I think the proliferation of SUVs in America is almost completely due to environmental laws. There are different fuel efficiency standards for cars and for trucks. Since the standards for trucks are so much looser, someone had the bright idea to build a car body on a truck frame. That way they only had to meet the truck standards.
Later laws were changed to recognize SUV as a separate class, but the standards are still just a gradual improvement over truck standards, and not near where car requirements are.
In substantial parts of the US, the geography and climate recommend an AWD with high ground clearance. Most modern SUVs are not built on truck frames and have fuel efficiency similar to sedans. Decades ago this market was originally met either by modifying a 4WD truck to make it passenger friendly (e.g. "true SUV" like the Ford Bronco) or a handful of low-cost Japanese cars, notably Subaru. There was a vast market gap between these two options.
Most modern SUVs don't resemble either but instead split the difference. They are essentially sedans modified to support AWD and high ground clearance. The 2WD versions are essentially a minivan without the sliding doors. A "true" SUV has 4WD and a frame built more like a truck but these are relatively rare in the SUV market.
There are still no electric cars that address the old Subaru market, so in the US we will be stuck with SUVs for quite some time.
I'm having a hard time understanding why consumers went for SUVs in this interpretation. Did they just really want to pollute more? Do regular cars have too high a gas mileage for their liking? It certainly wasn't that the SUV was able to become the cheaper option!
Skirting emissions laws only works as a complete explanation if it can account for consumer behavior.
My sense from talking to people who own them is that they chose them because they could function as a truck or as a minivan depending on what they need to do at the time, without having to own both. That's a much less exciting explanation than yours, but it does account for both consumer behavior and manufacturer behavior. Emissions laws may very well have increased manufacturer margins on these vehicles, but they're filling a real need in people's lives.
I just bought a 2024 Toyota Sequoia. It’s a “real SUV” and uses the same engine as the Toyota Tundra.
For us, we wanted a vehicle that could tow a Camper Trailer, and one that could hold my daughter’s wheelchair easily, as well as her friends. A minivan would have fulfilled the wheelchair requirement, but it’s my wife’s dream vehicle, and I really want my youngest daughter to get the same camping trip experiences despite having special needs (like water and a sterile environment to wash up and catheter her, so a camper is a necessity if we want to “camp”).
Something like the Cybertruck wasn’t even a consideration, because it can haul maybe 90 miles for a camper trailer, based on what I’ve seen in testing.
Why is that so unbelievable? There is a well documented correlation between fuel prices and the type of car consumers buy, while of course the needs stay the same - if anything, todays consumers have less use for a large car than ever.
So what are we to conclude? Yes, the majority of US car buyers will literally buy the biggest gas guzzling pollution spewer they can afford. Call it revealed preferences, although it's hardly obscured - hell, a large number of people vote on the premise that gas must be $5 forever.
> Yes, the majority of US car buyers will literally buy the biggest gas guzzling pollution spewer they can afford.
This would be a sufficient explanation if and only if SUVs were cheaper than trucks. They're not, so the rising popularity of SUVs cannot be because skirting emissions regulations allowed selling a cheaper gas guzzler.
(This is aside from the fact that is referenced by another comment further up [0] that most modern SUVs aren't actually significantly less fuel efficient than traditional vehicles.)
People bought them because the advertising promoted them. They were advertised them because it let the manufacturers meet a lower emissions standard and pay a lower cost to manufacture the vehicle. It's not a conspiracy, it's not individual choice, it's just economics and marketing.
I'm ready and willing to believe that marketing is part of the story, but I'm far from willing to believe that it's the whole story. This other commenter explains a lot of the benefits that people find from SUVs far better than I could myself:
While the loophole isn't going away completely, the tougher rules may cause some manufacturers to rethink trends and add more small cars to their lineups.
However, it's more likely that the opposite will happen. Americans love SUVs and trucks; even pandemic pricing didn't convince many shoppers to switch to a smaller car. Instead, we've seen manufacturers building even larger electric vehicles
Later laws were changed to recognize SUV as a separate class, but the standards are still just a gradual improvement over truck standards, and not near where car requirements are.