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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

SUVs in themselves are not class signifiers; particular SUVs are, like the MB G class, etc. people buy SUVs mostly because they’re practical.

They don’t buy them as a signal of class. There are exceptions, of course.

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Minivans are much more practical: generally more cargo space, lower bed, higher mileage, less roll-over risk, better front visibility (so less chance of running over your kids in the driveway), good amenities. The Toyota Sienna comes in a 4WD variant too, and has plenty of power.

The average minivan is far larger than the average SUV. They have about the same footprint as a pickup truck.

So specifically compare compact minivans to SUVs then. Categories are made up and the average of a category is not always relevant.

Genuinely, it hink they're an imagined practicality. We have a conventional family, conventional arrangements, and granted, I'd loath to buy an suv, out of spite I guess, but we've never been in a situation where our old small normal car isn't sufficient. We do all the things normal people do too.

Dad with wife, two kids, and a dog here. We are a one car family, and we intend to stay that way due to pretty real parking constraints.

We tried to hold out for as long as we could without an SUV. Ultimately, taking a week long trip with the family became focused around space management, having to play packing tetris and telling my wife "I don't think we have space for the pack and play". Sure we made it work, but it was stressful.

We got a 3 row SUV (3rd row collapses), and the additional space is just fantastic when it comes to packing. And when the cousins or grandparents are in town, the 3rd row comes in handy.

What about a minivan? All of my siblings with kids use them, and I genuinely think you can fit more cargo in them. My parents take the seats out, and use it to transport stuff from the hardware store, it can a bunch of kids, etc.

I recently rented a car for a camping trip, and they only had minivans - we had a ton of room to fit everything. Only real disadvantage is they look less "classy" than SUVs to some.

I don’t own either, but modern midsize SUVs and Minivans (for instance, a Honda Pilot and Odyssey) are essentially the same thing with different styling. I don’t get why folks think minivans are significantly better from an environmental, safety or utility point of view.

Lower clearance mainly, mean lower gravity center, generally more space (not always) and better front visibility (The A-pillar in newer minivans are a bit worse than SUVs, so point for them at least).

Lower clearance is really, really nice. 95% of deathly accidents involve a single car that went out of control, that's why road death increase with the %age of SUVs in a country despite better tech.

Wouldn’t a people carrier have been adequate? I don’t think people have an issue with the desire for interior space for families, it’s more an issue with the unnecessary extra size and weight brought on by the offroadesque styling

I'm not familiar with the term "people carrier", sorry. Is this like a minivan?

If so, many minivans are ~similar in size, weight, and capacity to modern SUVs (not all SUVs are a Chevy Suburban :-)). For example, you can compare the Honda Odyssey to the Mazda CX9 and the specs are actually not too different:

Mazda CX9: weight: 4,409lbs, 199″ L x 78″ W x 68″ H

Honda Odyssey: 4,482lbs, 205″ L x 79″ W x 70″ H

Edit: formatting

And yet the Odyssey has more than double the interior space, which shows how inefficient the SUV form factor is

An MPV such as the ford cmax will have as much practicality than a much bigger SUV

A minivan allows much easier ingress, egress with large doors. Also, there are no SUVs with 8 seats that I know of. There are minivans with AWD or even limited 4WD. But they definitely carry social stigma and don't look sporty. That's important for a lot of people, I guess.

Also, wheel base and weight are not the best way to compare overall utility of a vehicle.

Genuine curiosity: why an SUV and not a minivan?

A lot of modern SUVs are actually pretty similar in specs to minivans:

Mazda CX9: weight: 4,409lbs, 199″ L x 78″ W x 68″ H

Honda Odyssey: 4,482lbs, 205″ L x 79″ W x 70″ H

For us, it mostly boiled down to us needing to periodically drive in snowy conditions. Obviously an SUV is not a magical vehicle for wintry conditions, but 4wd is big advantage.

ha, I guess the dog must be the tipping point :)

Station wagons are tanky; minivans are homely and underpowered. So lots of people get SUVs. It’s easier to fit things in the trunk when shopping IKEA or going skiing, sports equipment, etc. sure, it is possible to wedge 10ft 2x4s in a sedan, but it’s easier with an SUV.

In any case, normal SUVs are not class signifiers. People drive beaters. Some are signifiers but that’s a really small segment.

“Homely”?

Avoiding something because it’s “homely” sounds exactly like symboling status :)

Plus "underpowered". Like, what? You can't revv your engine that well at the red light or what are we talking about?

> Station wagons are tanky;

I'm sorry what? Tanky compared to an overbuilt overpowered 17 foot suburban?!

The old woodies are a thing of beauty and a Mercedes estate is downright gorgeous, and would utterly SCHOOL an Escalade on cargo capacity AND fuel economy at the same time.

> minivans are homely and underpowered.

Then get a VAN, not a MINI-VAN. It's in the name dude.

> So lots of people get SUVs. It’s easier to fit things in the trunk when shopping IKEA or going skiing, sports equipment, etc. sure, it is possible to wedge 10ft 2x4s in a sedan, but it’s easier with an SUV.

I'm sorry that last statement is just laughable. Long cargo is AWFUL in an SUV unless you remove the entire rear row of seats at which point, again, you have a van. You have a tall, shitty van.

Most modern SUVs are 'underpowered' too. They take the same lame engine that goes in a non-sport family sedan and drop it in a larger, heavier car. If you want performance, you usually buy a specific type of car.

To you.

Why does that apply beyond you?

A Suburban is as much a class signifier as a G Class, just for a different class. Hell, it's in the name: it's the car of the suburban middle classes. It's the minivan for the sort of kind of person who would get a minivan but doesn't want to show they're the kind of person who would get a minivan.

It's one of those cars people refer to by name. People drive their "suburban", the neighbors have a "suburban", in the news the "suburban" will crash through the daycare, not nondescript oversized suv,...

SUV's are not practical. Trucks can be. If you find yourself needing to transport a large amount of something that is, well, filthy, you will find use in a truck. However a modern truck will make that task more difficult, because the ride height is so tall and the huge wheels require larger wheel wells which diminish the carrying capacity of the bed. The ride height also situates the bed higher, which makes loading/unloading more difficult, and creates a more unsafe situation with heavier loads like large lawn tools (higher center of gravity) than an older, shorter truck with smaller wheels would. It really is not an exaggeration to say that a 2024 Silverado is comprehensively a worse truck in basically every aspect you'd actually want a truck for than a 2004 Silverado, apart from fuel economy. But that's a lot of downsides for an additional 6MPG city, which is basically entirely down to advancements in ICE technology, which is being actively undermined by the much larger-for-absolutely-no-reason vehicle it's inside.[1]

SUV's meanwhile are just shitty versions of vans situated on truck chassis. That's literally it. Their height makes them harder to get in and out of and to load/unload cargo from. The fact that their cargo space is finished means they're less appealing to transporting shitty garden-type stuff that a truck does easily. However they're also not arranged as well as vans for their cargo space, requiring the same aforementioned oversized wheel wells, meaning they also hold less than the vans they compete with. And, despite all of that, they also by virtue of using the same chassis, the same engine, and the same suspension components, inherit the shitty fuel economy, higher maintenance costs, rollover risk, and crash incompatibility as their truck counterparts, while offering basically none of the benefits, apart from maybe towing. As long as what you're towing didn't need to be hitched to the bed anyway.

SUV's are practical for one thing: demonstrating wealth to your neighbors, and offering you better odds in a crash with another stupid SUV. Not great odds, just better odds.

1: Note that's just the EPA's figures and doesn't account for the age of the 2004 Silverado.

Edit: This is, tangentially related, why actual tradesmen not Home Depot customers cosplaying as tradesmen, have recently begin raiding the used market for pickup trucks that are actually designed to do work, not to let grown men who live in the suburbs play an imaginary role on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Or just abandoning them altogether and getting a van.

Before the SUVs took over, there was a French trend called “Ludospaces”, basically panel vans but with windows and rear seats. They were awesome

Modern SUVs are mostly not on truck chassis anymore. The body-on-frame breed of SUV is growing increasingly rare. Modern SUVs are a lot closer to larger sedans (for example, a Mazda CX5 is not remotely close to a truck).

> Their height makes them harder to get in and out of and to load/unload cargo from.

My Honda CR-V is much easier to get in and out of then my Honda Civic was.

> > Their height makes them harder to get in and out of and to load/unload cargo from.

> My Honda CR-V is much easier to get in and out of then my Honda Civic was.

With that statement GP was comparing modern pickup trucks to 20+ year old pickup trucks. And you respond by stating that an SUV is easier to get into and out of than a sedan/hatchback?

I wish I could double your karma. This comment represents the pinnacle of thought around vehicle styles and how unsound logic and manipulative sociology can create net harm in capitalist economies. Everything about modern American trucks and SUVs makes me want to vomit when I thino about it too hard.

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