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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

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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.

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