Not to the same extent. My general impression is that minivans have lower bumpers and are smaller on the outside than SUV’s. I understand that they also lack the SUV’s stiff frame so they are easier on other cars in a crash.
I concede that many SUV’s are getting more minivan-ish.
I think that’s part of it. My sense is that people don’t buy minivans unless they really do need them.
Matrix is a better car than the xB. Especially the new one, god, they fat-pigged the new one. It does come with selectable 4WD as an option.
My 6’6" very laaaaarge friend fit in the Matrix with ample room for both legs and belly. And cowboy hat.
Well and good. We have a bike rack for my Wifes bike. It’s a hitch mount. We can trade the mount between cars. My Wife at 5’2" has dificulty putting a bike on a roof rack. (She’s training for the Madison WI Ironman) It’s a $6000 [and counting] bike, we prefer to keep it inside the vehicle when we can (the wheels are $1000 apiece). The bike comes into the hotel at night for tuning and safety. Not really something that you want to put on a hitch rack going down gravel roads. We use the hitch rack when we need the room inside for dogs or luggage.
:shrug: Everyone has different needs.
A Minivan carries more, is slightly safer and gets a tad better milage. I live the Saturn or the Honda Element- which last is somewhat small and might not hold 6 tubas.
For hauling shit there is no justification for an SUV- trucks, vans and minivans all do it better, and with better milage.
True, some SUV’s without 4WD or AWD get about the same milage.
*There are no diesels outside of large trucks or luxury sedans in the USA. *The Jetta does not come in a diesel and doesn’t get that sort of true milage either. Of course since diesel is 25% or so more expensive in the USA, you’d have to get a large increase, whereas diesel only gets about 10% better energy per gallon.
Sounds like you *neeeeeed *one to me!
Even I --the dastardly OPer-- have neeeeeeeeded and utilized SUVs at two different periods in my life (if you count a small pickup for one of them). Once when I was a TV news photographer (you folks would call it a ‘cameraman’) in a snowy northern city with a long winter. The TV station owned the vehicle–not I, and I actually wanted them to upgrade to a larger vehicle (can you imagine? after all my posts? 
) because the one I was driving was a little small for all the gear I had to haul. (Naturally they didn’t buy a new one until right after I left the station–the old one had about 1,000,000,000,000 miles on it and you could see the road between your feet :rolleyes: ).
The other time–when I had a small pickup–was when I was “playing out” (almost touring, but not quite) as a keyboard player with a semi-successful band. Yes I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeded the truck to–once again–haul all my gear around (different sort of gear than TV stuff, but more of it).
By today’s standards neither one of those vehicles was much of an SUV, but back then they were considered Sporty enough, Utile enough, and also Vehiclular enough…
Hyundai Santa Fe -gets 18MPG (2WD) and has 37 sq ft of cargo space. It’s not a bad choice,it’s a car based SUV. It’s really a station wagon that ride high. Assuming you don;t have the 4WD version.
Honda Element gets 21mpg and has 47 sq feet.
Chrysler PT cruiser gets 25mpg and has 32 sq ft.
Saturn Vue Hybrid gets 32 hwyMPg and has 36.5 sq ft.
The Santa Fe is not a bad choice, but it’s not much of a SUV either.
Yeah… a roof-rack. Who knew?? Not the bike-riding junior-executive in the linked article–that’s for sure!
…sssshhhhhhhhhh!!! Don’t tell!
I’m not buying living someplace urban that has winter as a reason to “need” an SUV, either. I’ve lived my entire life in western Canada, never drove a truck or SUV, and had, let’s see, two skids and no accidents in 24 years of winter driving. The skids were both on black ice; no vehicle made has traction on black ice. I barely alter my driving habits for winter weather, either; if it’s slippery/snowy, you go slowly and drive carefully. The main routes are plowed and sanded within hours of a snowfall. My biggest hazard in winter is tools in their SUVs who think that winter doesn’t apply to them because they’re in a 4WD. I’ve driven past enough of these fools stuck in the ditch who blew past me at an unsafe speed moments ago that I’m content to let instant karma sort them out.
And some of them it seems are getting even smaller than that. The line between an SUV and a “car” was already becoming blurry even what…? 4 or 5 years ago?
Now, with the gas prices so high, the car makers will be going even smaller. THOSE FUCKERS ARE GOING TO RENDER MY ENTIRE SEMI-AMUSING LITTLE O.P. MOOT! Damn!!! Who am I going to get all Holier-than-thou on then??? 
(either the Republicans or the Christians, I guess… you choose!)
Well, if you’re looking for another Sacred Cow to tip, I hear tell that US Americans are still pretty keen on capitalism. 
ETA: Your OP was entirely amusing, not just semi.
Getting away from the philosophy and politics and more into practical considerations, I’d make a few suggestions:
First, when comparing vehicles, use fuel consumption rather than mileage. Mileage is very misleading. For example, if I asked you which is better - going from 15 to 24 mpg or going from 25 to 50 mpg, a lot of people would say the latter. The first is only 9 mpg better, and the second is 25, right? Not so fast:
A car that gets 15 mpg will burn 6.67 gallons every 100 miles.
A car that gets 24 mpg will burn 4.16 gallons every 100 miles.
Chosing car 2 over car 1 will save you 2.51 gallons every 100 miles.
A car that gets 25 mpg will burn 4 gallons every 100 miles.
A car that get 50 mpg will burn 2 gallons every 100 miles
The difference in the second group is only 2 gallons, where in the first it’s 2.51. The key takeaway from that is that the big savings are had by avoiding the huge gas guzzling behemoths like the Escalade, Subiurban, Hummer H2, etc. There are diminishing returns as you compare two vehicles with already high fuel economy. For instance, the difference between 40 mpg and 50 mpg is only .5 gallons per hundred miles - in a typical 15,000 mile driving year, the first car will only burn 75 gallons more than the second - at $4/gal, that’s less than $30/mo difference. This would almost certainly make it uneconomical to trade in your current vehicle for a new one if improving gas mileage was your only goal, and would also make it uneconomical to pay more than a thousand dollars or so difference in price.
Canada uses proper measurements for fuel consumption.
Here’s a comprehensive chart of fuel consumption for every car made in Canada.
A Hyundai Santa Fe has pretty high fuel consumption - one of the worst in its class. Even with the small engine (which is a real dog in that vehicle), it burns 11.4L/100KM city, and 8.3L/100km highway. That’s because the Santa Fe is a very heavy vehicle for its class. If you’ve got the bigger engine and AWD, it burns 12.6/8.4
But you don’t have to squeeze yourself into an econobox to get a good improvement over that. A Honda CRV is in the same class of vehicle (it’s nicer, if you ask me, and has more utility), and it does 10.3/7.3. In comparison, the Pontiac Vibe mentioned before does 8.2/6.3. So in highway driving, you’re only going to burn 1L/100km more in the CRV. There are 3.78 liters in a U.S. gallon.
So in a typical 20,000 km year, the CRV would only burn 200L more than the Vibe if driven on the highway, or 420L more if driven in the city. Split the difference in half, and you’re looking at an annual difference of 310L, or 82 gallons of gas. At current gas prices, the vibe would only save you $27/mo in gas.
BTW, a Jeep Grand Cherokee FFV (flex fuel), which is advertised as a ‘green’ vehicle because it can burn E85, burns a whopping 21.1L/100km in the city. At current gas prices in Canada, it would cost $5570/yr to gas that thing up. Those are the kinds of vehicles you really want to avoid. BUt once you get up into the 20s and 30s for fuel economy, the differences in a few mpg are very slight, and other utilitarian considerations become more important. Keep that in mind.
It always pays to run the numbers so you can make smart decisions.
Which isn’t going to exist, according to that Hemmings blog.
Not a horrid surprise. I can give you a few more photos of it, for reasons why.
Toyota Matrix:
Total Volume with Seats Up: 22
Total Volume with Seats Down: 53
It has a flatbed with the seats down, unlike most cars. I slept in mine a few times.
28/34 mpg, 126 horsepower.
(I think that’s all the useful stuff I can say about the Matrix, really. Shutting up now)
The Pontiac Vibe and the Toyota Matrix are the exact same vehicle, but I’ve noticed the Pontiac tends to sell for less used.
Subaru Foresters can carry a shit ton of stuff and they have really excellent crash ratings, I really like them thar side impact door beams. When my daughter moved to Oregon and was shopping for a car I told her she could have a Subaru–she fought a bit but bought a nice used Forester and she loves that thing. Drives good, comfy, AWD is very nice for the crap weather conditions we get in winter, but the mileage isn’t stellar. It’s not BAD, just not GREAT. AWD will do that.
Please note–it’s MILEAGE, not MILAGE. Thank you.
A passenger sedan with pass through seats will hold way more than you’d imagine. I can put two mountain bikes into my '89 Cavalier without removing the front wheels. There is also the alternative of putting on a roof rack and a cargo pod like these. Also, the usual weight limit that a front wheel drive passenger sedan can tow is 1000-1500 lbs. Putting a trailer hitch on a front wheel drive car can be tricky.
The difference between a minivan and an SUV is that the SUV is build on a truck chassis and the minivan is built on a car chassis–also the minivan will probably be front wheel drive while the SUV will be RWD or AWD. Some minivans are AWD as well, but with the bulk of normal cruising power to the front wheels rather than the back ones.
I’ve been cackling with lusty schadenfreude at the sound of hundreds of thousands of road-hogging SUV’s hitting the market at once. That’s right, you arrogant bastards. 90% of you bought one so you could feel like you own the fucking road, and for no other reason. You don’t have shit to haul. You don’t tow trailers. You don’t transport the entire Swedish Bikini Team to the pool at once. You climb in your giant waste of resources (alone) and commute 25 miles to work from your White Flight Utopia. And then you know what you do? You fucking drive back. And sit on your ass. And never do anything at all with your 4x4 Hemi Dually Cummings Ford Exhibition except display it to your neighbors.
I sincerely hope that someday, just someday, Americans have to pay what gas is really worth, without the massive subsidies. Let the prices rise, rise, rise!
It’s OK, he has plenty of guns to make up for it.
(He does try to maintain a tiny bit of his masculinity while driving the Barbie Car [that’s my car’s name]. He always insists on removing the flower from the bud vase. No problems at all being seen driving a bright yellow Bug, but he just can’t stand that flower!)
Not quite- they use the same floorplan and most of the same engines, but each company supplies its own body, trim, interior and electrics.
Now that you mention it, if the Swedish Bikini Team did need a ride to the pool, it would suck if I wasn’t prepared.
runs out to buy gas-guzzling 7-seat SUV