Are hybrid SUVs a good or bad thing?

[NeilBlanchard]

Hiya,

I'm 6'-4" and about 240 pounds, and I fit comfortably in the xA. Anybody who thinks they need a SUV for this reason is fooling themselves.

[The Atomic Ass]

I voted Pos. 2, and I'll add on to that position.

SUV's are less safe in general than cars, and as such require a greater deal of driving skill and care, that almost none of the drivers of such vehicles have or exercise. Not that driving a car poorly is any less dangerous on the road of course, but an SUV is going to cause a lot more damage to everyone else than say, a Civic, and it's going to be far easier to cause an accident in it.

I also maintain this position of minivans, I'm bad aren't I?

[Drive Stick]

I put myself in the undecided category, because I have ADD and i didn't realize what I was voting on until after I read the post :P

Back to reality, I think SUV's should only be used for government and experimental research. K9 unit, police possibly. Off-road search and rescue, definitely.

Every day joe and jill? No way.

I think 20 mpg up from 15 is still ridiculous. They are adding the Hybrid tag to the SUV package in order to make it attractive and encouraging the wrong trend for this country.

We need to be leaning towards eliminating gas-hogs (all but sports cars, I will never agree that sports car should be electric, or hybrid, or get 40 mpg.. if you want performance you pay to play.) But SUV's are just un-necessary. Rent a U-haul if you really need to fill more than a wagon with people and supplies.

[The Atomic Ass]

Originally Posted by DifferentPointofView

Not bad for a 4.0L heavy as crap I6 pushing around an SUV, Now safety isn't the only reason for buying, but that's what a lot of people buy it for. They want to be the ones to survive in a wreck, survive when it's flooding, Feel comfortable on those really long trips (oh the comfort!), and look intimidating.

But for most people buying an SUV they're checklist goes like this,

Space for the family, comfort,
Safety, high off the ground for snow
4wd for the winter
other things that do with stuff that a van doesn't quite have
Dad will not look like a wimp

Maybe it's just me, but I do not find SUV's comfortable at all. The seats, (at least in the Chevy Blazer line, which my parents own 2 of), are quite a bit harder than I am accustomed to, and the ride of every SUV I've ridden in frankly makes me carsick. I'll extend that as well to minivans, as they also make me car sick. And my grandfather's driving, despite him driving a sedan.

As for surviving a wreck, of course the thought has never gone through the head of the average American to AVOID THE WRECK IN THE FIRST PLACE. People call them, "accidents", I call them "driving mistakes".

Now I will say, AWD is something I want, and have at times had a need for. Not 4WD, but AWD. And I don't want to drag around extra drivetrain components or a useless to me body style for the privilege. <-Electric *****

My 2/3 lowered 2WD S-10 never actually bottomed out on the snow, it just spun it's solitary drive tire, and this was driving through fresh snow that reached my hubcaps. Did I mention that Subaru's appeal to me a little?

[aerohead]

For me,I'm stuck with inverse-logic.If the premise of a hybrid is to recover some efficiency in traffic congestion,then the issue is traffic congestion,not hybrids.------------------------------------------------------------------- If a person is on fire,you can extinguish the flames with boiling water and then argue whether you helped them or not.----------------------------------- Why do we not take all the research and development money for hybrids,along with the "premiums" we'll pay for the hybrids,and finance traffic mitigation?--------------------------------------------------------------- As the population continues to grow,and the vehicle population along with it,any benefits accrued to the hybrid will be overshadowed by even greater traffic congestion.-------------------------------------------------------- You can keep tilting a bowling-alley uphill, to save space,but sooner or later your going to throw the ball onto your toes.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by The Atomic Ass

SUV's are less safe than in general than cars...

It also turns out that if you are in an accident with kids in a vehicle, the kids are more likely to die in a SUV than in a minivan: Are S.U.V.’s More Dangerous Than Minivans? - Wheels Blog - NYTimes.com

[Drive Stick]

Originally Posted by aerohead

You can keep tilting a bowling-alley uphill, to save space,but sooner or later your going to throw the ball onto your toes.

Good point about traffic congestion. Unfortunately there is no solution to that other than taking lives. As long as people are free to drive, they will continue to do so regardless of what adverse effects it has even on themselves.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

You all might already know that I'm not so much into hybrid layouts as I am into Diesel engines, but I consider the hybrid SUVs really pointless and just another green-washing. Why would a hybrid Tahoe still be fitted with the boat-anchor V8 if it's supposed to feature a more efficient drivetrain? Why would actually a regular Tahoe need a V8 anyways if it's not really used for heavy duties and either a V6 or even a 4-pot could get the job done decently? I'd rather get a 4-cyl turbodiesel in the 2.8L to 4.0L range over a spark-ignited V8 at any time. But we might remember the EPA regulations are easier to match with a spark-ignited hybrid than with a Diesel...

[Cobb]

I was in that situation. I went to a gen 2 scion xb. Talk about leg and head room. That thing hauled ass too. I got between 19-27 mpg.

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Hiya,

I'm 6'-4" and about 240 pounds, and I fit comfortably in the xA. Anybody who thinks they need a SUV for this reason is fooling themselves.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Considering that the conception of traditional body-on-frame SUVs didn't evolve so much in the last 80 years, retaining overweight ladder-frames, solid rear axles and longitudinally-engined RWD bias, hybrids could sound as just a brainwash. But anyway, as long as the average Joe wouldn't be willing to get rid of those landyachts, that still seems like the most viable approach to set a balance between different goals such as reducing dependence on foreign oil, tax rebates and other benefits that could apply, at the same pace that hybrid technology awareness gets more developed to make it look less "geeky", "nerdy" or anything that would render it unappealing to a more conservative customer base.