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Comment by expertentipp | Hacker News Reader

Some say that traveling educates, meantime people coming back from a travel to US immediately turn into "I want big-ass loud intimidating pickup occupying two parking spaces!"

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Indeed traveling educated me concerning cars. 1.) When traveling through the US, I understood that giant cars ("rolling living rooms") make perfect sense for the often long distances that have to be driven to get from one place to the other. 2.) When traveling through Italy, I understood why most people have a small Fiat Panda (because villages are so tight that even my moderately sized family car almost feels too big there).

Americans might not all need big cars (or at least one car of the household could probably be a compact), but it is not obscenity that Americans/Canadians have bigger cars.

Bigger means like a Ford Focus or so, not a fucking SUV. Nobody ever needs an SUV. If you need more space to move stuff just get a van.

A lot of SUVs are more or less the same thing as a minivan. The minivan, like the station wagon is a casualty of its own success. Both became synonymous with boring domestic middle class family life.

The recent Kia Carnival (name for US market IIRC) is an interesting response to this phenomenon. It's a true minivan that's just styled as if it's an SUV.

I feel most SUVs are just minivans for people who would not want to be seen driving a minivan.

My theory is that there's (in USA) a pervasive emotional connection to driver seat height that's driven/exacerbated by the arms race to build larger and taller vehicles. Everyone wants their family to be in the safest vehicle possible, and higher driver seat height is a tactile, intuitive way to feel like you're in a larger and ostensibly safer vehicle, than other cars on the road with lower driver seat height.

Around where I am, the Kia Telluride is much more popular than the Carnival, which I think is telling.

My thoughts on the demise of the North American station wagon:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37324322

So can you provide some clarity on why you feel the need should demand people to opt for a van instead of an SUV? My SUV fits my needs, is a hell of a lot more comfortable to drive, and it gets literally the same gas mileage as a ford focus (Which is a helluva lot better than a van).

We never said it would be a good education ;)

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