Quote:
Originally Posted by JSH
The difference between the cars and CUVs in all your examples is ground clearance.
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Yet, the EPA lists several vehicles as "SUVs" that fail this test, including the Hyundai Kona, Honda HR-V, Nissan Kicks, Buick Encore, Mazda CX-5, Toyota CH-R, Chevrolet Equinox (FWD), etc.
You can argue that
technically a vehicle like the Equinox is an SUV when it's the AWD version with 7.9" ground clearance, and a car if it's FWD with only 7.6" until you're blue in the face; you're not going to change a potential buyer's mind who looks at an Equinox and sees an SUV regardless of what some arcane government regulation says.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSH
GM tried to market the Bolt as a Crossover and failed miserable because everyone could look at it and clearly see that it was a hatchback.
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Toyota markets the CH-R as an SUV, and that seems to be going well enough for them; ditto for Tesla with the Model X, Honda with the HR-V, Hyundai with the Kona, and pretty much every other manufacturer. To reiterate, few to no car buyers care about the classification of their vehicle by one or more governments--they care about how it looks and how capable they perceive it to be based on what the company building it, advertisers, and car magazines tell them. Tesla says the Model Y is an SUV, so it is. As
Slash Gear put it in an article addressing this very issue:
"The question, then, is whether the Model Y is sufficiently crossover in its design to win over those buyers.
I suspect the answer is yes. Though purists may argue that the new EV doesn’t exactly fit whatever official definition holds sway that day, the reality is that consumers have different priorities. The Model Y is a crossover because Tesla says it is, and because – side by side with the Model 3 – it’s bigger. The differences may be relatively subtle in comparison to what some automakers are doing, but not so much so that they dissuade too many sales."