We went up a mountain in the Finger Lakes, hunted for hotels, and spent an afternoon navigating Manhattan traffic so we could see the Dakota (the building where John Lennon was assassinated) and Harlem’s Apollo Theater (where James Brown and the Jackson Five got their start.) The hybrid was a great power system for the Lexus SUV. Our friends were impressed at its near-silence, and how far we went between fill-ups. The gas gauge moved at a glacial pace, which is always good. By the time we got back to Toronto, our friends had decided it was time to trade in their gasoline SUV for a hybrid.
When gas was cheap, fuel economy wasn’t very high on the agenda. Now it is. In the next few years, we will see a lot more small cars, because when it comes to saving gas, there’s no substitute for mass and size reduction.
But there will always be some drivers who can actually use an SUV – like my friends John and Yvonne, who schlepp two kids, four hockey bags, and go outside the city in snow season. Then there are my flying buddies who tow 10-meter glider trailers – a Prius isn’t going to cut it.
The shortcomings of the SUV genre have been well documented in works like Keith Bradsher’s High and Mighty – The Dangerous Rise of the SUV. Bradsher’s book shows how SUVs conquered North America thanks to an odd confluence of consumer demand, flawed government regulation, and short-sighted corporate policy (SUVs were hugely profitable for car companies).
Engineers were confounded by the popularity of SUVs, which are designed around an odd set of parameters – they’re too heavy, they have too much frontal area, and their height makes them unstable. But automotive purchase patterns are determined by a number of forces, and the strangest one of all is human nature. Author Malcolm Gladwell noted the psychology of the SUV market in a 2004 New Yorker story: “... internal industry market research concluded that SUVs tend to be bought by people who are insecure, vain, self-centered, and self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages, and who lack confidence in their driving skills.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself. But if you need an SUV anyway, consider a hybrid or a diesel.
For more from Peter Cheney, go to facebook.com/cheneydrive (No login required!)
Twitter: Peter Cheney@cheneydrive
E-mail: pcheney@globeandmail.com
Globe and Mail Road Rush archive: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/car-life/cheney/
