Hacker News Reader

Comment by trgn | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

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.

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.

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?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com