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Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

theguardian.com

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Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#51

Post by _Microft »

audunw wrote: post #43
paganel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 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 h…

> 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

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#52

Post by mrmanner »

michpoch wrote: post #14
kergonath wrote: post #4

Cars should be taxed based on their weight and there should be much stricter standards regarding visibility. There is no reason why most of us should subsidise a few people’s status symbol and their entirely unnecessary use of public resources. Ultimately you should not be able to buy these, at least in their current form, as they serve no purpose whatsoever besides inflating their owner’s ego at a significant cost t…

> Cars should be taxed based on their weight Why weight in particular? Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive. In some places in the world (e.g. some parts of Switzerland) there's already a tax on car weight. I do not see it being particularly effective.…

> SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows.

SUVs provide drivers great overview of traffic, visibility of other cars, and long-range visibility. This is good. However their height severely limits the visibility of people and items near the car, which is very bad in cities where drivers often share space with cyclists, children and potted plants:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-ar...

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#53

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

globular-toast wrote: post #18
kergonath wrote: post #4

Cars should be taxed based on their weight and there should be much stricter standards regarding visibility. There is no reason why most of us should subsidise a few people’s status symbol and their entirely unnecessary use of public resources. Ultimately you should not be able to buy these, at least in their current form, as they serve no purpose whatsoever besides inflating their owner’s ego at a significant cost t…

The trouble with that is most of these people would just pay the tax anyway. So you'd only be increasing inequality on the road. In addition, lorries and vans that actually need to be heavy but are nevertheless a public good will be taxed more for no good reason. Taxing everyone based on their exact use of a utility is against the basic point of a public utility. Instead I think the easiest and best option is just to…

> lorries and vans that actually need to be heavy but are nevertheless a public good will be taxed more for no good reason

Almost all large vehicles that I see on the roads are privately owned and cause significant road damage (which is roughly proportional to the fourth power of weight). That means that tax payers are subsidising the profits of logistics companies and artificially reducing the cost to them of using public roads which could possibly change the economics of rail use instead.

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#54

Post by jdietrich »

raverbashing wrote: post #26
jdietrich wrote: post #23

Note to American readers: The most popular "SUVs" in Britain are small crossovers that are compact or subcompact cars by American standards. The Ford Puma is currently the best-selling car in the UK and while it's marketed as an SUV, it's based on the same platform as the Ford Fiesta. It has big wheels and an SUV silhouette, but the base model has a 1 litre engine with a mild hybrid system and 4 wheel drive isn't eve…

But things like Land Rover models are popular, and are SUV sized no?

Larger SUVs do exist on the UK market, but they really aren't very popular because they're very inconvenient on our narrow roads and prohibitively expensive for most people. To my knowledge, the biggest passenger cars on the UK market are the Range Rover and the Hyundai Santa Fe, which I believe would be classed as mid-size SUVs on the US market. If you were to import something like an Escalade or a Navigator, you'd attract an awful lot of attention but you'd struggle to park it anywhere.

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#55

Post by kergonath »

michpoch wrote: post #14
kergonath wrote: post #4

Cars should be taxed based on their weight and there should be much stricter standards regarding visibility. There is no reason why most of us should subsidise a few people’s status symbol and their entirely unnecessary use of public resources. Ultimately you should not be able to buy these, at least in their current form, as they serve no purpose whatsoever besides inflating their owner’s ego at a significant cost t…

> Cars should be taxed based on their weight Why weight in particular? Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive. In some places in the world (e.g. some parts of Switzerland) there's already a tax on car weight. I do not see it being particularly effective.…

> Why weight in particular?

Kinetic energy (thus fuel consumption and particles from brakes) and road wear scale with weight. It's not perfect but it's most of the way there.

> Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe).

This does not solve the issue with externalities: fuel cost absolutely does not offset the cost to society caused by car use, same for accidents and road wear.

> 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive.

They are not taxed higher, they have exactly the same VAT as any other car (give or take specific government schemes to incentivise things like hybrids and TVs).

> SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows.

SUVs have terrible visibility and situation awareness because of huge blind spots and higher sitting positions for the driver (which is better on motorways, but terrible in cities). They are also much worse for pedestrians and cyclists in case of a collision.

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#56

Post by sokoloff »

jdietrich wrote: post #23

Note to American readers: The most popular "SUVs" in Britain are small crossovers that are compact or subcompact cars by American standards. The Ford Puma is currently the best-selling car in the UK and while it's marketed as an SUV, it's based on the same platform as the Ford Fiesta. It has big wheels and an SUV silhouette, but the base model has a 1 litre engine with a mild hybrid system and 4 wheel drive isn't eve…

Honda’s CR-V is one of the most popular SUVs in the US. It’s an all-wheel drive Civic wagon.

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#57

Post by littlestymaar »

nottheengineer wrote: post #38
jdietrich wrote: post #23

Note to American readers: The most popular "SUVs" in Britain are small crossovers that are compact or subcompact cars by American standards. The Ford Puma is currently the best-selling car in the UK and while it's marketed as an SUV, it's based on the same platform as the Ford Fiesta. It has big wheels and an SUV silhouette, but the base model has a 1 litre engine with a mild hybrid system and 4 wheel drive isn't eve…

Seeing those things and knowing the person bought an objectively worse version of a decent car causes me pain every single time. But the only thing we can do about that is educate people.

> But the only thing we can do about that is educate people

For that you'd first need to stop the auto industry to actively miseducate them through ads.

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#59

Post by kergonath »

mnd999 wrote: post #44
greesil wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in the UK. But, you can pry my minivan from my cold dead hands.

I’m guessing you live somewhere with wider roads and more private vehicle-centric urban planning. That is not the UK.

Or anywhere else in Europe, really.

Re: Monsters of the Road: What Should the UK Do About SUVs?

#60

Post by Bostonian »

kergonath wrote: post #4

Cars should be taxed based on their weight and there should be much stricter standards regarding visibility. There is no reason why most of us should subsidise a few people’s status symbol and their entirely unnecessary use of public resources. Ultimately you should not be able to buy these, at least in their current form, as they serve no purpose whatsoever besides inflating their owner’s ego at a significant cost t…

"Ultimately you should not be able to buy these, at least in their current form, as they serve no purpose whatsoever besides inflating their owner’s ego at a significant cost to others."

I am wary of this statement, because it could justify banning a wide range of consumer goods and services.

On another note, if SUVs are much more dangerous to others than other cars, insurance claims against SUV drivers and insurance premiums that they pay should reflect this. Why hasn't this happened?

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