As a further thought to add to the above there should be immediate disincentives for the purchase of unnecessarily powerful and heavy vehicles. The suburban mum does not need a 2.5 ton SUV, whatever to motive energy source, to drive the little darlings to school or do the shopping.
I can't see the logic in saving the planet by buying 3 tons of vehicle with all the manufacturing and eventual demolition resource, carbon and waste costs.
Exactly my thought Peter,
You prompted me to do a comparison.
When I was young (many years ago) the Ford Zephyr was considered to be a large car. Remember the MkIII aircraft carrier?
Zephyr
Length 4.65m
Width 1.75m
Height 1.44m
Curb weight 1,283 kg
VolvoXC90
Length 4.9m
Width 1.9m
Height 1.8m
Curb Weight 2,200kg
BMW X5
Length 4.95m
Width 2.0m
Height 1.75m
Curb Weight 2,100kg
While I agree, and can't fault your logic, there's one element missing from that sample school run: sleeping policemen.
Sadly, SUVs solve the problem of traffic calming measures - I'm sure there's a correlation between the growth of both.
Before SUVs, were these the drivers that regularly bent their alloys and trashed their exhausts because they hit sleeping policemen too hard? And now, in an SUV, they can proceed at the standard all purpose speed of 43 mph regardless of the road underneath them.
:-(
