[robnado]

I feel that all those people who talk about reducing car size and use probably don’t have a family. I have twin 6 month olds and the only cars we currently use is the Toyota Corolla from a local car sharing service. Two car seats in the back leave basically just enough room between for my wife to fit sideways inside the middle seat. She can’t stay in there for longer than a few minutes and if we get in a car accident, she is not gonna have a good time. Also, have you tried putting a child in a car seat while avoiding hitting their head on the roof of the car? It’s a tricky thing. Those are two reasons that two people who worked hard on reducing their environmental footprint end up in a situation where we have to look into buying an SUV. And don’t get me started on avoiding cars altogether: with hospital appointments that take 15 min to drive to but would take hours of public transit to get to, the need to buy more food at a cheaper price and the fact that transit options are often not accessible with a stroller (good luck bringing a double stroller up and down a few flights of stairs) means that you need to use a car. My suggestion: please either fix public transit so families can actually use it and organise the city so services are accessible, or offer cars that can accommodate a reasonable sized family while being environmentally friendly.

Fyi, I live downtown in a major North American city that is known for having good public transit.

[yrro]

All valid problems. The car lobby (and their pet politicians) aren't going to do anything to fix it though. And we will all have to live with the consequences.

[robnado]

Agreed, instead of addressing any of the problems that push people to buy big gas guzzlers, they leverage those problems to divide the population. If you look, you will see these wedge issues everywhere. We won't get anywhere at addressing any pressing issues in our society if we let the medias keep dividing us.

[delta_p_delta_x]

> a major North American city that is known for having good public transit

Compared to most large East and Southeast Asian cities (Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore), public transport in American cities is generally lousy, especially if a 15-minute drive (that's about 10 – 15km, maybe) turns into a multiple-hour affair. At that rate, one might as well walk.

[hotpotamus]

Isn't the answer to this a minivan?

[robnado]

We are still deciding between an SUV and a minivan. What might make us choose the SUV is the ground clearance. Where we live there is a lot of snowfall in the winter, and the extra ground clearance can mean the difference between getting beached on packed snow or ice.

[Kon-Peki]

The article is talking about the size and weight of vehicles.

In this context, there is effectively no distinction between a modern minivan and a modern SUV.

1995 Honda Civic - curb weight of 2100 pounds.

2000 Ford Focus - curb weight of 2500 pounds.

2023 Toyota Corolla - curb weight of 3000-3100 pounds (depending on trim level).

2023 Toyota Sienna ("minivan") - curb weight of 4600-4700 pounds.

2023 Toyota Highlander (SUV) - curb weight of 4300-4500 pounds.

2023 Honda Odyssey ("minivan") - curb weight of 4500-4600 pounds.

2023 Honda Passport (SUV) - curb weight of 4200-4300 pounds.

2023 Honda Pilot (SUV) - curb weight of 4000-4700 pounds.

Anyway, the minivan is slightly heavier than the equivalent SUV - but close enough to not really matter.