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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?

#131

Post by thunfischbrot »

resuresu wrote: post #86
stuaxo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#132

Post by numpad0 »

fragmede wrote: post #110
numpad0 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#133

Post by raverbashing »

benj111 wrote: post #124
jdietrich wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

F150s and the like are getting increasingly popular. When I see one actually carrying something in the back I'll let you know.

Yeah not even the handymen use those, they prefer a van

It's cheaper, easier to park and also due to the weather I'd say

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

#134

Post by petre »

azherebtsov wrote: post #66
blitzar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 suppo…

Honda FRV was good but it's kind of old now. If you have one more kid, a minivan (anything that's used as an airport shuttle) or a 7 seater like the Ford S-Max, Peugeot 5008, Seat Tarraco, Skoda Kodiaq.

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

#135

Post by michpoch »

kergonath wrote: post #55
michpoch wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 soc…

> 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).

They're absolutely taxed higher. $100k SUV will cause a much higher VAT you need to pay than $50k sedan. So by buying a more expensive car you do contribute more taxes to the state funds.

> 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).

Any sources on that? It's clearly not my experience. Most SUVs have much bigger side mirrors and the side windows are much larger (because the car is taller).

Please compare cars of similar length (so not large SUV vs a hatchback).

> 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.

The premise is: does the tax on the additional fuel spent by driving a SUV offset the cost to the society, comparing with driving a similarly-sized but non-SUV vehicle?

Making it a clear example: is driving a BMW X5 that much worse than driving a BMW 5 series (both are similar length, X5 is ~300 kg heavier)?

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

#136

Post by michpoch »

kergonath wrote: post #118
dan-robertson wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Road wear scales with the fourth power of weight over an axle. Most fuel consumption is about overcoming drag rather than accelerating so you should expect it to scale with something like cross-sectional area, say weight^2/3, though making cars longer adds weight without much drag and making them boxier can add drag without much weight. I don’t think fuel taxes are particularly good as indirect taxes on the externali…

> Road wear scales with the fourth power of weight over an axle. Cars are not getting more axles, even SUVs, so this is a constant multiplicative factor. I would be happy with a tax that scales as the fourth power of the mass, no problem. That would be actually quite dissuasive very quickly. Though even a linear scaling would be an improvement over the current situation. > Most fuel consumption is about overcoming dr…

> Cars are not getting more axles, even SUVs, so this is a constant multiplicative factor. I would be happy with a tax that scales as the fourth power of the mass, no problem. That would be actually quite dissuasive very quickly. Though even a linear scaling would be an improvement over the current situation.

Sounds like we should tax EVs then: https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/06/27/evs-cause-twice-th...

The road tear on SUVs will not that that much larger, because they have wider tyres, so when you calculate kg / sqm you might get smaller value than for smaller cars.

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

#137

Post by michpoch »

kergonath wrote: post #127
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that weight difference results in a noticeable tax difference, then lorries will be virtually priced off the road due to the tax. Realistically, the tax would have to be affordable for heaviest vehicles which would make the tax difference between 1.5 to 2 tons negligible. Maybe one way round it is to have tax bands for heavy commercial vehicles and weight-based tax for cars and SUVs. Edit: thought I'd try to work…

> If that weight difference results in a noticeable tax difference, then lorries will be virtually priced off the road due to the tax. That’s a red herring. Lorries don’t have to be taxed the same way as cars, and actually most of the time are not.

They absolutely are taxed much heavier than most cars. Truck are charged on most highways in European Union, I expect UK has similar system. They pay per-km driven.

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

#138

Post by adhesive_wombat »

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.

I find they usually have crap visibility other than ahead and over other cars (and only cars) because of the huge pillars to avoid a rollover crushing the roof in with the heavy body and high sides. And that's when driving, when parking, they're a deathtrap until bristling with cameras and sensors because they have massive blindspots all around them.

I don't find the ability to see over the other cars especially helpful because no matter how big an urban tank is, it can't see through a Transit van, let alone an HGV.

The best visibility is a convertible with no B-pillar, but most car-shaped cars (i.e. not crossovers) have better visibility in my experience.

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

#139

Post by michpoch »

maxwellburson wrote: post #35
michpoch wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

> 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. Those costs aren’t proportionate. Road wear increases exponentially as weight increases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law > SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows. He may be ref…

> Those costs aren’t proportionate. Road wear increases exponentially as weight increases.

Road wear depends on the weight and the surface area. SUVs have much wider tyres.

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

#140

Post by maxerickson »

mrmanner wrote: post #52
michpoch wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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-tr…

People watch about 20 feet ahead of their vehicles, we don't need to build tall cars that let you see a bit further.
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