Your no fun at all 
Though the point that Bullitt and I make is that people really do use them off road. Not just parking lots. That’s agravating.
Sure we may be outliers, but more people than SUV distactors think have a real use for them. Not necessarily forging rivers or crossing deserts, but real use.
I do get pissed at the super-testosterone ads that show big manly trucks pounding the fuck out of remote wilderness, because, hell, what good is remote wilderness if not to have the fuck pounded out of it.
Hey, I understand. In the pic of me and that silver truck, we where on a regulated (well it had signs ) ‘Jeep’ trail. Never leave the used trail/path was the way we did it. Never make a new trail.
Two near me have been shut down. Along with many other’s I’m sure. Erosion concerns was the reason.
I’m pretty much over that anyway. I have an SUV because it’s still the best vehicle for me.
Yeah you can.
Cadillac still makes several sedans.
Chevrolet Malibu
Chevrolet Sonic
Chrysler 300
Dodge Charger
Lincoln MKZ
I guess that makes sense for the reasons you suggest. But when I’m on the road behind a big boxy vehicle, or trying to squeeze in/out of a parking space between 2 such vehicles, car vs truck platform really doesn’t make a bit of difference.
I guess I find descriptors reflecting appearance more meaningful. For example, is my wife’s Crosstrek a CUV? Because IMO, it is a small station wagon - perhaps with a little more ground clearance. But certainly vastly different from a RAV4, Equinox, Forester…
Is an Outback a CUV? Or just a wagon?
Here’s a factoid I looked up and THINK I’m remembering correctly. Which vehicle has more rear cargo space with rear seats folded: Subaru Outback or Forester?
They are the same. It is just that the Forester’s space is tall and narrow and the Outback’s space is low and wide!
I’d say killing and injuring fewer people is a pretty big plus. The extra fuel efficiency, extra parking space, etc are just sprinkles.
I meant benefits for the buyer, not the public. People don’t generally make buying decisions based on what’s better for other people. I’ll bet the number of times a sale was lost because a customer worried about the collision effect on a pedestrian is close to zero.
And SUVs of equivalent cabin size are easier to park. Sedans are surprisingly long vehicles because of the trunk. I mentioned that the 2009 Ford Escape was 300cm shorter than a 2009 Ford Tuaurus. But even the full-sized Ford Explorer is shorter than a Taurus.
And the Taurus isn’t a particularly large car. A Crown Vic is as long as an Expedition, which is one of the longest SUV out there. The longest is the Cadillac Escalade, which is only 6 inches longer than a Crown Victoria.
The real long vehicles are pickup trucks. If you are putting them in the same category as SUVs, that might be the confusion. The long bed, crew cab pickups can be two feet longer than the longest SUV.
If you drive on the highway a lot, a car may be more fuel efficient than an SUV. In thr city, it’s going to come down to drivetrain. A car with a more powerful engine will likely get worse mileage in the city than an SUV with a more efficient engine, and vice versa. Most ‘SUVs’ these days are just lifted hatchback cars anyway.
A Forester is 6" longer and .5" wider than a Crosstrek. Is that what is considered vastly?
The Outback is quite a bit larger than either. It is 15" longer and 3" wider than the Crosstrek. Outback has the most cargo space.
The Forester is the tallest being an inch taller than the Outback and almost 5" taller than the Crosstrek.
Yeah? What in your opinion were the “real measurable differences that matter” between classic Coke and New Coke that made the latter product “inferior”?
Horsefeathers, IMHO. AFAICT, what faked out the Coke execs in the mid-1980s was their mistaken belief that “real measurable differences that matter”, in the form of blind taste-test results on different recipe formulations, were driving the increased popularity of Pepsi. So they changed the Coke recipe to make it sweeter and more Pepsi-ish.
And then it turned out that Pepsi’s rising popularity was in fact due mostly to adroit marketing, and soda drinkers still wanted Coke to taste like they expected it to, despite the blind-test results showing clear market preference for more Pepsi-like formulations.
In short, little or nothing about the “New Coke” debacle was due to any kind of objective product “inferiority”. It was a classic (heh) example of the random irrationality of consumers, who sometimes can be massively swayed by marketing and sometimes can’t, for reasons that are never entirely predictable.
The Ford Edsel likewise, AFAICT, was more of a marketing failure than a product quality one. Plenty of other Ford models had similar quality-control problems in development, and similarly controversial design features. But the Edsel just happened to hit the “sweet” spot of overhype and poor timing in marketing, rather than being a significantly worse car by objective measures.
Mind you, I’m not saying that consumers never prefer products on the basis of some objectively quantifiable superiority. But it’s foolish to assume that consumer preferences in general must be based on objectively quantifiable product superiority. That’s attributing to markets more reliable rationality than they actually possess.
That was what I was going to say; there are a lot of “SUVs” that are really just cars/station wagons that are sexied-up a bit to look more offroad capable. And a fair number are functionally indistinguishable from minivans, except that they have regular doors and don’t look like minivans.
Forester vs Crosstrek - 6" longer and 5" taller. Yeah, I think that qualifies as “vast.” Sure makes a significant difference in our 2-car garage. And the Forester is pretty much the narrowest SUV/CUV/whatever you wanna call it on the market.
Outback 75.6 sq feet, Forester 74.2 sq ft. I call that pretty close. YMMV.
But you don’t answer my question. Are the Crosstrek, Outback and Forester all CUVs?
According to Subaru, they are all CUVs and I would consider them all CUVs.
I call that a vast difference 
They are all built (current models) on the Subaru Global Platform, which is a modular unibody construction. So yes, I would say they are all crossovers, just of different sizes.
My Wifes Subaru Ascent is 6" longer than my Toyota 4Runner. It’s a real nice road car. We take it on trips. The 4Runner is easier (much) for me to get in and out of. Hey, It’s my car. They both do well in snow, and have a bunch of cargo space. Hmm… which car would I prefer for myself. One I can get in and out of or one that is a struggle?
I also know which car I would want to pull out the other when stuck in snow.
They both handle our two 65 lb dogs well. We’ll both be going to Denver next weekend and pick up a 65" TV. Won’t be a problem (The Subaru would handle that too).
So. We are driving both cars 100 miles one way for this trip. One for the dogs, one for the TV (and possibly a big ass mirror that my wife wants from my mom’s estate[that will go in the 4Runner with the TV]).
Hmm. Here Subaru seems to call the Outback, Crosstrek, and Forester all SUVs. I haven’t read the entire site, but they don’t clearly mention CUVs - at least not on the main page. Where do you get the designation CUV? And all 3 of these vehicles are built on the same platform? What does that mean? Crosstrek’s wheelbase is 105", Outback’s 108". Not trying not be difficult, just ignorant as to what “the same platform” means if it can be of different sizes (vast or not).
Subaru describes the Impreza simply as a “car.” Is the Impreza built on a different platform than the Crosstrek? Because the sure look damned near identical - EXCEPT for ground clearance and height
I cannot control what other people think or say, but having owned all 3 models over the very recent past (AND an Outback not long ago), it surprises me that anyone would not perceive that the Impreza and Crosstrek have much more in common than either of them share with the Forester. And I never thought of our Outback as anything other than a staton wagon. I do not understand why anyone - seller or buyer - would think calling these various vehicles all CUVs conveys any valuable information.
Aparently its Crossover-Utility Vehicle Whatever. The guys in marketing need to get their lunch money somehow.
Again, to the degree there’s a difference that isn’t marketing, a CUV is built on a unibody while a SUV is built body on frame. The crossover is basically the modern station wagon with true wagons (as opposed to hatchbacks) being rare these days. SUV sounds better in terms of marketing and I’m sure Subaru really wants to use it with their Wilderness options package, which gets something like 9 inches of ground clearance. Combine that with the full time AWD and you’ll get most places easily without getting stuck, but I still wouldn’t consider it the equivalent of something with true 4WD.
Yeah, the Subaru really developed a great AWD system. The Outback (for instance) has a very poor approach angle though. And no Low Range. LR would be sort of pointless in that vehicle anyway.
I guess I’ll step out of this, because I’ve expended more effort than I care about this, and the words I’ve read do not make sense to me - a least WRT the way I think of personal vehicles.
And here they call them CUVs: Build a Subaru CUV That’s Right For You
Well, the Crosstrek, Forester, and Outback. As others have mentioned, I think the “definition” is unibody construction versus a body on frame of a “true” SUV. It’s all marketing.