[Eli]

If you are in the market for a new SUV why not get one of the brand new ones Gm is coming out with.
Gm is not giving up on SUVs
Damn the torpedoes full speed a head.

I betting you will be able to pick up one of these new suvs cheap at the GM foreclosure auction. GM had hopped to turn their already slumping sales around with a new SUV line up. This is so freaking sad it is funny the thing they hoped would save the company is going to sink it.
They abandoned a new line up of gas guzzling cars slated for 2008 and decided to pin their hopes on the new SUV line up.

Why they do not some out and say we are going on a crash program and start providing fuel efficient diesel engines in all our cars and trucks is beyond me. They need to admit they screwed up and bite the bullet and try and change the production line up asap.

[falser]

I live right down the street from 3 car dealerships - GM, Mazda, and Mercedes. And to be honest I don't think I've ever seen anybody walking around the GM lot. The lot is completely full of lonely SUVs, lined up one after one like some kind of a military depot. But every time I walk by the Mercedes dealer the place is packed and lively. Their business is absolutely gangbusters - lots of people test driving the flashy high end coupes and even their SUV's. Mazda cars suck, and so it's not surprizing that when I see people there they're looking at the non-Mazda cars like the Mini Coopers and Hondas. I don't understand how these American companies have stayed in business this long. Nobody wants their products and for good reason, they've completely lost touch with their customers.

[DoctorDoom]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JeeBoomba', 'T')hey are nothing but jacked up station wagons with big tires. Why not just buy the station wagon instead?

[dooberheim]

Since the post-Katrina gasoline price spike, "Repo Row" outside my credit union has had several big SUV's parked there. Usually cars come and go in a two week period - these (all of them) are still there. Imagine people may have just given up on the payments once fuel prices started sucking them dry.

Bet they'll still be there in a month...

DK

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DoctorDoom', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JeeBoomba', 'T')hey are nothing but jacked up station wagons with big tires. Why not just buy the station wagon instead?

[Eli]

I wouldn't say Mazda cars suck their new Mazda3 is nice. 5 speed transmission gets 25 city 32 highway and it is super nice and sporty. It comes in a hatchback form that is great little car.
And it is much cheaper than a Mini Cooper, you can get one fully loaded for 18,000 grand.
Wagons and hatchbacks are coming back in a big way.
Mazda needs to import their diesel Mazda5 it gets like 55 mpg without using any of that gay as hybrid tech stuff.

[mgibbons19]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DoctorDoom', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JeeBoomba', 'T')hey are nothing but jacked up station wagons with big tires. Why not just buy the station wagon instead?

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mgibbons19', 'A')nd here I thought the wagon was wiped out by the CAFE standards of the 70s. Be careful what you wish for. The do-gooders last time around CREATED the suv minivan problem we have now.

[mgibbons19]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mgibbons19', 'A')nd here I thought the wagon was wiped out by the CAFE standards of the 70s. Be careful what you wish for. The do-gooders last time around CREATED the suv minivan problem we have now.

[emersonbiggins]

I see. Damn, isn't somebody responsible for finding loopholes in regulations and fixing them before shit like this happens?

[/naive, idealistic rambling]

[rockdoc123]

It seems that there is always a major cry that by getting the SUV’s off the road we will somehow save ourselves from the demand/supply problems w.r.t. oil. I decided to go and fiddle a bit with some hard data to just get an idea of how this might actually work (I’m one of those guys who doesn’t take anyone’s word at face value). Anyways I went to a government website to look at vehicles and average miles per gallon US. In order to compare fairly I looked only at city mileage realizing there were going to be some errors given that many folks commute at highway speeds. I only looked at 2005 vehicles simply because 1. I am fairly lazy and 2. there hasn’t been a huge change in vehicle gasoline efficiency since about 1984 and I suspect most vehicles on the road are younger than that. I looked at 88 cars and 48 SUV’s…..I purposefully did not include 4WD cars in the car category but also did not include things like smart cars or hybrids….rationale being that there is not yet a huge percentage of those on the roads. Fitting a distribution to the city mpg I arrived at a mean mpg for SUV’s of 15.49 mpg with a 10% of 13 mpg and a 90% of 18 mpg. For cars the mean was 21 mpg with a 90% of 30 mpg and a 10% of 16 mpg. I then looked at a range of commute distances from a mean/vehicle of 12,000 miles/year (I think the US census suggests it is really about 10,000) and used a 10% of 6000 miles/year and a 90% of 20,000 miles/year. What I wanted to look at was the statistics behind the difference consumed by an “average” SUV versus an “average” car on a yearly basis and then also take a look at how that would potentially impact a consumer if we assumed a $4 gallon US gasoline price. I also wanted to see what the actual savings on fuel consumption in the US overall might be.
To cut a long story short the following were the results based on a Monte Carlo simulation:
SUV fuel consumption per year: Mean=794.6 gallons, 10%=374.19 gallons, 90%=1,330.9 gallons
Car fuel consumption per year: Mean=619.4 gallons, 10%=251.2 gallons, 90%=1,103.8 gallons

Difference in fuel consumption per year : The mean case would have an average SUV owner consuming 175.2 gallons more than a car owner, 90% of the time that SUV owner would consume 462.2 gallons more than the car owner and there would be a 10% probablility that the SUV owner would actually consume 77 gallons less than an average car owner (this is because the most fuel efficient SUV’s actually have better mileage ratings than the least fuel efficient cars).

Difference in expenditure per day @ $4 US/gallon: The mean case would have an SUV owner paying $2.34 more than the average car owner per day, there is a 90% probability that the SUV owner would pay $6.16 per day more than the average car owner and there is a 10% probability that the SUV owner would actually pay $1.03 less than the average car owner (again due to overlap in highly efficient SUVs and poorly efficient cars). To keep this in perspective the mean case results in daily savings that is still less than a Starbucks latte at $3.59.

And finally I made a leaping assumption that there might now be about 40 MM SUV’s on the road (there were 24 MM in 2002 and I could not find a later number). I then assumed that the consumption in the US is currently around 9 MMB/day of gasoline. The resultant percentage decrease in gasoline consumption by making all the SUV drivers sell their vehicles and purchase the “average” car was: mean decrease in gasoline consumption of 5%/annum with a 10% probability that you could actually increase consumption by 2%/annum. When I look at this and think that the increase in gasoline consumption between 2004 and 2005 US driving season was close to 2% (sorry can’t remember where I saw that number) it makes me think this whole “SUV’s are the problem” is a bit of a tempest in a teapot. Making everyone convert is not going to make a tremendous difference in a single year and that impact would be obliterated in 2 years time (assuming all things equal on the demand side of the equation).

Anyways I suspect this is fairly intuitive to some but I thought it worthwhile to interrogate the numbers. And of course there are other reasons one might want to rid the roads of SUVs....their too big, their ugly, they create accidents, they are driven more and more by chicks with dicks.....etc. Again I just wanted to look at the fuel consumption side. Not sure what the difference in cost to make an average SUV is versus an average car....anyone?

[emersonbiggins]

Basically, on it's face, there is no issue. The SUV and the car are essentially the same dead end - superfluous personal conveyances with no broad future. It's the correlative variables that make the SUV the official 'demon spawn' of America. The SUV is an easy target because it represents the decadence & excess of the decline of the American empire. The SUV goes hand-in-hand with the 4,000 SF McMansion and the 40-50 mile/day commute that defines suburbia. And while I don't doubt your math, I would take a closer look at average VMT of SUVs vs. cars, if there exists such statistics. My educated guess assumes that you'll see more SUVs in the hinterlands, and more cars (and transit) in the cities. Therefore, the 21 MPG car in the city that's driven 15 miles/day suddenly seems much more sensible than the 15 MPG SUV driven 30-40 miles/day out in the suburbs.

[JoeW]

It should be pointed out that some of your assumptions are easily challenged. I am not going to do that. I am instead going to agree with the conclusion that SUV's are not the problem. I believe that the rise of the SUV is really conspicuous consumption, which is a problem for the economy.
The call for more fuel-efficient vehicles and other means of energy conservation is not a solution to the overall energy problem. But it is one of the only hopes for delaying the disaster so that perhaps pieces of the energy solution might be found.

[NeoPeasant]

Switching from SUV's to hybrids is like switching to filtered cigarettes. We should begin engineering dependence on the personal car out of our lives, just as we began engineering dependence on the personal car into our lives at the beginning of the 20th Century.

It's time to acknowledge personal motoring as one of mankind's biggest mistakes, fix it, and move on.

[lotrfan55345]

Here's what should happen to SUVs:

Just kidding...

[lotrfan55345]

And this too:

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t should be pointed out that some of your assumptions are easily challenged. I am not going to do that.

[OZ_DOC]

sorry if this is a bit abrupt but this is a pet hate of mine. It eal p@$@$s me off when people "prove" a particular approach wont help because it wont fix the whole problem or replace a whole system. This approach is used by skeptics and industry to debunk alternative energy all the time, eg "solar wont help because you cant replace the whole grid with solar it would take 7,244,256,675,451 sq miles of panels." I dont think even the most pro solar or anti suv person who would actually claim that their one approach will solve every single problem.

But, with a combination of substantial decrease in consumption, abolition of large vehicles except where need is shown eg farming, not soccer practice. Substantial increase in wind, solar, gothermal, tide, wave, biomass and biofeul use. A government car trade in program where old inneficient vehicles are taken off the road on the condition that the money is used to buy an efficent vehicle. One very good idea i think (difficult to regulate though) is that commercial power at home be only used for essential uses eg. refrigeration, lighting, heating and cooking. Anyone who wants any more must contribute an equivalent amount of power back to the grid fom either solar or small wind turbine. This allows people to continue having the luxuries, but forces them to be conscious of their consumption.

We currently use 9 million bpd of gasoline, yet fom the point it leaves the ground to the point it goes into you car, the average peson will not see a drop of it, this kind of "invisible" energy use is highly abuse prone.
I dont disagree that it is hard, possibly unpleasant for many, but it is the only sustainable way.

Ps. that solar array statistic was 74.5% made up.

Im sure many of you have read these but the Union of Concerned scientists Clean Energy Blueprint, and the Amory Lovins Winning the Oil Endgame studies poviding significant ways to massively power down without destroying ou way of life. Combine these twom and theres a convincing argument of a future for us.

[Aedo]

Great analysis - it would also be very interesting to compare US fuel consumption to European fuel consumption.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'N')ot sure what the difference in cost to make an average SUV is versus an average car....anyone?

[SchroedingersCat]

You and your buddy buy a six pack of beer. In the time you take to drink two beers, he drinks four. Now the beer is gone.