On SUVs

The trouble with large organizations is that to get anything done requires a mountain of paperwork. My employer has contracted me out for an extended period to a very large company that requires reams of officialdom to get anything accomplished. I have done perhaps two hours of useful work over the past three days, the rest of the time I have spent waiting for the tools I need to do the useful work. It occurs to me, you want 100% employment? Just have one employer, they would be so dreadfully inefficient there would be a labour shortage.

In other news, someone I know (and that’s about as much hint as to who they might be that I am willing to give) is a vegan. Okay, so far no biggie. I mean I am a liberal progressive kind of guy, stands to reason I’d know a few vegans. Not that I am a vegan, or even a veggie, sorry, I like my chicken, hamburgers, and a good steak is always welcome! Anyway this person I know, the vegan, got themselves a new car. Well not great, but you know, North America, we kinda need motor vehicles, sucks but what can you do? It’s a large car, well alright, needs to transport the kids… no this vegan doesn’t have children… okay the bicycle? Sure why not – driving a bicycle is silly if you ask me but then I name my bikes so I cannot be an authority on things sane. Except, and here’s the kicker this person bought an SUV.

Okay, I concede if you have kids big cars make sense, I figure a station wagon, or as the English call them, an estate car is probably the most sensible thing, lots of passenger space, low centre of gravity means it can corner faster and safer, reasonable fuel economy. Or if you have lots of kids and (or) lots of cargo clearly a minivan or people carrier would be the right thing to buy. But when to buy an SUV? Well I will concede SUVs make sense if you drive on the dirt roads a lot, but other than that, lousy fuel economy, dangerous tendency to roll over, small passenger and cargo space (yes it’s true, you get more interior volume in a minivan than an SUV, and probably more space in the average estate car than in a mid-sized SUV as well). So why buy one of these things, particularly if you are a proud vegan? Doesn’t the damage done by burning the extra gasoline rather offset any good done by going vegan?

One lame excuse I hear from time-to-time, SUV drivers will talk about how efficient modern engines are. So lets look at VW/Audi, since I have a Jetta. True, the 2.0L engine that one finds on say the Audi Q5 or VW Tiguan, is the very same engine found on the 2.0L A4, 2.0L Passat and so on. Heck the chassis on the Tiguan is probably the A4 chassis. But funny thing, that aerodynamic drag of a big body way up in the air, just clobbers the fuel economy numbers. Don’t believe me, check out the EPA ratings. (http://www.fueleconomy.gov/) Just comparing a 2.0L standard Tiguan with a 2.5L Jetta SportWagen, the Tiguan gets 18mpg city to the Jetta’s 23mpg, the Tiguan gets 26mpg on the highway, the Jetta, 33. The EPA estimates the average Tiguan driver will burn 16.3 barrels of oil per year, the same amount of driving in a Jetta, 13.2 barrels per year. Of course the Jetta’s got the bigger engine and it weighs less so it will be more fun to drive. But what about interior volume, well it is true the Tiguan has 95.3 cubic feet of passenger space to the Jetta’s 91.7 cubic feet, but once we discuss cargo there’s a slightly bigger issue, the Tiguan has 28.3 cubic feet (or 56.1 cubic feet if you fold the back seats down) to the Jetta’s 32.8 cubic feet (or significantly 66.9 cubic feet with the back seats down). In other words, not only is the Jetta cheaper, faster, burns less fuel (and I haven’t even discussed the possibility of a diesel Jetta) but it’s got an extra ten cubic feet of cargo space yet looses only four cubic feet of passenger space to the Tiguan. So the numbers would suggest, get the Jetta. And I have yet to look at the NHTSA safety rating, let me see, well apparently both cars get four out of five stars. Okay SUV fans, same manufacturer, comparable vehicle, yet I can discern no good statistical reason why a person should favour the SUV over the estate car. Unless that four cubic feet of passenger space actually matters that much, in which case, why aren’t you looking at the Minivan?

I think I’m going to take up Veganism, then maybe I’ll understand the attraction of the Stupid Ugly Vehicle.