World News

This guy does lots of videos relating to government and public roads.

This video sheds interesting light on the piece of the problem you've identified. It's also the reason for a massive increase in pedestrian deaths. Seems like cars got bigger to circumvent a law enacted in an attempted to cut auto emissions, but had several adverse consequences.

https://youtu.be/fEj-pyjA2oo?si=J5utF5B0y7zqpK1H

I heard a man once say, no shit, no kidding, that he bought his wife the biggest vehicle they could afford because she was a bad driver.

Fuck dem other peoples kids

The irony is that I have seen news articles about parents killing their own kids while taking their SUV out of the driveway. And yes, they had bought those because it was "safe" for the kids. The following is just one example you can find many more on the internet.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/driveway-danger-kids-being-injured-and-killed-in-frontover-suv-blind-zone-incidents/3119237/

And unfortunately there's plenty of truth to this at least for those inside the vehicles. Driving my tiny hatchback in Texas can be really scary some days, the lifted trucks in particular have TERRIBLE visibility and simply can't see sedans. Their headlights are often higher than the roof of most sedans. It's so selfish and makes driving a worse experience for everyone else, propagating them too to get a massive light truck/SUV.

My parents recently sold their sedan for a SUV soley for the added safety and I honestly understand where they're coming from. If I didn't trust my reaction times as well as I do I'd want the same thing despite it making the roads less safe for others in the process.

Cars should be taxed proportional to the fourth power of their kerb weight, in line with the road wear they cause.

Popular opinion with me

I've been a fan of little, simple vehicles for a while now. I have had a Geo Metro, Mitsubishi Mirage, and now I have a Suzuki Samurai. In all of these vehicles, I have had to deal with the same issue, when trying to get up to speed: The slowpokes in front of me. No matter how slow I go in my 65 hp little SUV, I end up waiting on someone in a much faster vehicle to get out of the way.

Yeah but short term that would be worse for the environment, interestingly enough:

"Almost 4 tonnes of CO2 are released during the production process of a single electric car and, in order to break even, the vehicle must be used for at least 8 years to offset the initial emissions by 0.5 tonnes of prevented emissions annually."

https://earth.org/environmental-impact-of-battery-production/

Do also note that estimated life cycle CO2 for BEVs are lower but not significantly so than ICE vehicles. The numbers do however improve significantly as we move to a more carbon neutral energy grid. Without construction improvements that reduce emissions the cap is at around 1/3 the total pollution for a BEV vs ICE. IF the electricity is produced and delivered without any CO2 costs.

The only real, long term, solution is to rethink transportation. Or some groundbreaking new battery tech.

Let me guess, you live in a city and forget that not everyone lives in a city?

And entire world's economy would drop by 100%. World is not ready to transition into EVs, and most likely will never be. In my opinion what Toyota is doing is the right approach. Higher quality ICE engine which can directly burn hydrogen. They already have the engine, just need to push it hard enough so R&D pays off. Hydrogen is expensive and hard to make (in terms of efficiency), but it's infinitely more scalable than batteries, and cleaner too. But with higher popularity price will drop.

ICE is here too stay. It's pure gasoline usage that will probably fall out of fashion. Toyota is experiencing with ammonia based engines that cut down on emissions almost entirely.

I wonder what the criteria for SUV is for these studies?

I’m probably an outlier but I switched from a compact sedan to a compact SUV that’s 10 inches shorter in length, 4 inches higher in height, and 1 inch wider than my old car. They are about the same in weight, within a couple hundred pounds, and the new car is about 80g/km lower in emissions.

I technically own an SUV but it’s not super different from a hatchback car.

I noticed the same trend here in the Netherlands so don't worry too much.

Pickup trucks are still a rare sight here though.