How true. Some years ago, a Swedish reporter examined what sort of cars were driven by the Swedish members of parliament. It turned out that the worst polluters, by far, were the members of the Green Party, precisely because many of them were driving around in old junkers from the 1970s and 1980s. Even though they seemed to drive fewer miles per year than the members of other parties, the Green Party members caused more pollution (not counting carbon dioxide).
Things does become more tricky, however, if you start taking into account the pollution and natural resource consumption associated with the production of a new car. Newer cars may burn fuel more efficiently and cleanly, but replacing your car often does have a negative environmental impact in and by itself.
And now that you’ve broached the subject:[ul][li]How much pollution is created, and how many natural resources are consumed, by the production of one new car? And[/li]What is the difference, if any, between the amount of pollution created and natural resources consumed by the production of a new car, and the amount of pollution created and natural resources consumed by the production of a new SUV?[/ul]
And what are those purposes? Several posters have pointed out that if you’re hauling around cargo then yes, you’ve got a legitimate need for the SUV. But from looking out my car window I can tell you that the majority of SUV drivers I see on the beltway are single passenger vehicles that are only hauling their own fat asses. If I saw fleets of Suburbans with soccer tems and drywall sheets we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
As I mentioned previously, the DC area is going to lose federal transportation funding due to our not hitting target goals for clean air. Why aren’t we hitting those targets? Because too many people are buying vehicles that don’t meet the fairly reasonable standards for passenger cars. For the record, I drive a Toyota Solara- 26/33 MPG which is better than the standard for passenger cars. Compare it to the popular Ford Explorer, which gets 15/20 MPG.
Not true- Sports cars are expensive and feed class envy but (as you yourself pointed out) don’t receive the same treatment. And I’d still feel the same way if they were cheaper than cars.
Why don’t I like them? Because they’re more dangerous to me on the road (increased weight + poorer handling, and blotting my line of sight), they’re less efficient which leads to more emissions, the majority of the owners don’t use them as designed, and fewer road projects in DC will be completed leading to worse traffic because of them.
Who cares? If you’re going to question the motives of people who buy SUVs, why can’t we question your motives for buying anything other than a VW Golf Diesel that gets 55mpg? Why didn’t you buy one of those? Too small? Too noisy? Too uncomfortable? Not cool enough?
And now that there are hybrids on the market, are you going to fault people who don’t buy a zero-emissions hybrid that gets 60mpg but costs $5000 more than the non-hybrid version? After all, what do they need the extra $5K? What would you think of someone who opted to buy a non-hybrid car and spend the extra 5K on, say, a big screen TV? Is he as bad as an SUV driver? If not, why not? He’s getting half the mileage he otherwise could, in order to save some money. Is that wrong? If not, why not?
I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this immense double standard against SUV drivers.
Who cares? If you’re going to question the motives of people who buy SUVs, why can’t we question your motives for buying anything other than a VW Golf Diesel that gets 55mpg? Why didn’t you buy one of those? Too small? Too noisy? Too uncomfortable? Not cool enough?
And now that there are hybrids on the market, are you going to fault people who don’t buy a zero-emissions hybrid that gets 60mpg but costs $5000 more than the non-hybrid version? After all, what do they need the extra $5K? What would you think of someone who opted to buy a non-hybrid car and spend the extra 5K on, say, a big screen TV? Is he as bad as an SUV driver? If not, why not? He’s getting half the mileage he otherwise could, in order to save some money. Is that wrong? If not, why not?
I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this immense double standard against SUV drivers.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by tracer *
And now that you’ve broached the subject:[li]How much pollution is created, and how many natural resources are consumed, by the production of one new car?[/li][/quote]
Well, the estimates that I have heard is that 80-85% of the environmental problems are from the driving with the remaining from the manufacture. Obviously, this isn’t an exact science though and depends on how you rate different environmental problems (air pollution, water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, habitat destruction, …)
[quote]
[li]What is the difference, if any, between the amount of pollution created and natural resources consumed by the production of a new car, and the amount of pollution created and natural resources consumed by the production of a new SUV?[/li][/QUOTE]
Can’t tell you here but my guess is that it would roughly scale with the total weight of the vehicle. Here, from my April 2002 Consumer Reports are weights of a few selected vehicles in pounds:
Honda Insight: 1875
Mazda MX-5 Miata: 2365
Honda Civic: 2610
Honda Accord: 3120
Chrysler PT Cruiser: 3300
Ford Taurus: 3340
Ford Escape: 3500
Subaru Legacy/Outback: 3790
Dodge Caravan: 4210
Ford Explorer: 4515
Dodge Dakota: 4765
Ford Expedition: 5565
Ford Excursion: 7270
Chevrolet Suburban: 5590
For the people that complain that they can’t see around SUV’s.
I found the dimensions of what I believe to be the most popular SUV’s and Mini-Vans and came up with an average size for both classes. I choose the biggest of the SUV’s from the mid-size class. Only one of these manufacturers make a bigger SUV.
I believe that these are the most popular of the larger SUV’s.
I choose what I think are the popular Mini-Vans.
I did not include full size vans because there just aren’t that many of them. Same with the huge SUV’s. I also did not include any mini-SUV’s.
The SUV models -
Ford Explorer
Grand Jeep Cherokee
Dodge Durango
Nissan Pathfinder
The Mini-vans -
Chrysler Town and Country
Dodge Caravan
Ford Windstar
Honda Odyssey
Average Dimensions for SUV’s
Length - 187"
Width - 72"
Height - 70"
Average Dimensions for Mini-Vans
Length - 198"
Width - 77"
Height - 69"
For these popular models, the Mini-van’s average is 11" longer and 5" wider than the SUV. The SUV is only an inch taller. One whole inch.
The Mini-van’s passenger compartment also extends farther to the front. The SUV has a hood that can be seen over.
Yet people complain that they can’t see around SUV’s, no one seems to care about Mini-vans. I’m with Sam Stone. It’s a double standard.
The double-standard seems to stem from the fact that SUVs are status symbols but mini-vans aren’t.
The people who drive mini-vans, so the conventional wisdom goes, don’t “want” them, they “need” them. They have kids to haul to soccer practice, and they are “lowering” themselves to the modern Brady-Bunch-like standard of driving a “family”-oriented vehicle, thereby making themselves un-cool.
You can haul just about as many kids to soccer practice in an SUV as you can in a mini-van, but due to their “coolness”, SUVs don’t turn their female drivers into Florence Henderson and their male drivers into hen-pecked house-husbands the way mini-vans do. Perhaps some of the enmity toward SUVs is because some people believe that all parents “deserve” to be “punished” by driving around in an un-cool mini-van or station wagon, and by driving an SUV instead, these parents are weaseling out of their “punishment.”