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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?

#61

Post by kergonath »

r3pl4y wrote: post #7
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 Not against that, but there should be an exception for electric vehicles, because these batteries are heavy.

And yet they suffer from the exact same issues (energy consumption, particles, road wear, etc). What we need to incentivise is small EVs for daily trips, not huge wasteful things like Teslas because their owners have range anxiety for the 2 times a year they do more than 100 km in one trip.

The scale does not need to be the same, but in the end heavy EVs are much worse than lighter ones.

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

#62

Post by HatchedLake721 »

Interesting statistic, 6 out of 10 most safest vehicles today for pedestrians and cyclists in Europe are SUVs.

See below from Euro NCAP and sort by "Vulnerable Road Users" (green person walking icon)

https://www.euroncap.com/en/ratings-rewards/latest-safety-ra...

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

#64

Post by op00to »

vkazanov wrote: post #48
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…

As a london, uk resident, I recently got a hatchback-sized lexus hybrid "SUV", the ux 250h. Perfect for the place, possible to go to a motorway, high mpg, reliability. My kid is just fine in the back sit, I can see a second one fitting just fine. my American friend laughed at me, saying something like "a family needs at least a range rover, you can afford one". So it's not about reason, not about making a balanced ch…

Hey tell your friend I’m American with two kids and I don’t yet have my Range Rover. Can they throw me a few bucks? :)

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

#65

Post by seydor »

> Yet SUVs are selling better than ever.

We are talking about european SUVs which by american standards are small cars.

What to do? Expand cities, allow more housing because people don't want (but are forced by building codes) to live crammed in centuries old apartments, and they want the flexibility of a car that even works offroad (oh the luxury!). Why do we pretend that increasing the value of real estate is the only goal societies should have? People want to be happy. Emissions have become a convenient excuse to make life miserable. We have green technologies in cars and in housing to use, sustainability is no longer an excuse.

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

#66

Post by azherebtsov »

blitzar wrote: post #41
dmazin wrote: post #24

I was nodding along until I read that they deflate XC90s. To me, that is a completely reasonable car if you have 3 children. I know people who buy Range Rovers just to drive to work, but not XC90s.

This is the equivalent thought process as "everyone making my salary + £1 or more gets paid way too much money and should be taxed at 100%"

What car would you recommend to a family of five?

I have 2 kids and when we go for a trip the my Citroen c4 is full. Would I have one more kid it’s no way we can fit into this car, despite it has 5 seats.

Should we stop thinking about road trips and consider only plane/train/bus? Or should we consider only van/caravan?

I support the argument that unnecessary consumption should be penalised somehow, but I do not support blanket type rules that may discriminate absolutely reasonable people, like those with more than 2 kids.

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

#67

Post by cheradenine_uk »

baloki wrote: post #20
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…

In the UK you’re taxed more on vehicle excise duty if a car costs more than £45,000 as it’s a luxury.

Only lasts 5 years, and doesn't affect cars with emissions < 150gCO2/km (which a lot of hybrids will fall into).

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

#68

Post by [deleted] »

paganel wrote: post #50
isoprophlex wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#69

Post by rlkf »

The problem is ironically only exacerbated by electrification as the market for EVs seems to be divided in two: You must seemingly choose between very small cars such as the MiEV, or the gargantuan likes of Teslas. There are no electrical MPVs or stationwagons. And with no carbon emissions, people have less qualms about picking the SUV, turning a blind eye to the production emissions and safety hazards.

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

#70

Post by zemvpferreira »

_Microft wrote: post #51
audunw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.
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