The SUV is an easy target for automotive connoisseurs. It's a strange vehicle, after all, the slothful, fuel-sucking bastard progeny of the station wagon and the cargo van. The SUV embodies North American excess: it's the ride of Donald Trump, blinged-out rappers and resource-hog suburbanites who shuttle between their 10,000-square foot homes and the big box mall.
Yes, the SUV is a vehicle we should all despise. Or so I once thought. Let's rewind to a moment of automotive revelation.
One of my recent test cars was a Ford Explorer – the brand that started the SUV landslide. Before the Explorer appeared in 1991, the SUV was a niche product, a tiny subset of the market that was owned by vehicles like the International Harvester Scout.
The first Explorer wasn't great. It rusted quickly and was involved in a large number of rollover crashes (although defective tires played a role, the Explorer was a tall vehicle with a high roll centre and crude suspension). None of this stood in the Explorer's way – it became a runaway best-seller, and other manufacturers scrambled to cash in on the growing SUV market.
Like the first doughnut eaten by Kirstie Alley, the Explorer's significance would be apparent only in hindsight. The Explorer launched a movement. Between 1994 and 1999, sales of SUVs increased by 70 per cent. And that momentum has never let up. In 1991, SUVs made up just more than 5 per cent of the Canadian vehicle market. Today, that figure is nearly 40 per cent.
This is the vehicle that took the world of driving in a direction that was antithetical to a sports car or efficiency buff. I was driving the original Explorer's direct descendant, an experience that I likened to meeting the great-grandchild of Adolf Hitler. The Explorer, after all, was responsible for the decimation of the sports car market, the melting of the polar icecaps and the downfall of North America culture itself.
But then a strange thing happened. My wife, who knows nothing about cars, liked the Explorer. "What is this?" she asked when I picked her up at work. "It's nice." My son was also a fan, since the Explorer's luggage compartment easily swallowed two hockey bags.
After driving it for two weeks, I had to admit that I liked the Explorer myself. On a trip to Windsor, Ont., it rolled down Highway 401 with the smoothness and silence of a limousine. It had room for friends. And, after years of driving my low-slung Lotus, slipping in and out of the Explorer offered a welcome respite. Getting into the Lotus is like sliding under a barbed-wire fence. The Explorer was like dropping into a La-Z-Boy lounger. And yet, part of me still rebelled – was I being seduced by mere comfort, like a weary senior citizen succumbing to one of those bathtubs with a door in the side?
The answer was yes.
After the Explorer, I tried a smaller SUV – the Lincoln MKC. The MKC is part of a growing category of compact SUVs: the Honda CRV, Toyota RAV4 and Range Rover Evoque. I liked the MKC, too. The power tailgate was perfect for grocery shopping, and again, the seats were the perfect height for sliding in and out.
Then there was the space. The MKC could carry almost anything. My radio-controlled model airplanes fit in the back without a problem. We loaded up an antique chair and took it to the upholstery shop for a repair estimate. On our way, we stopped at the grocery store and the butcher shop. Everything fit. Then there was a trip to Etobicoke, where I picked up four new winter tires mounted on steel rims. Schlepping the wheels with our family sedan would have been a production: I would have to put the wheels on a roof rack or carry a couple in the trunk and two in the back, which meant wrapping the wheels in plastic to protect the seats. With the MKC, the errand was a snap.
To get a better understanding of the SUV market, and what its growth means to us as a culture, I spoke to some experts.
Although Margo T. Oge drives a Chevy Volt, she understands the appeal of the SUV: "This is a vehicle that works for millions of people," said the former head of the transportation and air quality division at the Environmental Protection Agency. "It's a pragmatic choice."
Since she spent decades working on large-scale initiatives aimed at reducing carbon emissions, I assumed that Oge would condemn SUVs because they consume more fuel than an equivalent car would. But she didn't. Instead, she talked about consumer choice and the advanced engineering that has improved the efficiency of the vehicle that most people want – the SUV.
"We can't force people to change behaviour. You can tell people what's best for the environment, but that doesn't mean they'll do it. But if you buy an SUV today, it's more efficient than it would have been in 2010. And if you buy one next year, it will be more efficient than the one you would buy today. That's a positive direction."
Dennis DesRosiers, of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, has spent decades studying the industry and analyzing the consumer psychology that makes or breaks a vehicle in the marketplace.
"It isn't hard to understand why SUVs sell," he said. "Look at the middle word in their name: 'utility.' SUVs give consumers something they need."
DesRosiers agreed that switching from SUVs to cars would result in an immediate, lasting reduction in carbon emissions, but echoed Oge when it came to the difficulty of changing consumer behaviour: "The auto industry has a fundamental flaw," he said. "The industry responds to the market, the market doesn't respond to the industry. Companies make money by giving people what they want."
For auto manufacturers, the SUV is the corporate equivalent of crack cocaine. Demand is soaring and profits on SUVs far exceed what manufacturers can make with equivalent cars.
The result is an SUV explosion. Every major manufacturer in the world offers a range of SUVs, and there is no end in sight. Bentley has launched the ultra-luxury Bentayga SUV. Jaguar has announced the F-Pace. Volkswagen will launch 10 new SUVs for the Chinese market by 2020. And so on.
The tectonic shifts of industry are fascinating. From the steam engine to the iPhone, compelling technologies have a way of reshaping markets, and the world itself. And now we live in the age of the SUV. Will it last?
What will future paleontologists think when they dig through the sedimentary layers to unearth the culture of North America, circa 2015? Like the brontosaurus, the SUV is the product of a particular set of environmental conditions, which include cheap credit, a commuter lifestyle and North America's insatiable demand for oversized consumer objects – we live in the age of the 5,000-square-foot house, the Big Gulp soft drink and the 70-inch flat-screen.
So what's next? Will rising interest rates or an energy crisis cause an SUV extinction event? Who knows? But I finally understand North America's love affair with them. Ease, comfort and space for hockey bags and antique chairs can take you a long way. I have experienced the SUV's smooth and roomy seduction first-hand. But I'm still not ready for that tub with the door in the side.
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