this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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The increasing popularity of ultra-heavy SUVs in England means a conventional-engined car bought in 2013 will, on average, have lower carbon emissions than one bought new today, new research has found.

The study by the climate campaign group Possible said there was a strong correlation between income and owning a large SUV, which meant there was a sound argument for “polluter pays” taxes for vehicle emissions based on size.

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[–] DeathWearsANecktie@lemm.ee 59 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Emissions aside, those big SUVs are so ugly and unnecessary for your average driver.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not to mention that they require no additional driver training.
You can pass your test in a Ford Ka, then hop in a 2 tonne range rover the next day.

[–] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've never even considered that, but it is wild. Like those grandmothers who have spent 60 years driving tiny little cars and then one day their family gets them a fucking tank to drive around in and they suddenly start putting everyone's lives at risk because they have zero experience behind the wheel of a vehicle that's at least double the size of what they drove their entire life beforehand.

[–] Rambler@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good point. Let's make every new passer drive an old banger for a year - I'm absolutely fed up of monkey-lipped young girls forcing me to my side of the road because they can't fucking negotiate the width of their fucking tractors!

Sorry for the rant, but I drive a classic - and it fucking riles me - every day ! I used to enjoy driving - now it's a daily nightmare.

[–] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What does monkey-lipped mean, I've literally never heard that phrase?

[–] Rambler@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm just having a pick at the fashion of overly botoxed lips.

[–] Qxzkjp@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What you're describing is actually collagen filler, not botox. If you botoxed your lips you'd end up with a serious speech impediment for a few months. Back in the day we used to call it the "Leslie Ash special", after a celeb who had a particularly disasterous one done.

[–] Rambler@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Never heard of that special. Thanks for the correction though.

[–] Flax_Vert@mastodonapp.uk 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@GreatAlbatross @DeathWearsANecktie to be fair you cannot drive on a motorway until you pass and then once you pass you can go straight onto it unattended.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can use the motorway with a an accredited driving instructor before you pass.

The motorway can be an odd one too: The speeds are higher, but they can be one of the safest ways to drive.

Afaik, the reason motorways don't feature on the test, is that some test centres are 50 miles or more away from one

[–] Flax_Vert@mastodonapp.uk 2 points 10 months ago

@GreatAlbatross Apparently you can in England, whoops

[–] MDZA@feddit.uk 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And because they’re heavier, there’ll be more wear and tear on the roads too.

[–] Fedop@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh man this one is so big for maintenance costs, the damage is exponential! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

[–] Pipoca@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Which mostly means it doesn't matter. Car vs electric truck is basically a rounding error compared to either a lorry or the regular freeze-thaw cycle.

[–] Pasta4u@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What do u think a electric car eith its huge batteries would do ?

Telsa model 3 is 3000 pounds

Chevy equinox is 3300

Chevy traverse is 4300

Tesla model Y 4400

Tesla model x 5200

Chevy suburban is 5700

[–] Vegoon@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And the Rivian R1T is 6949 pounds.

But there is the dacia spring with 2304 pound.

EV does not automatically have to result in huge heavy cars.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Top speed of 125kph, 0-100kph in 19 seconds... Sure, city cars don't need to be as heavy but then why need a car at all?

[–] Vegoon@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Everyone in the city needs their own car" was not the argument I made, just as your comment did not mean to say that everyone who does not live in the city needs a 3.5 ton truck.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They don't, but an EV that's usable in the highway weights as much as a truck. If you want to compare the Spring to other types of vehicles you need to compare its weight to cars in the same category and then you realise that it's heavier than the equivalent gas car...

[–] Vegoon@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have seen Spring and Renault Zoe on highways, in Germany none the less. If your argument is you need big fast cars for highways I don't see it that way.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Sure, I've seen a 2CV on the highway, it's not what it's meant for and it's not safe for the person driving it. The Spring at 110kph has a range of 145km in good weather...

And again, you're not comparing the car to an equivalent gas model, you're just trying to prove that EV cars can be light by using the smallest model you can find and in this case, as I already mentioned, the equivalent gas car is still lighter so the EV still wear the roads more than the gas equivalent, which was the original point.

[–] Vegoon@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because I don't want the equivalent models. Never wanted them. They are absurd.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Then I don't know why you felt the need to add your opinion to the discussion because if the gas equivalent is absurd then so is the EV version.

[–] MDZA@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s a good point about the weight of EVs. I suppose it’s a question of whether the benefit of EVs are worth the extra wear on the roads.

When comparing ICE cars though, it’s a pretty clear cut argument that SUVs are worse for everyone except the occupants.

[–] Pasta4u@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Suv's are not always worse.

Equinox 26/31 Corvette is 16/25.

Equinox can fit five adults plus room for luggage or other items in jt.

He'll the Chevy malibu is 27/35 amd is a Sedan. I rather the equinox

[–] paintbucketholder@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's also such a race to outsize other vehicles.

I know SUV drivers who bought an SUV because "everyone owns an SUV, and if you're driving around in a smaller car, you can't see anything around you any more." They're not even wrong, in some communities it's getting really hard to participate in traffic of you're constantly surrounded by much larger, taller cars on all sides.

But of course, they're now just perpetuating the problem.

[–] epicbomber@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

One thing I noticed the other day while going through a new drive through is that the increase in vehicle size is noticable there. I drive a sedan, and most of the drive through windows near me are level with my car's window, but the one that I went through the other day was built in the last year or so, and the window was significantly higher up than my car's.

[–] hellothere@sh.itjust.works 44 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Yet another example of the incredibly stupid decisions George Osborne took when equalising VED/Road tax in year 2 onwards.

It used to be that the higher emissions you made the more you paid every year, and while it was never enough, having a single rate of 180 quid for all petrol / diesel cars regardless of size/efficiency was clearly the wrong policy at the time, and this just shows it.

[–] mannycalavera@feddit.uk 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Monumentally stupid, but we've come to expect that from the Tories over 13 years. Glad to see Labour will reverse this decision on day 1 and bring back the policy of higher emitting vehicles pay more taxes.

[–] OhNoMoreLemmy@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Stand by for the Tories to start claiming that labour is regressively taxing the poor who can't afford to upgrade their SUVs to electric.

[–] OrgunDonor@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Bit late on that, they are already doing it. Claiming that Labour are "anti-motorist" with ULEZ expansion, LTNs the 20mph limit in wales and also delaying the ban on petrol/diesel cars.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 8 points 1 year ago

The US did something similarly stupid. We based our fuel economy standards on the size of the car, and enforced high percentage reductions on smaller cars than larger. A small truck might need a 30% improvement in economy over previous models, while a larger truck can get away with a 20% improvement.

So manufacturers stopped making smaller cars.

Average economy is worse now than 30 years ago, because CAFE standards incentivized much larger vehicles.

[–] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 44 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Shocker. Did anyone really think quadrupling the size of vehicles wouldn't increase how harmful they are to the environment?

[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 8 points 1 year ago

Seems to increase the size of people's egos too.

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[–] riodoro1@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Image: fiat 500 from 1960’s Article: cars from 2013

[–] Zeth0s@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But 500 from the 60s is super cool!!

[–] riodoro1@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Definetely way cooler than dumb SUVs

[–] aluminium@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Also in the news. Putting your hands into fire does do the ouchie ouchie.

[–] Treczoks@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

For that, you don't need a "study". You just have to look at the technical data that is available on those cars.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The study by the climate campaign group Possible said there was a strong correlation between income and owning a large SUV, which meant there was a sound argument for “polluter pays” taxes for vehicle emissions based on size.

While they are billed as vehicles that cover rough ground or tow heavy loads, previous research has shown that three-quarters of SUVs bought new in the UK are registered to people living in urban areas.

Recent debate over London’s expanded ultra-low emission zone has focused on concerns that cars that emit more NOx are almost always older, and disproportionately used by less wealthy people.

In contrast, the report argued, high greenhouse emissions have often been a product of richer people buying huge SUVs – at a price that showed they could afford an electric car.

Lambeth, in south London, charges owners of the heaviest, most high-emission vehicles, more than four times as much for an annual parking permit than for the smallest cars.

This year, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said that, globally, SUVs produced emissions equivalent to the combined national totals of the UK and Germany.


The original article contains 615 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 70%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] Nytherio@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago
[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If looking at carbon emissions only... Well, no shit? No need for a study to know that, it's purely based on fuel economy. Look at other types of emissions though and a 2023 SUV with a brand new catalytic converter will be much better than a 10 years old car.

[–] paintbucketholder@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How so? Cars have to pass emissions tests, and ten year old cars have to pass them, too.

Also: what significant improvements in filtering out "other types of emissions" have there been made in consumer vehicles in the last 10 years, and what "other types of emissions" are those?

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards

A 10 years old car would fall under Euro 5b standards instead of Euro 6d, there's also a level of tolerance when a car gets tested so it might have beat the standard by a good margin when it was new, it still passes the test 10 years later because it's still under what's allowed but not as good as it was when new.

CO2 emissions don't get filtered by the anti emissions equipment, they're the by-product of combining the CO emissions with unburnt hydrocarbons, it's 100% based on how much fuel is burned by the vehicle and that's it. Anti pollution systems do reduce NOx emissions by splitting it and Euro 6 tolerates less than half the NOx emissions that Euro 5 does while also reducing the tolerance for HC+NOx (talking about diesel here, since the standards were the same Euro 5 to Euro 6 for petrol vehicles).

Euro 6 also introduced particle emissions for petrol cars, which only existed for diesel vehicles under Euro 5. Euro 7 is coming in 2025 and will add NH3 and brake pads particles into the mix.

[–] Destraight@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

My celica will beat your SUV MPG any day

[–] Teppichbrand@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I just learned about the Tyre Extinguishers. They use lentils to depress the pin on the valve cap of an SUV's tyre, so that the tyre deflates without getting damaged. It's super effective and it's probably not a crime. They are called the Tyre Extinguishers.

[–] Auzy@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I own a jeep Unlimited.. And, I don't get why people give a crap about whether they are using petrol. I'd happily switch to a battery 4wd if one was released which was affordable and had sufficient battery. Maybe something like an electric Jimny would be awesome

The only real reason I have a 4wd is because I do a lot of hiking in my free time (and I got this cheap as it was 10 years old). If I wasn't hiking though, I'd move back to my Toyota Echo Hatchback. That thing was SO easy to park, cheap to drive, and so reliable and safe.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 5 points 1 year ago

Why we walking that you requiring a Jeep to get around? Pretty much everywhere has car parks. Even in the Scottish Highlands.

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