500 lbs.
And no, I would not compare a model S to an s-class.
Unless they're dead-set on an EV, they're much more likely cross-shopping the Model Y ($48K base MSRP) against a luxury ($57K base, $62K base, $67K base) SUV than an economy ($27K base MSRP) SUV. If they are dead-set on an EV, they might cross-shop against the Ariya ($43K base, but also 4323 lbs).
Edit: 7klbs is also the magical number where the tax write-off goes up by ~$10k. So there is incentive to keep it above that weight. Public pays multiple times: reduced tax revenue, higher energy usage/emissions and higher road deg. Complete insanity!
If you look into people's buying choices I think EVs actually do make it worse quite a bit. For instance we are going to soon trade our minivan (1.7t, 3,700lb) to an ID.Buzz (2.5t, 5,000lb). And even officially that car is the replacement for the car we currently have. If you go from a VW Golf (1.3t, 2,800lb) to an ID.3 (1.9t, 4.100lb) you can see that it's not helped by picking a smaller EV.
I do agree with you that large SUVs are the problem but EV SUVs are really worrying. Rivian's trucks are over 3 tons and the new Hummer EV is nearly 5 tons!
It's one possible way of getting full market penetration.
The other way is to subsidise EV's heavily until the market takes off. That's what was done here in Norway, now 80% of new cars sold are pure battery EVs [1]. The best selling model of car in Norway now is the Tesla Model Y.
The subsidies are gradually being phased out.
Those fuel trucks also have to operate on regular streets more than most semi trucks do, which likely compounds the benefit.
Why would electric cars be any worse than combustion cars for these?
The overwhelming problem with giant electric SUVs is the opportunity cost. Given limited capacity for battery making, and considering that we are using the last bit of our emissions budget to make them, it is obviously better to make them as small as possible. Slapping a 180kWh battery pack in a Rivian is ridiculous. With the same materials you could make 500 electric bicycles.
But - at least around me - EV chargers seem to be mandated (for at least for some of the spots) when any large or image-conscious organization builds or renovates parking infrastructure. For the purpose at hand, it doesn't matter whether the mandate is legal, or just "or what will they say about us on social media???".
We don't think of nor call it "parking" at the gas pump, but we do at a charging station. There's a reason that's the case.
Many people will have a dedicated charging space at home (taking up only epsilon extra space for the charger), but all the Tesla super-charger, Chargepoints, EVGo, ElectrifyAmerica, etc en route chargers will require more parking space per EV than the equivalent petrol station per ICE.
In Berkeley, California the share of EVs on the road is only about 5% today.
At a 150kW charger that would be 30 hours of charging, or an average 5 minutes a day.
One charger would thus serve 200 cars in the US, 400 in the EU.
In the UK 2-in-3 cars have private parking space and thus potential for home charging. I expect the US to be a fair higher number as there's more space, but lets stay that figure.
That would make one charger serve 600 cars in the US, 1200 in the EU.
The largest chargers I've seen are half a parking space for two spaces.
Thus to serve 280 million cars you need to provide charging for 100 million, which at 600:1 car:charger ratio would be 160,000 chargers.
There are about 115,000 gas sations in the US. 2 chargers per gas station, using a total of 2.5 parking spaces, would be enough.
Thus moving to 100% EV would save massive amounts of space across the country.
EVs eliminate that middle parking spot most of the time. And, tbh, even on road trips, gas cars spend a significant amount of time stopped. They just spend less of that stopped time getting fuel.
Fast chargers are basically only needed along highways, where they take the place of gas stations. You only need those for long-distance driving, but most driving is short-distance.
On the other hand, a lot of slow/midspeed chargers are basically just regular destination parking spots equipped with a charger. They take up zero additional space. As EVs become more and more common, we'll see an increasing number of parking spots being equipped with chargers. Because this allows EVs to charge where they are parked anyways this means you can essentially get rid of gas stations inside cities - which ends up saving space.
Right now we just happen to be in a bit of an awkward in-between phase. When the majority of cars are EVs, the ecosystem will change to fit them better.
How much bigger and heavier is an electric SUV vs a regular one? How does a ModelY compare to a Mazda CX-5 for instance?
https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/tesla-model-y-2021-...
https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/mazda-cx-5-2012-suv... https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/tesla-model-y-2021-...
Smaller, more efficient vehicles with smaller batteries are definitely better and should be incentivized.
If you want to compare them yourself, don't forget to include all of the externalities from drilling, transporting, and refining petroleum before it reaches the pump. Tailpipe vs tailpipe certainly doesn't tell the whole story.
EVs are happening. It's a huge win for the environment and all the environmental orgs that pushed for it. Stop trying to rewrite this revolutionary change as a hidden nefarious L. You're just making yourself sad and the youth jaded.
It’s like people will not be satisfied until we eliminate cars and all other modern inventions.
EVs are, at best, stagnation. At worst they simply go even further to hide the enormous external costs of everyone using giant, heavy wheelchairs to move around anywhere.
A trivial example is total number of miles driven. If we end up driving twice as much then that's your CO2 gains gone right there. Considering that's exactly what's happened since 1983 does that seem unlikely?
Do EVs do anything to reverse this trend? Do they do anything for pedestrian safety? Do they do anything about the need for parking and huge roads? Do they do anything about noise and particulate pollution of tyres? Do they do anything about road rage? I could go on and on.
Focussing solely on one single metric is extremely foolish, but of course it's exactly what the car manufacturers want because they've found a solution for that one metric.
Yes, it seems unlikely that we would double our number of miles driven because this is a factor of time spent driving, population, and speed. There's no indication that speed limits will increase or that people are interested in longer commutes, and population growth is stagnating.
> Do EVs do anything to reverse this trend? Do they do anything for pedestrian safety? Do they do anything about the need for parking and huge roads? Do they do anything about noise and particulate pollution of tyres? Do they do anything about road rage? I could go on and on.
Climate change is a much more significant problem than these. I can live with wide roads and parking lots; it's much harder to live with our global breadbaskets succumbing to increasingly severe droughts and the geopolitical destabilization that entails.
And there's no way we're going to pivot away from ICE cars to public transit quickly enough to meet climate goals even if there was the political will to do so (and there isn't, because lots of people get a lot of value out of cars, and even places with lots of public transit options are seeing a rise in car ownership and usage). There's just no way it's going to happen over the next century.
Moreover, there's tons we could do about pedestrian safety, tire pollution, road noise, etc without eliminating cars, but we lack the political will even to do these things so there's certainly no way we're going to abolish cars and transition to public transit / cycling lifestyles.
> Focussing solely on one single metric is extremely foolish
It's foolish to treat all metrics as equally important. You can't live without food; you can live with car noise.
> of course it's exactly what the car manufacturers want because they've found a solution for that one metric
Yeah, car manufacturers love paying Tesla so they can keep making ICE cars /s. Cars are wildly popular in the west (car adoption is increasing across the board, even among the Dutch); the auto industry doesn't need to do a psyop to convince people to drive--it's just much more convenient than the alternatives even where the alternatives are very well developed/supported.
The only correct bit here is that they do require more CO2 to manufacture, but this is made up for by the dramatically reduced operating emissions in the first few thousand miles or so of driving (depending on the source of the energy used to charge it). Further, the grid is getting greener all the time, so operating emissions and the manufacturing emissions are both falling quickly while the operating emissions of fossil fuels remains extremely high (literally and figuratively).
Compared to efficient cars, this crossover point is as late as 50,000km. It does not pay off as rapidly as you are implying. Something like a Kia Niro with a normal-sized battery starts with an embodied CO2 deficit of ~5t. Something absurd like a Rivian is 20t in the hole from the jump and will never be CO2-positive except when compared to something equally wasteful like an ICE Hummer.
I find it a little hard to believe that e.g. lithium extraction is fundamentally worse than oil extraction and processing.