dutchie01

John, with all respect and i do support your position but doesnt the CT you drive has a battery as well?

When talking about SUV s the discussion is mainly about the size, the weight and maybe the intimidating presence. Well, lets not forget normal cars that through the years have grown considerably in size as well. I came up to a trafficlight the other day and next to me was a classic Mercedes S class from the seventies/eighties. I was shocked by how small it was and remember, this was propably one of the biggest cars on the market in its days! Ever compared a corsa from 1990 to the current one? Or a peugeot 206 from 30 yrs ago to todays equivalent? Not comparable at all. One explanation is safetyregulation that makes cars grow in size but another factor is that people just want bigger cars. More practical and safer feeling. I would even go as for in saying that if the original Vauxhall Corsa would be on offer it would simply be ignored. Requirements have moved on.

Is driving a big thirsty SUV ethical ?

walking a thin line here. new cardesign takes 3 to 4 years and tooling designing ramping up a car plant another 2 to3. Investment can be horrific thus a mistake killing. Cardesign nowadays is incredibly complicated and before signed off on all levels a solid businesscase needs to be proven.

At least you have selfknowledge Linas ( but it makes no sense what you say really..) Many moons ago a designer once told me the tragic of a true sports car is that it is a young mans car but they cant afford it. When they have money the autumn of life has come and the buy one but no longer have the abilities to drive them as intended.

Malc, really?? Do Lexus UK charge 190 an hour?? I can have heart surgery for that amount!

One day you will be able to answer this question Linas

The bottom line is this. People but SUV/crossovers because they want one. Full stop. Please note that the average age of a car buyer is 55 yrs old. Then the absolute majority does not care about weight distribution, chassisbalance, brake performance they dont even know if their car is FWD or RWD ( BWM did investigate this amongst 1 series owners and they had no clue). Customers are looking for practicality and reliability. ANY crossover/suv is more practical than their lower siblings. Young parents like them because its easy to put the children in and out, Women like them because of a feeling of safety, men because of a sense of masculinity, the elder generation like me because of easy entry/exit ( if you dispute this you are likely of a younger generation just wait until time passes by!). They are perfect for shoppingtrips as well as schoolruns so yes i fully understand the preference of most. Do i have one? no i did have one but did not like the drivingposition a bit van like, and i experienced a bad accident with the car toppling over at the highway, something they easily do due to the high center of gravity. They are more expensive but also more expensive to build. Remember, weight has its toll. Different brakes, roll bars, crumplezones, different grades of more expensive steel in critical areas etc. Most crossovers run on thesame engines as their lower friends ( A3 - Q3 etc) but the big SUV gas guzzlers are different. Diesel was the preferred choice but no longer so big engines are needed using petrol like a drunken sailor in the bar. These will disappear rapidly punished by taxation. No future. Latest trend is that crossovers are going to look like hatchbacks. Do i mind ? not at all, plenty of choice and something for all to choose. ( as long as you are not looking for a coupe hydrogen 400hp car !!)

Well, not really.. If you offer cars nobody buys you have no other option than to stop offering them. There is plenty of choice, saloons hatchbacks crossovers SUVś trucks and so on but people just prefer taller bigger heavier cars

saloons are disappearing like melting snow and car manufacturers are turning into suv/crossover companies. Just look at Lexus.. lx/gx/rx/nx/ux. soon lf1/lfz/lf-sa ( thats the yaris based one). Thats where the demand and money is

Scary but true. A Dutch motoring journalist had one of the new Chinese BEVś for a week for testing ( cant remember which one). After the test when diving into the electronic brain they found out that literally everything was recorded and stored. Including full video of the driver during the trip. The car was full of sensors and cameras including spoken word!!

Makes sense. Crossovers are selling like hot cakes and the platform and drivetrain already exists seems like an easy decision to me. The article states "tiny and small" but isnt this yaris bigger than the standard yaris and if so will it come close to the UX?

The debate between BEV and hydrogen will be going on for a while but it is purely theoretical. Whatever ones opinion or preference ( i have none ) the fact is that the automotive industry has already chosen. The train has left the station and hydrogen is toast. Over the past years car companies have been investing crazy amounts of money in developing electric cars that are now starting to arrive at the marketplace. Over the next years an avalanche of models will hit the showroom. The VAG group is investing 87 BILLION usd, Mercedes Benz 47 and BMW 30. Retooling of their plants is underway and just imaging only the consequences of weight per car up from average 1200 to 2050 kg. Massive consequences. They will want to see return on investment so for the next decade EV it will be. Sorry to spoil the party..

difficult to uphold with some 800,000 cars on the road in the UK that need electricity.

Oh dear, something tells me that battery development is only starting. https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/130380-future-batteries-coming-soon-charge-in-seconds-last-months-and-power-over-the-air https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/19/electric-car-batteries-race-ahead-with-five-minute-charging-times https://www.greenbiz.com/article/new-ev-battery-shows-big-promise https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/30/why-lithium-metal-batteries-could-replace-lithium-ion-batteries-in-evs.html https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36321196/bmw-ford-solid-state-battery-investment-announced/

I am waiting on the first car that can transport my body in minus 1 second. Bit of a gimmick to me and already the novelty seems to wear off. Current cars coming to market have accelerationtimes of around 6 secs ( incl the new Merc EQS). seems good enough for me.

A GR Yaris. Now we are talking!

Toyota and i think Kia/Hyundai have one 1) model. Should be doable if you live close to a fillingstation and only use the car for short trips so only using that station? VHS/Betamax story maybe but in the near future i do not see a role for hydrogen other than experimental use.

If only it was that simple Malc. Car manufacturers are not producing BEVś out of free choice they are forced into this by government regulations. The upcoming Euro 7 standard will even be more strict and is likley to be implemented in 2025 thats in 4 years time. It basically means that developing an engine meeting those criteria will be so expensive and complicated it will not make its way into the showrooms. Currently the only way forward seems to be electricity whatever you and me might think if that. Improving existing vehicles to even Euro 5 is technically or economically not possible.

Late to the party but an interesting thread. Surprised to see the discussion narrowing about home charging which in my opinion is somewhat of a non topic. Th current EV market is 100% driven by company car sales. EV s are still expensive and we are only looking at the first/second generation depending on make. The development of batteries and charging is spinning ever faster and cars out now will be outdated in 2/3 yrs. Example Etron next update with new batterypack and faster charging. Audi Management stating that production of BEV cars will be more profitable than fossil cars in 3 to 4 years so expect at that time BEVś to enter the cheaper segments which are now covered by some chinese and dacia with small batteries. Like it or not EV is here to stay. I am living in the Netherlands and my new companycar will be fully electric. The charging network is extensive enough to do so. High speed chargers 175kw at every highway petrolstation and for instance Shell installing them at EVERY petrolstation in the country. On top of that a wide range of chargingstations available from at least 4 other companies and yes i can also charge at home. But do i need to? Its not about range but about chargingtimes. Suppose i drive 400 km a week which equals a full e-load. Why would i need to charge at home? 20 mins at a charging station ( or 2 times 10mins) will do the job and i can go on for a week. More powerful batteries, shorter charging times and more chargingstations will secure that home charging will not be needed.

https://www.volvogroup.com/en/about-us/traffic-safety/safety-vision.html VOLVO has a vision zero as well.

Allo, Allo!

Exactly that! If it makes sense everybody will understand and most likely will obey. In the old days driving on the German autobahn there was always an explanation below a max speed sign. Like - dangerzone x fatalities last 12 months- and so on. Makes sense. Or in Denmark driving from village to village on b roads before entering a schoolzone with max 30kmh there is a radar connected to a trafficlight. Too fast means red light and there is a camera connected so drive through red pic taken!. all this is down to safety nothing else. Alas nowadays it is Co2 legislation and collecting money for the treasury that dictates speed limits and not safety and this will only get worse