I’m not saying that all car enthusiasts should like SUVs, everyone is entitled to their preferences, and I certainly don’t think that everyone should own one. I do condemn the double standard used by many sports car elitists that attack SUVs for having some of the same problems that sports cars have: gas mileage, lack of practicality, underutilization by the driving public of the vehicle’s designed tasks, and safety. If Ralph Nader and his ilk ran the world no one would be enjoying sports cars or SUVs. Why encourage them.

Perhaps you should be the one renting a sports car every time you feel the urge to drive a slalom course. Otherwise you should be condemned to drive a car that conforms to an idealized standard of fuel economy, safety, handling, comfort, and practicality.

I agree with you in regard to the ridiculous SUV aberrations such as the Grand Cherokee HEMI, BMW X5, et al. SUVs make really bad street racers for the reasons you cite. To gut SUVs of their off-road sport prowess in an effort to make a street racer robs them of their raison d’être. Makes no sense to me.

Their heaviness and high bumpers have forced other cars to step up safety measures to the point where a Mini weighs a ton, thereby impeding handling gains that could be gained for sport cars and sedans. Also making it harder to get better mileage for those cars as well.

So you went off-road? Wow! That is just great… except it is not like you couldn’t have rented your SUV for the one week that you needed it. They block the view of other drivers which is just annoying. Sure they get terrible mileage, so much so that auto manufacturers classify them as trucks to avoid ruining their average mileages. The real problem is that they generally handle like pigs, their high center of gravity means they couldn’t slalom worth a damn, and frankly, what fun is that? And why would a car enthusiast want to even get behing the wheel of a big floating barge anyway? I am including the Jeep and Porsche in that assessment, they might be fast, but they still will never compare to a nice sports wagon.

And it fits TTAC perfectly. Finally, someone with the cojones to actually speak the truth about SUV’s.

The tons of comments by the emotionally wounded anti-SUV crowd trying to justify their unreasoning hatred of… a… VEHICLE, is hillarious. Of course, it’s not really the vehicle, it’s the vehicles owner, and lifestyle, that they actually hate. Just like the Islamic terrorists hatred of America… and for the same reasons. They just can’t stand other peoples personal freedom.

Home heating is a substantial source of greenhouse gases, and one that could be reduced if the gov’t would subsidize heating conservation measures. I use similar amounts of oil to heat my house and fuel my car. But for the homeowner, it doesn’t make economic sense to do a lot of conservation (insulation retrofits, modern energy efficient windows etc.) unless you are going to be in your home for years, and I think the average American moves about every five years. But it is dfinitely in the best interest of the United States to put money into reducing home energy use.

True dat — I was interested to discover an E-85 pump being installed in my town (currently a big hole in the ground with yellow gear parked by the side); so I immediately looked up exactly which flex-fuels models are currently available from those US auto companies who keep yapping about them.

And I was appalled at the very limited choice of absolute crap that is actually available. Just some of the ugliest nursing-home crowd boats and most gas-guzzling land behemoths. Disgusting, I wouldn’t take any of that garbage for free.

I think we can get serious about E85 only when Toyota and Honda get on board.

Dude, the cure for long URLs is http://www.tinyurl.com

I use it quite a lot. Here’s that ppt link:

http://tinyurl.com/ewddl

This started about the time the Avalanche came out.

I don’t know about statistics, but where I live, I’m seeing fewer and fewer SUVs on the roads and in the parking lots.

This began a month or two ago.

But I still see people sitting in their cars and SUVs with the engine running and the AC on; waiting for people, sometimes for as much as an hour! So I don’t believe that fuel economy alone is the reason for the decline in SUV sales and/or ownership.

Only time will tell, of course.

In the meantime, I am very happy with my Prius. Not because of fuel economy alone, either. It’s been a great car, dependable, and very versatile.

And I go “offroad” three times a week! Okay, so I only park it on the lawn. But I’ve never had trouble getting it over those big tree roots!

Never mind the lovely sentiment and implicit belief that putting someone else in danger is not the SUV drivers’ problem; I got a newsflash for you. That “hardworking SUV owner” is working hard to support that SUV. The per-mile costs for one of those “compensators” is about a third more than a typical NICE sedan.

If he had his family’s best interests at heart, he’d sell the Dominator and put the money saved into college education funds, investments and term life insurance.

If it was all about ME, I’d have a really sweet ride (not a Dominator but a nice sports machine) instead of 2 kids out of college debt free with savings accounts and good jobs of their own.

Now what was it you owned again? Believe me I have no problems down there My situation has to do with needing a vehicle that can handle a 6000lb fully loaded trailer with a racecar, air tools, and a grill/paddock setup. Yet some of the comments here, like a_d_v_a’s and yours show no class and no respect for others and their situations.

Grow up.

By the way, if you stayed in school that long, how come you didn’tyou learn grammar?

I hope Darwin introduces you to the front end of my 06 Ram Megacab before he takes any hardworking SUV owner who is trying to make it and support their families. That goes for anyone wishing harm on someone just for their vehicle choice.

BTW i’d like to see a Subaru tow my 20 foot enclosed racecar trailer. The drivetrain would be sitting beside the car as soon as you tried to move.

BTW if you can’t afford $5 a gallon gas, you should of stayed in school longer.

Did I miss any?

While I think that segmenting private vehicles from government and commercial vehicles would probably not get the stat down to the 2% put forth by SUVOA, this doesn’t change the fact that the overwhelming majority of manmade greenhouse gasses are not generated private US drivers. Global warming could hardly be curtailed if every SUV-owning American traded in their baby for a conventional car.

Original SUVOA source:
http://www.suvoa.com/issues/mythsandfacts/suvfacts01.cfm

EPA report of transportation-generated emissions of GHGs (see Appendix A for figures):
http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/420r06003.pdf

Energy Information Administration of total GHG emissions by country:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls

If we could in fact bring car emissions down from 5% to 2%, that would be a huge change. Reasonable measures we as a nation can take to accomplish this include purchasing and driving less SUVs. One of the measures we can NOT take is to continue with the status quo and just pretend that we’re already down to 2%.

Another thing: regardless of the exact percentage, in absolute terms the emmissions are large. Our contributions as a percentage of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions is probably going to go down even if we do nothing because China, India, etc will be producing much more emissions. This doesn’t mean we should stand idly by…
Whatever the size of auto emissions, the reason why it’s so heatedly debated is that it is one source of emissions that we as INDIVIDUALS have the most control over.

I promise not to post anymore re: this article ‘cos Mr. F might put a smackdown and start cuffing us with a word-limit or something =)

MikeD – nice back’n'forth. Will be reading what you have to say in the future.

Hopefuly this gets submitted right (I don’t see the preview button anymore – so I can’t test it).

Here’s a powerpoint presentation that says that cars and light trucks are 20% of the U.S. greenhouse gasses. (http://search.nrel.gov/cs.html?charset=utf-8&url=http%3A//www.nrel.gov/analysis/seminar/docs/2005/ea_seminar_feb_10.ppt&qt=site%3Awww.nrel.gov+site%3Awww.sst.nrel.gov+site%3Arredc.nrel.gov+||+greenhouse+automobiles&col=eren&n=1&la=en) And if we go with stanshih’s numbers of U.S. is 25% of the greenhouse emissions (I was too lazy to look up what NREL says about that), then we can estimate that U.S. cars and light trucks are 5% of the world’s emissions, which is on the same order of magnitude as the article’s estimation of 2%. I’d say that those two numbers are the same within all the uncertanties in the estimation.

Please consider finding a solid source for that 2% figure or editing it. I believe the figure to be misleading at best and possibly grossly inaccurate.

It doesn’t reflect well on The Truth About Cars when you can’t find the err.. truth about cars here.

Regretably, this report is over 10 years old (whcih predates much of the surge of discretionary SUV purchases in the U.S.)

“The transportation sector contributes about one-third of
total carbon dioxide emissions in the United States and
other countries that belong to the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development. Annual
worldwide carbon dioxide produced from motor
vehicle use is…about 20 percent of total carbon
dioxide production.”

It appears that U.S. autos contribute somewhere between 5-10% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions (assuming cars/LTs are roughly 50% of our “transportation sector”). But clearly the emissions of motor vehicles is significant accounting for 1/5 of world-wide greenhouse gas emissions. And we all know that Americans account for more than our share of motor vehicles and SUV motor vehicles.

editorial: I’m an ardent free trader/free marketer. I believe that people can do what they want within legal boundaries. However, there are behaviors that are legal, but stupid. For example, you can go into McDonald’s, buy 50 hamburgers, and then throw them in the trash. Similarly, you can go into a car dealer, buy an SUV and then drive 20 miles to your office everyday.
In both cases, you’re well within your rights as an American citizen, but it is wasteful and is creating a bit of a mess for other people.
If you’re buying 50 hamburgers ‘cos you’ve got a party, go for it. If you’re buying an SUV for your work, go for it. I’m with you.
If you’re buying an H2 or FJ for discretionary reasons, go for it. Just don’t expect me to stand by, smile, and give you a thumbs up.

some data: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html

I don’t think I have enough data here to deduce the amount of emissions from petroleum-powered vehicles, but an estimate puts the contribution of U.S. cars as being larger than 2% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

FACT 1: U.S. produces ~ 25% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions
FACT 2: Sources of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions:
42% Petroleum
37% Coal
21% Natural Gas
THEREFORE: ~ 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions stem from U.S. petroleum burning.
More later…

Certain types of people do seem to harbor great hatred toward SUV owners. Strangely, these same folks somehow fail to notice the kjillions of trailer trucks

Do you know this for a fact ? have you talked to these “Certain types of people”

Freight will be shipped the cheapest way possiable

Europeans use trains for both personal and cargo transport, yet we do not. It was economically feasible, when population density was a small fraction of what it is today

For this reason the united states

Freight rail by tonne-kilometer per capita
is 7312 vs 641 for the EU.