The Model 3 has potential to shift the whole market if they can provide a practical electric family car for the average people living in suburban areas.
If you just mean the silly way Americans use SUV's (to simply be taller than the other cars on the road) then maybe it is a decent form factor.
I used to share your disdain for SUVs until I dated someone who drove one. They can be really useful for carrying cargo and the smaller ones get decent fuel economy.
That said, I think a lot of SUV buyers are motivated by fear. They feel that collisions are inevitable so they want to drive a big armored box. They want 4WD even here in the Southern USA where it snows 2 days per year. I think a lot of them have kids and it's one more part of the protective worrying parent mentality.
Personally I can't stand the handling of tall vehicles.
There was a time when I loved the handling of my 3-series with sport suspension. Now, I just want something that makes my toddler less pukey on these shitty northeastern roads.
To take two examples I shopped for last year, the cargo space for a Ford Escape is equal to that of a Prius v, but the Escape costs significantly more for equivalent features and even with "decent" fuel economy it burns twice as much gas. I wanted something that could tow a trailer but ended up not going with any of the small SUVs I looked at, because they just couldn't hold a whole lot, and they weren't worth the premium.
I think people may overestimate the cargo space of small SUVs, partly because the shape hits our volume-estimation biases, and partly because people "know" that SUV means large cargo capacity. Big ones will haul a lot, but small ones are mostly just funny-shaped cars.
Your speculation about fear is spot on. I've lost count of how many times I've heard people say that they want an SUV because it's safer and because they can see better, even though the first is typically untrue and the second is a pretty small effect (not to mention that they're basically ruining it for everybody else).
You can get by with a smaller car, but the SUV form factor provides lots of capability, which is nice to have whenever you want it.
I've got one sedan (an Accord) and an SUV (a Pilot), both have their place.
IOW, its a station wagon -- but with a light truck frame to fall into what was (at the time the class was introduced) a regulatory loophole of being a "light truck" rather than a "passenger auto", and therby exempt from certain safety and efficiency regulations -- accompanied by enormous blitz of marketing propaganda to shift consumer demand from "passenger autos" to the various new classes that fell into the "light truck" loophole (minivans and SUVs.)
The safety regulation loophole was closed, IIRC, in the late 1990s, and the efficiency loophole was changed in 2007 (though there still is one for very large vehicles), which is why "crossovers" -- that is, vehicles that still target the demanded created by the SUV marketing blitz, but no longer have the costs associated with the features required to hit the regulatory loopholes SUVs were originally aimed at -- became a thing.
The main need the SUV form factor fills is an emotional need created by a marketing blitz designed to enable the auto industry to take advantage of regulatory loopholes that largely don't even exist any more.
Really, the worst thing about driving a minivan is other drivers. People have such a perception of minivans being slow and pokey that people will attempt to pass you on the freeway regardless of the speed you are travelling. If you drive a minivan and another vehicle on a regular basis, how other cars treat you is very noticeable.
I haven't gotten a ticket in anything but the 3 series... but I don't think that is entirely perception. I drove a lot faster in the 3 series than I did in any other vehicle; The thing feels as stable at 90 as the maxima or the minivan feels at 70. (Now, I don't know how much "feel" has to do with safety, if anything. But my gut was comfortable going a lot faster in the 3-series than in anything else.)
But... yeah, my experience was that people expected a lot more aggression out of me in the 3 series. Wait a microsecond after the light turns green? that's a honk and the finger. In the minivan, from what I've seen, the expectation is that you are a slow driver that is distracted by kids. People go around, but they aren't angry at you like they are when you are in a bmw.
Then I had a Suzuki SV650. Now, sometimes people didn't see me, and once someone practically ran it over when I parked too close to a car, but the overall experience was reasonable. People were even mostly tolerant of, you know, going too slow in turns and stuff.
I probably got the widest berth in the maxima. It was like that old Saturday night live commercial where they were selling a luxury car that looked like garbage on the outside so that it wouldn't get stolen. The inside was all leather and heated seats. But on the outside, the paint was degraded, and the rear passenger door was caved in. It also had a bunch of smaller scars from my brothers learning how to drive, and because I'm terrible at parking. But yeah, the car was big and said "watch out, I might not have very good insurance" so people kind of got out of my way.
Really, the most aggression I have ever experienced was on the motorcycle. I recently got myself another motorcycle (after being minivan-only for several years. This one is an older oilhead; a '96 R850R) - and the other day? An old lady actually got out of her car and started yelling at me because she felt that I took a parking spot she was waiting for. I was... speechless. It was one of those 'what the fuck' moments where you literally have no words. She ended up dumping a soda all over my bike and me.
Last time I tried to not take up a parking spot, I got towed. I was outside my girlfriend's apartment; there was a bit that was paved, but too small to be a parking spot for a car. It had a bollard in it; No firehydrant or anything, though. I wasn't blocking access to anything.
But I come out the next morning, and I've been towed. Since then, eh, I generally take up a parking spot, because getting towed is like $300, even if your time is free.
My working theory is that people have bad experiences being stuck behind a slow minivan (which I'll admit, happens), and those experiences can be particularly annoying because it's hard to see past minivans. As people find themselves behind a minivan in a situation where their speed isn't quite yet stabilized (such as shortly after entering the freeway), they either assume it's going slow or just decide they want to not be behind a minivan, so pass.
I have had corroboration from other minivan owners I know, but I am open to being wrong or misinterpreting the information. I suspect it's less to do with that and more to do with specific traffic patterns that make it more or less likely (such as light traffic allowing easy passing), which may be more or less prevalent in certain areas.
Totally different.
Most SUVs are driven by soccer moms taking their kids to school. That's the "form factor" I intended in GP.
If we would be talking about an off road vehicle, I'd agree with you.
The reaction to this comment is really depressing. Obviously exDM69 means 'perfect' in a certain context. IE, does being electric make an SUV better at being an SUV and doing the things that the people who own SUVs, own them for. The comments and voting can't help but be all about how people feel about SUVs in general.
I'm hearing the term more in everyday discussion, and I'm seeing as many or more crossovers than SUVs these days in the US southeast.
Americans don't really buy SUVs for any rational reason, there was just a period of very intense propaganda directed at creating the idea that they needed SUVs as an attempt by the auto industry to get around US government safety and efficiency regulations from which "light trucks", which SUVs were carefully designed to qualify as, were exempted (Minivans where an earlier focus of the same PR effort, for the same reason.)
("Crossovers" are basically what happened when the original motivation was gone but the industry had already created the demand, so they went back to making passenger autos that weren't built on truck frames, but still had to make them styled like SUVs to sell in the market conditions their own intense marketing efforts had created -- since that was cheaper than doing another marketing blitz to get people to stop wanting things that look like SUVs.)
Everyone I know who owns an SUV has multiple children. I have four children, and with that a minivan and an SUV. Kids come with a lot of accessories, especially with modern safety requirements of car seats and so on.
It is really unfortunate that every discussion about SUVs turns into some sort of oddball moralizing (especially bizarre when they're contrast with minivans, also 5000lb+ vehicles with largely the same fuel economy). SUVs actually have a very practical purpose. They of course use more fuel, generally, though on the flip side that awareness of fuel makes me less likely to take flippant drives (all things tend to equalize, generally).
I can see how it would be a good alternative to a minivan, though. So maybe they should call it a "crossover" minivan? (I suppose calling it a minivan wouldn't be as attractive as SUV.)
"Minivan" and (non-"crossover") "SUV" are two names for what amounts to a station wagon built on light-truck frames -- with originally somewhat different demographic targeting in the marketing, but eventually the "SUV" class's marketing broadened to subsume the target that minivan marketing had been focussed on -- originally to fit loopholes in passenger safety and efficiency regulations (which have since largely been closed, hence, the emergence of the "crossover", which was a reversion since the expense of the regulatory dodge was no longer particularly useful.)
heavy so the big battery pack will not hurt so much in the weight budget.
More initial weight means more batteries needed in the first places, which means more weight and even more batteries because of that.
Reducing weight on electric cars is really beneficial:
Less weight => less batteries => less weight => less batteries...
Aerodynamics seem to be a more critical factor for electric vehicles. You want the vehicle to be able to cruise while using as little energy as possible, and weight doesn't matter as much for maintaining speed.
It's the same reason that most modern trains are electric or diesel-electric rather than pure diesel.
Many aircraft tow tractors are also electric these days, and they haul some fairly heavy loads.
The Model X will be ~10% heavier and Musk has stated recently that the range is expected to be ~10% less than that of the Model S.
In other words, obviously a heavier vehicle will use more power than a lighter vehicle, that's true with any fuel source, but it's a small difference in this case. They could put a battery pack with 15% more capacity in it and the range would be about the same as the Model S, but they're probably going to use the same battery as the Model S for compatibility and manufacturing reasons.
The energy required to maintain a given speed is almost independent of weight. Most energy loss at speed is from wind resistance. Rolling resistance will be affected some by weight, but it's not the dominant factor at speed.
I actually don't think the target audience is families living in suburban areas. That's not the target audience of the BMW 3 series or Benz C class. I think their target audience is young professionals who can't afford a car that quickly costs over $100k but care about driving a practical, electric, professional car.
Electric vehicles are excellent for towing, I've seen lots of places use normal electric golf carts to tow huge boats, it's all about torque.
Don't agree. SUV has big wind drag (not sure if that is the right word for it) which reducing efficiency in gas powered vehicles. I can't imagine that it isn't the same effect in electric powered. (I mean that's obvious, right or am I missing something?)
In terms of market, it can be the most successful vehicle for the American market.
These are two separate things.
I never understood this. I used to drive a Land Rover Discovery 3, which is a SUV. And then I had a rental Open(or Vauxhall, for UK folk) Insignia for two weeks - your typical 5 door sedan, a typical "car" which does not invoke hate in most people. And I could not possibly understand how such a "large" car, with footprint as large as my Land Rover, could be so small inside! It took as much space on the road as my "horrid waste of space" Land Rover, yet it could only take 5 people instead of 7, and probably half the luggage. But if you put these two next two each other, you would be a lot more quickly criticized for driving the SUV, purely because it's an SUV. But both cars had nearly identical length and width - so how is the SUV taking more space? If anything, the Insignia was half as practical as the land rover.
And both of them usually only carry one, the driver. That's the main issue.
One reason I haven't been all that impressed with the S is because even as large as it is its only 250 or so miles per charge. Some of the elements in its design are really good, but battery storage isn't prime time when it takes the majority of the car to get so little range.
Call me when the tech will take a Focus/Leaf sized EV near 300 miles for around 30k, then I will listen. Right now the only good bet is a range extender, fortunately the two big ones; i3 and Leaf, are affordable by a great many more drivers.