Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 194 posts

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

#31

Post by paganel »

nologic01 wrote: post #12

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 abo…

> 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.

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

#34

Post by Tade0 »

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.

I think that if at all, this exemption should last until 2030 at maximum.

The reason is that batteries with densities sufficient to make EVs no heavier than ICEs exist (like https://amprius.com/products/ ) but they need investment for production to be scaled up - the 5GWh plant Amprius is planning will go entirely to niche applications, so it's not enough.

Meanwhile the Chinese are introducing cars with 700kg+ batteries:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeekr_009

This is counterproductive.

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

#35

Post by maxwellburson »

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.…

> 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 referring to other vehicles visibility. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_SUVs

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

#36

Post by isoprophlex »

paganel wrote: post #31
nologic01 wrote: post #12

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 abo…

> 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…

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

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

#37

Post by switch007 »

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…

I still can’t get over the Puma. They seem to have swindled the large customer base of the Fiesta in to spending over £5,000 more for more or less the same car. They’ve stopped production of the Fiesta this year.

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

#38

Post by nottheengineer »

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.

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

#40

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

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.…

Weight is an important metric as it has a big influence on two very important external affects.

Road wear/damage is proportional to roughly the fourth power of weight. However, this won't have much impact on SUVs directly, but on large lorries and buses. (It's easy to see the damage at bus stops where the slowing to a stop and starting from a stop, both noticeable deform the road after a time. This is also visible at traffic lights.

Tyre and brake pollution are very closely tied to the vehicle's weight, which leads to the issue of EVs producing almost as much total pollution as a lighter ICE vehicle even though they don't produce exhaust pollution. Tyre pollution is one of the most insidious types of pollution due to the size of the particulates and the chemicals used in tyres.

Post reply on HN