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Comment by nologic01 | Hacker News Reader

Oversized SUV's littering urban landscapes (taking effectively twice the space of a small electric car) are the tangible evidence of how society grows not just unsustainable and unequal, but aggressive and in-your-face.

I don't think there is any other period where the front "face" of a car aimed to create such an ugly, intimidating impression (i am huge and i will tear you apart).

Their popularity speaks volumes about the true psychological state of a good fraction of moneyed society.

While wealth display is always a thing, the manner in which it is done is not preordained, it provides insights into the state of society.

Once car manufacturers realized the larger and scarier the better selling the trajectory was locked.

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It's amazing how ugly cars have become.

The upsizing is stupid - lots of cars either new versions of renamed versions of old ones but with another layer sandwiched in to make it higher, or just grow all dimensions and more clearance.

A lot of them don't even have much / any more room inside.

They exist for a reason. Some people have more to haul than just groceries.

Agreed. The kids won't drive themselves to soccer practice!

BMX practice for me.

Suddenly I was looking at bike rack systems worth more than some of my previous cars.

It’s a station wagon though. Still car shaped, SUV cargo space inside.

That‘s what station waggons are for, it has worked for decades. It‘s surprising to me how little space there is inside of SUVs compared to their exterior dimensions.

> They exist for a reason. Some people have more to haul than just groceries.

What in daily life is different in the last ~20 years (when SUVs have grown popular), compared to the ~20 years before that (when minivans were a thing), compared to the ~20 years before that (when station wagons were a thing)?

Further, how often is the 'extra' hauling occurring? Why do you need to drive such a thing daily when the haulage is much less often than that? Wouldn't it save people cost (especially in gas, which everyone in the US seems to whinge about) by driving a more efficient vehicle for the most common case of the daily commute and simple weekend errands? (Renting when something 'extra' is needed.)

Further, what percentage of SUVs (and cross-overs/CUVs) actually have towing hitches to haul things? And for carrying things inside, how many SUVs have more internal volume that a minivan?

SUVs, especially the larger varieties, don't seem optimal for anything except vanity. (Speaking as someone who owns a Golf and who borrowed his parents' minivan almost every weekend as a teenager.)

the last truck I had was a Toyota mini pickup. used it frequently on weekends hauling support equipment for dog field events, supplies for rebuilding my house, and telescope kit for observing sessions miles from home.

It was cheaper to by my own pickup and use it everyday than buy a car and rent a pickup on the weeks. when you add the hassle of pickup and drop-off an time pressure to return before you accrue another day charge, owning was definitely cheaper

today, pickups are pillow princess trucks. no scratches, clean bed, no mud.

I am missing my little Toyota. Today, I need to haul plywood, 2x4s, foam board insulation and fiberglass panels for some home projects I was hoping to start today. I instead of using my truck, I have to spend 100+ to rent a body to bring the parts here sometime in the next week and damage them in transit.

Minivans are not small, if you have problems with the SUV size then why is a minivan suddenly okay? It's the same size car with a differently styled body and without towing capacity. E.g. Toyota Sienna is the same width and length as BMW X7 and less than 4" shorter in height. And Chrysler Pacifica is longer and wider than either of these (also less than 3" shorter in height than X7). And X7 is a big SUV that I rarely see, most SUVs on the streets around me are something like Toyota RAV4, which is half foot narrower than Pacifica, shorter in length more than a foot and shorter in height than any of the above.

Instead of comparing with modern minivan, you should compare them with minivan from 20 years ago since that's what GP was talking about. In my region, minivans from 20 years ago are smaller than new SUVs today.

Sure, even compact cars 20 years ago were smaller than compact cars today. You cannot practically suggest people drive 20-30 y.o. vehicles, for one there are not enough of those.

> Minivans are not small, if you have problems with the SUV size then why is a minivan suddenly okay?

Forward visibility for one. There's a meme going around that even main battle tanks (and semi rigs) have better forward visibility than some pick-ups trucks:

* https://carbuzz.com/news/the-abrams-m1-tank-has-better-visib...

And for all that external size, how much internal storage space do you get in a large SUV like the X7? If SUVs are allegedly for carrying stuff, how much stuff can you get in (with and without folding down seats)? How easy is it for people (esp. adults, and not just children) to get back to the third row, and how comfortable is it back there for them?

> Toyota RAV4

Now we're talking about a different class of vehicle than SUVs. Will you also compare it to the glorified hatchback (not even station wagon) that is the BMW X1?

SUVs are not pickup trucks though and have better visibility of the road ahead (due to higher eye level and higher headlights) than cars and minivans.

As for internal storage, I am content with the internal storage in a midsize SUV already. Third row in X7 is pretty cramped, if you are regularly driving 7 adults around you better get something with more seating capacity, few people need that IME.

> when station wagons were a thing

my “big” SUV is smaller in length but larger in interior space and gets 5x further a gallon of gas than the station my parents drove in the ‘70s.

>when station wagons were a thing

Just some interesting context, the original SUVs were station wagons. The big Suburbans/Wagoneers/Broncos/Blazers of the 70s and 80s were classified as station wagons. In addition, many of the station wagons back in the day got horrible gas mileage (many had the same engine size as their SUV counterparts).

Beyond that, the idea that people would be choose to have multiple cars for different aspects is a bit out of touch. The majority of Americans can't spring for a $1k emergency repair, let alone have another car payment just for a grocery getter. Most people need one car that can do most everything they need. Even if they could afford more than one car, your premise doesn't make sense. How many miles would have to be driven for a $20k used car purchase to have a positive economics based on its fuel savings?

> aking effectively twice the space of a small electric car

Not that many "small electric cars" out there, Teslas are big, as are the ID.3s and the like coming from Volkswagen. For reference, an ID.3 weights a maximum of almost 2 tons (1935 kg, to be more exact), that's compared to the maximum of 1500 kg for a Golf 7. To say nothing of my 2006 1.4 NA Seat Ibiza weighting just 1054 kg, but which is seen as worst than the devil itself because of its age.

So, yeah, I don't buy this crusade against SUVs coming from EV people, seeing as my very lightweight petrol car is also on their chopping block.

Fiat 500e, Nissan Leaf, Renault Zoe, Peugeot 208e, whatever ugly shit Opel/Vauxhall is pushing out...

None of those cars (toys) get you very far outside of the city. And inside of the city we've got public transportation.

I'd argue all of the cars you listed get you as far as you have gasoline. Even with room for at least one passenger and luggage. What's your argument?

And public transport cannot always replace individual mobility. E.g. transporting big things or sick people is not really an option on public transport

If you argue that you'd be a liar. They just don't.

They all get about 200 miles real world, my (£10,000 cheaper !) hatchback, petrol with a 55 L tank and much more interior space than any of those, can push 400.

Why say things that aren't true? People aren't going to be fooled.

> can push 400.

That is to say, not 400? Why say things that aren't true? People aren't going to be fooled.

400km on 55l of fuel is pretty low. A car that gets 50mpg (UK gallons), which is fairly middle of the road efficiency, would go 600 miles, or 965km on that, assuming motorway driving.

I regularly do 550 miles (850km - 5 return trips of 55 miles each way) on a single 60l tank of diesel in an older car and can do more if I dawdle and cruise more. I know I've been driving badly when the fuel light comes on on before the end of the fifth trip.

How come not true? My 3L A6 Quattro did more than 400mls on a tank of you were careful. That’s normal territory for European cars.

My 10 years old diesel on full tank makes 800+ km (tested a few times). None of the EVs can make that nowadays, or they can?

The size difference between a Leaf and a RAV4 is negligible.

The issues talked about here are mostly about size (width, length), not weight.

Yes, the higher weight of EVs is a bit of an issue. But not as much as people make it out to be.

But there are a lot of big EVs now. I think it’s mainly due to all car manufacturers coming out with a new generation of EVs and the first models they make are the ones with the highest margins. I.e. big cars.

In the previous generations you had cars like Hyundai Kona EV which is completely reasonable size. But the first in Hyundais new generation is Ioniq 5 which doesn’t look like a monster but is surprisingly big.

ID.3s are also big in terms of size, it's just that they're not branded as CUVs/mini-SUVs and that's why they get a pass. For example they're bigger than a Mazda CX-3, which is branded on wikipedia as a "Subcompact crossover SUV (B)".

> Yes, the higher weight of EVs is a bit of an issue. But not as much as people make it out to be.

Not to detract from the discussion‘s topic but weight is an issue. Road damage scales with fourth power of axle load. That’s is, a car with 2t instead of 1.5t does three times the damage.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

True but that should also tell you that road damage comes almost exclusively from commercial-sized vehicles, coming back to the main point: Added EV weight in passenger cars is a non-issue.

> Road damage scales with fourth power of axle load.

Why? That's not intuitive to me. (I'm not saying you're wrong, just want to understand.)

Thanks, I updated my comment with a link to Wikipedia.

Three times the damage of a tiny number is still tiny. Vans, garbage trucks, plows, tractor trailers, pickup trucks, all do significantly more damage. A single garbage truck is going to do more damage than 4000 EV cars in one pass.

That's what people mean when they say EV weight isn't as impactful as people make it out to be.

There's also the assumption that most road damage comes from vehicles. I don't know how it proportions out between vehicles and weather, but weather, particularly freeze and thaw, is very damaging to roads.

IMO, everyone should start from phasing out street parking. Mandatory private parking would create selection pressure towards smaller and less obnoxious cars, proportionate to mental as well as financial investments by its owner.

Denmark taxes car purchases at 150%. I think Singapore does something similar.

Denmark taxes lower income rural residents disproportionally. Singapore is a city state.

Not sure what that has to do with anything...

I wasn't commenting on the equality of the Danish tax system, or the status of Singapore.

I was just saying taxing car purchases is another idea to disincentivize cars.

In rural places car is neccessity everywhere in the world, but in urban it is not

While our car taxes are very high, the 150% is the top marginal rate and isn't applied to cheap economy boxes.

That sounds more like a transfer of wealth from government coffers to private parking structure owners. How would that affect the size of vehicles?

Property owners try to maximize residential fraction within land and car count within minimized parking lots. Car owners try to minimize ownership and space premiums. The result is more no-lot housings, more demand for public transportation, and more compact hybrids.

I live in a smallish city in Mexico. For many years I had a Honda City, and I hated it the whole time because the streets are awful.

Which means I was always scraping the bottom of my car. Potholes, uneven pavement, damaged pavement etc. It was so bad the plastic coverings underneath tore apart and now I was dragging plastic everywhere I went.

Needless to say for my next car my main priority was ground clearance. I ended up getting a Jeep and now my problems are solved.

So that's my only point, I agree we should all have small eco cars. I would love to have a 2 seater and save on gas. But you have to live in a place with good infrastructure. A lot of cities in the third world are basically "off road" in practicality.

Especially in the third world a car can be an extraordinary purchase, people need their cars to not get damaged easily.

The equivalent in the developed world is when there are so many speed bumps that it incentivizes having a SUV! My city is a bit like that.

I don’t think the size differences are as drastic as that. An opel Astra hatchback is 4374mm long and 2062mm wide, while a Volvo XC90 is 4950mm long and 1923mm wide. As long as they both fit comfortably in a normal parking space the dimensions are not going to contribute meaningfully to more congestion or other inconvenience.

In the Netherlands I often see people with Dodge rams that are noticeably wider and longer than every other passenger car. If this was a large or growing category I can see myself being inconvenienced and annoyed more

I suppose Volvo SUVs are maybe not at the sharp end of this complaint. They aren't obnoxiously oversized. I realized that when I saw an obnoxiously oversized American urban pick up truck.

XC90 ain't small but ferries 7 people, there are plenty of larger SUVs that carry less inside.

XC90 is one of the less offensive examples for sure. However, it could be lower to the ground and still have the same carrying capacity. People just love that rugged off road look though. Perhaps they haven’t come to terms with the fact that the adventurous stage of their life is over now.

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