Are SUVs/Large Cars Unfairly Stigmatised?
Out of all genres of cars SUVs are the ones that get the most abuse that get stigmatized for being unnecessarily large taking up too much space in the car park and on the roads and well there are militant people out there that literally go around and join organizations to slash people’s tires
Who own this types of vehicle so they clearly get a lot of uh well divisiveness should we say in comment sections and whatnot I personally I’m not a fan of SUVs as a whole but that’s more of a style thing I mean they’re typically bigger less efficient more
Expensive to buy and run uh do handle as well they really have that much more interior space if at all they essentially a worse car than a traditional hats are often based on and for that alone I don’t particularly like them but in terms of people getting the
The abuse for owning an SUV for driving around in one isn’t it going a little too far I don’t just mean the Tire slashers which is is bang out of order I wonder about just in general it’s something that’s talked about online a lot as well in terms of people buying
These unnecessarily stupidly big cars I’m not saying I’m in favor of A or B I’m just saying look this is what I’m saying this is my point are SUVs unnecessarily stigmatized are they’re getting a lot of abuse or whatever you want to call it unfairly quite frankly
After the people that own them getting this sort of crap ultimately and it’s not deserved or are you one of these that thinks no no let’s get rid of them now as I said I’m not a fan of SUVs I personally think they typically look ugly but people choose them not just
Because they think they’re better or the there’s a higher driving position which is a thing I mean I mean I I I like driving a van because you have that higher driving position you can see more over the the walls on these beautiful Country Roads you can see further into
The distance on the motorway you feel a bit safer you do you do it’s not just the fact that you’re higher up it is a a nicer experience I guess but forgetting all that let’s have a look at SUVs as a whole and why I think that a lot of
People are getting this sort of uh stigma unfairly let’s start by looking at the type of car this is the first point I’d like to make that a lot of cars out there get the SUV idiot sort of thing unnecessarily it’s not really an SUV and I know there are Crossovers and
Blood lines and gray areas is it or isn’t it an SUV for me there’s a lot out there that are simply not sports utility vehicles which traditionally used to be a car that gives you uh a lifestyle that you couldn’t get with other vehicles four-wheel drive for example and
Capabilities that others don’t have SU V has now become synonymous with just a large car so let’s just carry that on for a second and think yes I’ll use SUV but generally I mean a big vehicle I saw a recent report on the tire slasher people these guys and it was videoing on
The street the news guy were there and there was lots of tires slashed uh there was a Volkswagen Tiguan and I remember seeing next to that was a Volkswagen Golf of state and it got me thinking and it’s something that’s come up before as well thinking well hang on a minute why
Did the golfer State not get its tires slashed well it’s not a big car is probably the response but I’ve done a little bit of research let me go it for a golf of State again the car from that video alongside it’s Volkswagen staem the Volkswagen tigan uh is 4.56 7 m the
Tigan which did get its Tire slashed is 4.4 86 M so therefore essentially the gulfer state is a longer vehicle the Tiguan is about that much wider but in terms of the footprint of that car the SUV has a smaller footprint it takes up less space less real estate in a parking
Spot on the road than the golfer estate which everybody is fine with uh and you think well hang on a minute what what is the metric here for what is too large does a taller car instantly make it become bad I would assume that the footprint of the car is
Worse I mean a lot of SUVs are based on a smaller vehicle like you know Golf and Tiguan are essentially share the same platform for example but they’re often the same sort of size in terms of the just like a taller version the Tesla Model Y is essentially the same size as
A model 3 it’s just taller most people think the Tesla Model Y is better not just because it’s a hatchback but because it’s taller and bigger and all the things that people want so that’s what I’m saying is the footprint the most important part of what how much
Space a car takes up for me it is because it’s taking up more space in the parking spot for example and there’s a lot of examples I could have given like that where the car is actually bigger than the SUV that’s getting the abuse I’ve even looked at the weight and
Although a golf diesel estate versus a Tiguan estate the the Tiguan is about 70 kg heavier the uh petrol Tiguan is lighter than the golf diesel estate so what I’m trying to say is someone driving a tigan with a petrol engine would be lighter than someone driving the perfectly acceptable golf diesel
Estate I know it’s very difficult to know how much a car weighs by looking at it but just because the car is TP just because it’s it looks like an SUV it doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing does it I don’t know what do you think in the
Comments is a konero a bad car cuz it has the shape of an SUV But ultimately isn’t really any bigger than a traditional hatchback the Tesla Model S is a massive car by UK standards but that doesn’t get any of the bad press compared to the model X which is
Essentially the same footprint but taller so just looking at a car and thinking SUV idiot it’s not really a good thing to do for me that’s something that needs to stop I don’t know what metric we use to say that is too big and that’s acceptable but you get what I’m
Trying to say the next point is the people driving these things so let me give you an example of somebody who lived on my street he was a tree well is a tree surgeon he had a big pickup double cab I think it was Toyota huge
Thing it was got a brand new one every few years and he said well I need to toore heavy objects for my tree surgery business I need to throw stuff in the back of the pickup for again the business but it’s also the car I use for
Family stuff for going to the shops in for for all the stuff that we use our cars for hence the double cap so you could see this person driving around and it wasn’t livered up or anything like that driving around maybe by himself just going to the shops let’s say oh
Look at that idiot in a massive vehicle War a what other alternative did he have if he would have bought a second car a small one to do the shop running and and kids and things like that no one would B an N lead but then that’s saying that
Two cars is better than one big one it’s not really is it I think one big car is better than a big car and a small car or even two small cars so again you don’t know why that person has bought that car yes he is probably the exception rather
Than the rule don’t get me wrong there’s a lot of people out there with huge cars that never use it capabilities or even close to it but my point is you don’t know looking at someone looking at a car especially the whole let’s slash everybody’s tires that may need that car
For their work or whatever is the wrong way of going about it it is just unfair and again unless you know that person’s an idiot a whatever you’re calling them then just leave them alone because you don’t know what they’re like I used to live near a paramedic he had a
Four-wheel drive I think it was an Octavia Scout he says I don’t need four-wheel drive but for two three weeks of the Year whatever it turns out to be I have to get to work if it’s snowing I have to get to work my wife works for the police
You can’t just ring in go oh I’m afraid I’m stuck and can’t get out my driveway you got to get there she’s had to walk a couple of miles of the are’s police station before because well if you ring the police up even when it’s snowing you
Expect response so that’s why he had what he had he only needed a few weeks of the year as I said but it was a requirement even though not a not a regular one let’s not prejudge people I guess which is you know very politically good these days isn’t it it’s good
Social media things another car that seems to get good good press and never anyone has a problem with it’s something like to stick with Volkswagen’s the ID Buzz this thing it looks cool it’s a van essentially but people use it for day-to-day driving around it they’re all
Right apparently even though it’s a much bigger car than again the tigan that gets the abuse I was even part of a fully charged live discussion on the stage about how we get rid of this SUV Obsession that the country has and part of me was thinking do we have this in
Obsession yes a car’s taller but does that necessarily instantly make it a bad thing now of course as I say many times in I car reviews another bloody SUV every every car that comes out seems to be another SUV style car at least you think oh no again why are manufacturers
Pushing these honors the answer is they’re not they’re not pushing anything on us they’re giving us what we want quite frankly I don’t particularly like them but my point point is people are choosing SUVs so the manufacturer looks at the stats and goes well no one’s buying the micro the Nissan micro
They’re buying the dukee many people are buying the model y over the model 3 so that let’s give them more of what essentially you’re buying and we’re buying I’m buying bigger cars that’s that’s what they’re responding to they’re not saying here’s more SUVs that’s we want what we want to sell you
They’re giving you what you’re buying quite frankly so the to stop manufacturers making lots of SUVs is to stop buying them and I get it again going back to the tigan example that’s a few hundred quid in terms of price difference between the standard Golf and the standard entry level tigan so you’re
Like well two 300 you know I’ll go for the bigger car I’m getting I’m getting more car of course I’m going to go for that one so how do we overcome this SUV Obsession well stop buying them for one would be nice small cars are brilliant
That’s why I bought to say at me because it’s efficient it’s chable you can park it easily it’s brilliant around town but at the end of the day if you’re doing a long journey tend to want something that’s more armchair like don’t you now for me yes there are people out there
That probably are buying something unnecessarily large just to take a little quen into the school or whatever you let’s go down the cliche route here I work in schools I have done for 20 odd years probably hundreds of schools over that career and uh there is one rule you
Don’t leave at 3 3:15 if you’re at a school because For the Love of God you’re not getting out it’s the school run cars just piled up on the payments all over the place it’s a mess but sometimes you just kind of look outside and look at all the cars and you see
Little Jimmy and you know Sophia or whatever getting into a massive Range Rover and think that’s just unnecessary but is it how do I know that they not a farmer or they’re not towing a horse box or they they havn’t a genuine reason to
Get that car most want but so how do we change people’s Perceptions in terms of well getting something much larger than the need well for me it’s just human nature how many people watching this have and me I would include myself in this have a a house that’s bigger than
The need maybe you have a four bedroom and there’s only two of you cuz the kids have gone what a waste I can’t believe you’re taking up this much space I mean you could say this for almost anything in life I have a TT Roadster in the
Garage it barely comes out does less than 1,000 miles a year I don’t need that I can’t justify it in any way but no one’s having to go at me because it’s not an SUV it’s kind of unfair really and this is kind of my point SUVs are an
Easy target and I genuinely believe that we do need to reduce the size and weight of a lot of stuff out there especially in EV land even though this video is about any car but I think there are better ways of doing it I guess that’s
My point of this video why don’t we try and do what we do with things like alcohol and smoking and things like that make them socially unacceptable not by slashing people’s tires but just by changing people’s thought that the culture behind them other countries for example their car tax or Road fund
License if you will is based on weight rather than in our case emissions so the heavier the car the more you pay would you be in favor of that I don’t know I genuinely don’t know emissions may be the best way of doing it or maybe weight
Is the best way of doing it we can’t have it both ways because you could have a big car that’s using less emissions than a small car so which do we prioritize let me know in the comments which you would choose if you were in power would you change the tax the road
Tax what I’ll call it to wait so that would naturally have a an effect on people like it does with the emissions you know if something’s 5600 a year tax less people buy it um so would that change people people’s perceptions of your big Range Rovers and your your big
SUVs whatever car we’re talking about would that make people choose smaller Vehicles would it make manufacturers think let’s try and make this a bit lighter and lightness is is a good thing it’s means it’s more efficient it’s better at handling so I don’t know if
You call this a a ranty video or or what it is but ultimately I’ve seen so much again abuse to people who buy an SUV or just go oh look I’ve got a a defender or a Nero or a Tiguan or whatever and it’s unnecessary like the tree surgeon guy he
Needs that do you think you would you be happy with him buying two cars rather than one all that sort of stuff so I guess what I’m saying is maybe we should talk to each other rather than abuse each other that would be nice and let me
Know in the comments what what would you do if you’re in power now you’re the transport Minister you’re in charge what do you do to change people’s perceptions do you tax heavier vehicles and therefore there would be a natural kind of move to lighter more efficient stuff
I know people do want light small hatchbacks but they’re not choosing that are they this is something that came up on the fully charged life thing there was I can’t remember who it was but she said well people want small little hatchbacks yay but no one’s buying them
Again no one’s choosing to get them they’re going for the Juke instead of the Nissan micro so clearly that’s not the case we all love them and like them but given the choice if someone says right company car time would you like this Range Rover well really all right
Then and as I said do we pick apart people’s houses next do we pick apart people’s other choices do you look at the portion sizes of the meals I mean where does this stop so yeah anyway as I said if you’re in charge what would you
Do to change the whole car size problem thing okay right um I’m done bit of a different video this time it’s just something I wanted to get out there because as I said I’ve been seeing this online an awful lot and even in person when you start seeing that at somebody
Driving past and you’re in an SUV or something think why would you do that anyway uh I’m done now uh thank you for watching I hope you had a great Christmas and uh I’ll see you soon don’t forget to like subscribe all the usual crap the members only button that’s 99p
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They attract a lot of hate online! So is it fair?
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