5 ms·

This is something I really strongly agree with. There is no justifiable reason why we should be buying vehicles that are so much bigger than in previous years.

This is something I really strongly agree with. There is no justifiable reason why we should be buying vehicles that are so much bigger than in previous years. Pedestrian fatalities are up big time in the U.S., and it’s largely thought that the reason is bigger cars with more lethal designs. Bigger cars also require more parking space and a larger amount of fuel/electricity. Smaller vehicles are a win all around. In the rare occasion where people need a large vehicle, we should aim to find ways to encourage them to rent one temporarily, rather than haul a huge vehicle around for the 99% of trips that don’t require one.

Towaway69 3y ago
Would you agree with making "heavier" people paying more for flights? It is interesting that discrimination is OK when based on "things" but not when applied to humans. After all "heavier" humans also use more resources just as "heavier" cars do.
- simonw 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
  - Towaway69 3y ago
    So drawing parallels is no longer allowed? Is lateral thinking also banned? Or do heavier people not use more resources then skinnier humans? What's wrong with drawing a parallel to cars?
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > do heavier people not use more resources then skinnier humans? You’re arguing as if charging heavy people more to fly isn’t a thing. It is. And I don’t think that’s abhorrent nor even unfair.
      - Towaway69 3y ago
        I didn't know, I didn't know it was a thing. And yes, it's very murky as you say. There is a difference between genetic and chosen unfortunately the difference isn't obvious from just the optics.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > difference between genetic and chosen unfortunately the difference isn't obvious from just the optics Okay, so let's get back to the actual topic. Help me understand how buying an SUV is fundamentally—beyond optics—similar to being genetically predisposed to obesity.
        Towaway69 3y ago
        If you have a large family and use this SUV as a transporter for your children or if use this SUV as a status symbol, an outsider cannot differentiate between these two use-cases. The genetics, in this case, is money: is the owner wanting to protect their family, has taken on debt to purchase this SUV just because they wish to have a "safer" car for their family. Or is the owner on their fourth SUV and it's just-another-car purchase. One owner is struggling, the other was born with a silver spoon. Not everyone is born to be able purchase an SUV, being born with or without money can influence peoples life, just as their genetics. Both are random attributes that are assigned upon birth.
- maxglute 3y ago
  Aren't some US carriers charging plus-size people 2 seats if they don't fit now? I think it's banned in Canada. But waist and weight limit seems reasonable without some sort of medical exemption.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    It seems reasonable to me that to occupy two seats costs the fare of two seats. If I want to eat two pizzas, I have to pay for two pizzas, regardless of medical condition… If I want two gallons of gas instead of one… If I want two months of Netflix instead of one… It’s unclear why people expect that some should consume two seats and pay for only one…
  - kcplate 3y ago
    Some do. About 15 years ago I was doing a regular weekly commute and due to my size at the time, Southwest would ask me to purchase two seats. If the flight was not full they would refund one ticket. Since Southwest uses first come first serve seating, you would get preboard status and a little card to place in the second seat. I was ok with that accommodation, it seemed reasonable and with a little research into the flights and how often they were truly full it was rare that i didn’t get a refund.
- ponector 3y ago
  Humans are discriminated all the time: by passport, by place of birth, by sex, by wealth, etc. Maybe some airlines will come eventually with new fare where total weight with all clothes and luggage would be billed with different tiers, let's say 5: <20, 20-50, 50-100, 100-150, 150+ kg.
  - Towaway69 3y ago
    Probably the only thing stopping them are privacy concerns. On the other hand, for frequent flyers it could be a great thrill to be told that they had lost weight since their last flight.
- kehrin 3y ago
  Maybe. Many countries in the EU already place heavy taxes on engine displacement, so a curb weight tax or vehicle size tax wouldn't be something entirely new.
riffraff 3y ago
Don't forget bigger cars also produce more abrasion of the asphalt and of the tires. I wish we could ban SUVs.
- hedora 3y ago
  As much as I liked my old volvo station wagon, it’d be illegal to put two adults and two kids in it for safety reasons (no room for modern car seats). I hate the fact that cars have bloated out so much, but there’s a reason people end up with SUVs (they’re smaller than minivans, at least)
constantly 3y ago
I was getting coffee this morning and walked by a parked truck of some new model of Chevrolet. I was aghast at the front end. It was (guessing) four or five vertical feet of chrome. And then the hood above that. Basically a pedestrian death sentence as far as I can tell. These things don’t need to be on the roads with regular traffic.
- epistasis 3y ago
  I think there should be a requirement for a CDL instead of a regular license if you can't see over your hood and know if you're going to run over a child. But that said, it's not even really a commercial requirement. We have safety guidelines for humans inside cars, but no safety guidelines to protect people who are struck by cars. Both commercial and emotional companion vehicles like those with 5 foot grill heights should be forced to be designed for safety in collisions. Otherwise the vehicle doesn't belong among normal traffic.
lettergram 3y ago
[flagged]
- ponector 3y ago
  Your link says there is 65% increase in pedestrian deaths in last 10 years. This doesn't look static for me.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    I think there should be an internet timeout for people who derisively post links "correcting" others, only to share a link that contradict their own false points. There's no excuse for that sort of behavior.
simonsarris 3y ago
> There is no justifiable reason why we should be buying vehicles that are so much bigger than in previous years. Regulations (at least in the US) around car seats have made it more difficult to have three children without buying a larger car. I dislike huge cars (I actually love tiny cars like the Nissan Figaro) but I may have to get one.
- ex3ndr 3y ago
  Agree, it is bizzare how all this discussions completely ignore the children and families that have to get decent sized car.
  - adamisom 3y ago
    Parents with 3-4+ kids can’t get a “decent sized” car. (And, I’d point out that given how % childlessness has skyrocketed, we do need some larger families to balance them out.)
    - hedora 3y ago
      Our truck seats five adults, but only two kids plus two adults. Our old truck seated 5 adults, but no more than two adults and one car seat. Instead of just requiring latch anchors, they should mandate that using all the latch anchors doesn’t reduce the max number of passengers. Also, I wonder if they could eliminate booster seat requirements by mandating seatbelts that can be adjusted for short people. As it is, we can’t take public transit, since the last few miles of most trips involves an illegal ride for the kiddos in an uber (so we have the kids walk those miles instead, which gets old fast).
      - cameldrv 3y ago
        If you get narrow car seats you can get three across in the back in almost any car. You don’t have to use the latch anchors. The seatbelts work fine. Uber is a problem with really little kids, but you can get portable and even inflatable car seats and boosters that aren’t too bad to carry around.
belter 3y ago
[flagged]
- belter 3y ago
  Instead of hiding behind your downvotes, you could come and argue logically, on the planetary impact of 300 or 400 less SUVs on downtown London or Paris...
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > you could come and argue logically, on the planetary impact of 300 or 400 less SUVs on downtown London or Paris New Yorker here. They’re loud and take up more space and navigate our tight corners awkwardly when driven by nonprofessional drivers. I broadly believe in abolishing street side parking, and making in-city parking more expensive. I drive a car in the suburbs, and feel that when I take a rideshare downtown it should be expensive. > hiding behind your downvotes Don't do this [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - belter 3y ago
      I am arguing on the pollution argument. - SUVs constitute only a fraction of the total vehicles on the road. Even if pollution taxes successfully deter some SUV drivers, the overall impact on city-wide emissions is marginal - Imposing higher taxes on SUVs in downtown areas will shift the problem rather than solve it. Drivers will choose to drive around these areas, increasing emissions by driving longer distances. - Less SUVs means more space for smaller cars. At the end 3 cars will make the same pollution as an older SUV. The modern ones are frequently hybrid. Another focus on symbolic actions rather than tackling the larger issues of urban pollution...
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > SUVs constitute only a fraction of the total vehicles on the road They also constitute a disproportionate fraction of the damage [1]. > Imposing higher taxes on SUVs in downtown areas will shift the problem rather than solve it It also deters their purchase. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37297647/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37297647/
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Pedestrian fatalities are up big time in the U.S., and it’s largely thought that the reason is bigger cars with more lethal designs Almost all of the difference since 2009 in likely attributable to smartphones [1]. (Almost all of the increase in deaths occur around sunset.) [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/11/upshot/nighttime-deaths.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/11/upshot/nightt...
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  I think you're equating the likely cause of the crash with the severity of it. If I'm going to be hit by a car whose driver is distracted by their phone, I'd prefer to be hit by a smaller rather than a larger vehicle.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > If I'm going to be hit by a car whose driver is distracted by their phone, I'd prefer to be hit by a smaller rather than a larger vehicle Sure. Big cars are a safety problem. I'm just challenging the claim that "it’s largely thought that the reason...pedestrian fatalities are up big time in the U.S....is bigger cars."
  - kcplate 3y ago
    I really do not understand this perspective. You are just as dead past a certain speed no matter what the vehicle size is and the difference in speed between a large vehicle’s ability to kill you and a smaller vehicle’s ability to kill you is not that great.
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      You don't understand the mindset of preferring better survival odds where possible? OK, I guess.
      - kcplate 3y ago
        If you as a pedestrian is in a place where a vehicle can strike you traveling at a speed fast enough to kill you, the size of the vehicle isn’t the problem to fix, the problem that needs fixed is finding a way to decrease the opportunity for the two of you to come together. So no, I don’t understand the mindset of why someone would focus on and propose radical solutions that apply to a very narrow window of opportunity as opposed to proposing not so radical solutions that apply to a wide area of opportunity.
renewiltord 3y ago
Well, there is a justifiable reason. Red Queen. As this HN user put it[0](eloquently, I thought): > Yield to gross tonnage. I think it's a great slogan. I was thinking of getting a bumper sticker like that but forgot about it. Everyone driving small cars must understand: cemeteries are full of people with the right of way, yield to gross tonnage. Specifically, my gross tonnage. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38268232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38268232
- scythe 3y ago
  Go directly to jail.
- chewz 3y ago
  Most women agree with you and feel safer in a SUV…
HonestOp001 3y ago
The cause is distracted driving with cell phones and pedestrians becoming more emboldened in complete street designed areas.
leotravis10 3y ago
Yep, as this discussion from a month ago resonates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38267588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38267588
kcplate 3y ago
> Pedestrian fatalities are up big timein the U.S. The problem with this statistic is it might have teeth viewed in isolation, but loses its impact if you broaden the statistics to account for who and how many are dying in vehicle related fatalities. If larger modern vehicles provide greater safety to the passengers within, and if passengers are more likely to die by vehicle accidents than pedestrians, a small move of the needle in vehicle passenger safety due to larger vehicles might cause significant improvement number of total vehicle related fatalities despite pedestrian deaths increasing.
- alamortsubite 3y ago
  Heavier vehicles are deadlier to occupants of other vehicles, as well.
- 16bytes 3y ago
  This is a hypothetical scenario. Larger cars impose more risk to both pedestrians and smaller cars. Even if it was an overall reduction, as the IIHS puts it, "The models that rank among the best and worst performers on both lists point to the unfortunate fact that vehicle cost remains a factor in road safety".[1] Optimizing public safety in this way may--even if it were true--leads to deeply inequitable safety. Large cars are safer for richer people while disproportionately affecting poorer people and children. [1] https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/latest-driver-death-rates-highlight-dangers-of-muscle-cars https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/latest-driver-death-rates-h...
  - kcplate 3y ago
    I doubt that this is a rich vs poor situation or some sort of societal inequity. Where I live there is virtually no apparent difference between the size of the vehicles driven by folks at the various income levels. It’s not even a new vs old. I see plenty of newer SUVs and trucks in lower income areas. Overall vehicle related fatalities are decreasing even if pedestrian fatalities are increasing. Perhaps the solution to the pedestrian fatality increase isn’t due to the vehicle, it’s due to the opportunity for the two to come together.
GonzagueGB 3y ago
First EU SUVs are smaller than US ones (night and day). 2nd, the problem is not really the size of the car but engine does it un on. A Rivian, while being a huge SUV is still more eco friendly than my smaller Discovery 5 diesel…

Towaway69 3y ago

Would you agree with making "heavier" people paying more for flights? It is interesting that discrimination is OK when based on "things" but not when applied to humans. After all "heavier" humans also use more resources just as "heavier" cars do.

simonw 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- Towaway69 3y ago
  So drawing parallels is no longer allowed? Is lateral thinking also banned? Or do heavier people not use more resources then skinnier humans? What's wrong with drawing a parallel to cars?
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > do heavier people not use more resources then skinnier humans? You’re arguing as if charging heavy people more to fly isn’t a thing. It is. And I don’t think that’s abhorrent nor even unfair.
    - Towaway69 3y ago
      I didn't know, I didn't know it was a thing. And yes, it's very murky as you say. There is a difference between genetic and chosen unfortunately the difference isn't obvious from just the optics.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > difference between genetic and chosen unfortunately the difference isn't obvious from just the optics Okay, so let's get back to the actual topic. Help me understand how buying an SUV is fundamentally—beyond optics—similar to being genetically predisposed to obesity.
        Towaway69 3y ago
        If you have a large family and use this SUV as a transporter for your children or if use this SUV as a status symbol, an outsider cannot differentiate between these two use-cases. The genetics, in this case, is money: is the owner wanting to protect their family, has taken on debt to purchase this SUV just because they wish to have a "safer" car for their family. Or is the owner on their fourth SUV and it's just-another-car purchase. One owner is struggling, the other was born with a silver spoon. Not everyone is born to be able purchase an SUV, being born with or without money can influence peoples life, just as their genetics. Both are random attributes that are assigned upon birth.
maxglute 3y ago
Aren't some US carriers charging plus-size people 2 seats if they don't fit now? I think it's banned in Canada. But waist and weight limit seems reasonable without some sort of medical exemption.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  It seems reasonable to me that to occupy two seats costs the fare of two seats. If I want to eat two pizzas, I have to pay for two pizzas, regardless of medical condition… If I want two gallons of gas instead of one… If I want two months of Netflix instead of one… It’s unclear why people expect that some should consume two seats and pay for only one…
- kcplate 3y ago
  Some do. About 15 years ago I was doing a regular weekly commute and due to my size at the time, Southwest would ask me to purchase two seats. If the flight was not full they would refund one ticket. Since Southwest uses first come first serve seating, you would get preboard status and a little card to place in the second seat. I was ok with that accommodation, it seemed reasonable and with a little research into the flights and how often they were truly full it was rare that i didn’t get a refund.
ponector 3y ago
Humans are discriminated all the time: by passport, by place of birth, by sex, by wealth, etc. Maybe some airlines will come eventually with new fare where total weight with all clothes and luggage would be billed with different tiers, let's say 5: <20, 20-50, 50-100, 100-150, 150+ kg.
- Towaway69 3y ago
  Probably the only thing stopping them are privacy concerns. On the other hand, for frequent flyers it could be a great thrill to be told that they had lost weight since their last flight.
kehrin 3y ago
Maybe. Many countries in the EU already place heavy taxes on engine displacement, so a curb weight tax or vehicle size tax wouldn't be something entirely new.

riffraff 3y ago

Don't forget bigger cars also produce more abrasion of the asphalt and of the tires. I wish we could ban SUVs.

hedora 3y ago
As much as I liked my old volvo station wagon, it’d be illegal to put two adults and two kids in it for safety reasons (no room for modern car seats). I hate the fact that cars have bloated out so much, but there’s a reason people end up with SUVs (they’re smaller than minivans, at least)

constantly 3y ago

I was getting coffee this morning and walked by a parked truck of some new model of Chevrolet. I was aghast at the front end. It was (guessing) four or five vertical feet of chrome. And then the hood above that. Basically a pedestrian death sentence as far as I can tell. These things don’t need to be on the roads with regular traffic.

epistasis 3y ago
I think there should be a requirement for a CDL instead of a regular license if you can't see over your hood and know if you're going to run over a child. But that said, it's not even really a commercial requirement. We have safety guidelines for humans inside cars, but no safety guidelines to protect people who are struck by cars. Both commercial and emotional companion vehicles like those with 5 foot grill heights should be forced to be designed for safety in collisions. Otherwise the vehicle doesn't belong among normal traffic.

lettergram 3y ago

[flagged]

ponector 3y ago
Your link says there is 65% increase in pedestrian deaths in last 10 years. This doesn't look static for me.
- epistasis 3y ago
  I think there should be an internet timeout for people who derisively post links "correcting" others, only to share a link that contradict their own false points. There's no excuse for that sort of behavior.

simonsarris 3y ago

> There is no justifiable reason why we should be buying vehicles that are so much bigger than in previous years. Regulations (at least in the US) around car seats have made it more difficult to have three children without buying a larger car. I dislike huge cars (I actually love tiny cars like the Nissan Figaro) but I may have to get one.

ex3ndr 3y ago
Agree, it is bizzare how all this discussions completely ignore the children and families that have to get decent sized car.
- adamisom 3y ago
  Parents with 3-4+ kids can’t get a “decent sized” car. (And, I’d point out that given how % childlessness has skyrocketed, we do need some larger families to balance them out.)
  - hedora 3y ago
    Our truck seats five adults, but only two kids plus two adults. Our old truck seated 5 adults, but no more than two adults and one car seat. Instead of just requiring latch anchors, they should mandate that using all the latch anchors doesn’t reduce the max number of passengers. Also, I wonder if they could eliminate booster seat requirements by mandating seatbelts that can be adjusted for short people. As it is, we can’t take public transit, since the last few miles of most trips involves an illegal ride for the kiddos in an uber (so we have the kids walk those miles instead, which gets old fast).
    - cameldrv 3y ago
      If you get narrow car seats you can get three across in the back in almost any car. You don’t have to use the latch anchors. The seatbelts work fine. Uber is a problem with really little kids, but you can get portable and even inflatable car seats and boosters that aren’t too bad to carry around.

belter 3y ago

[flagged]

belter 3y ago
Instead of hiding behind your downvotes, you could come and argue logically, on the planetary impact of 300 or 400 less SUVs on downtown London or Paris...
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > you could come and argue logically, on the planetary impact of 300 or 400 less SUVs on downtown London or Paris New Yorker here. They’re loud and take up more space and navigate our tight corners awkwardly when driven by nonprofessional drivers. I broadly believe in abolishing street side parking, and making in-city parking more expensive. I drive a car in the suburbs, and feel that when I take a rideshare downtown it should be expensive. > hiding behind your downvotes Don't do this [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - belter 3y ago
    I am arguing on the pollution argument. - SUVs constitute only a fraction of the total vehicles on the road. Even if pollution taxes successfully deter some SUV drivers, the overall impact on city-wide emissions is marginal - Imposing higher taxes on SUVs in downtown areas will shift the problem rather than solve it. Drivers will choose to drive around these areas, increasing emissions by driving longer distances. - Less SUVs means more space for smaller cars. At the end 3 cars will make the same pollution as an older SUV. The modern ones are frequently hybrid. Another focus on symbolic actions rather than tackling the larger issues of urban pollution...
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > SUVs constitute only a fraction of the total vehicles on the road They also constitute a disproportionate fraction of the damage [1]. > Imposing higher taxes on SUVs in downtown areas will shift the problem rather than solve it It also deters their purchase. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37297647/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37297647/

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Pedestrian fatalities are up big time in the U.S., and it’s largely thought that the reason is bigger cars with more lethal designs Almost all of the difference since 2009 in likely attributable to smartphones [1]. (Almost all of the increase in deaths occur around sunset.) [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/11/upshot/nighttime-deaths.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/11/upshot/nightt...

anigbrowl 3y ago
I think you're equating the likely cause of the crash with the severity of it. If I'm going to be hit by a car whose driver is distracted by their phone, I'd prefer to be hit by a smaller rather than a larger vehicle.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > If I'm going to be hit by a car whose driver is distracted by their phone, I'd prefer to be hit by a smaller rather than a larger vehicle Sure. Big cars are a safety problem. I'm just challenging the claim that "it’s largely thought that the reason...pedestrian fatalities are up big time in the U.S....is bigger cars."
- kcplate 3y ago
  I really do not understand this perspective. You are just as dead past a certain speed no matter what the vehicle size is and the difference in speed between a large vehicle’s ability to kill you and a smaller vehicle’s ability to kill you is not that great.
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    You don't understand the mindset of preferring better survival odds where possible? OK, I guess.
    - kcplate 3y ago
      If you as a pedestrian is in a place where a vehicle can strike you traveling at a speed fast enough to kill you, the size of the vehicle isn’t the problem to fix, the problem that needs fixed is finding a way to decrease the opportunity for the two of you to come together. So no, I don’t understand the mindset of why someone would focus on and propose radical solutions that apply to a very narrow window of opportunity as opposed to proposing not so radical solutions that apply to a wide area of opportunity.

renewiltord 3y ago

Well, there is a justifiable reason. Red Queen. As this HN user put it[0](eloquently, I thought): > Yield to gross tonnage. I think it's a great slogan. I was thinking of getting a bumper sticker like that but forgot about it. Everyone driving small cars must understand: cemeteries are full of people with the right of way, yield to gross tonnage. Specifically, my gross tonnage. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38268232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38268232

scythe 3y ago
Go directly to jail.
chewz 3y ago
Most women agree with you and feel safer in a SUV…

HonestOp001 3y ago

The cause is distracted driving with cell phones and pedestrians becoming more emboldened in complete street designed areas.

leotravis10 3y ago

Yep, as this discussion from a month ago resonates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38267588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38267588

kcplate 3y ago

> Pedestrian fatalities are up big timein the U.S. The problem with this statistic is it might have teeth viewed in isolation, but loses its impact if you broaden the statistics to account for who and how many are dying in vehicle related fatalities. If larger modern vehicles provide greater safety to the passengers within, and if passengers are more likely to die by vehicle accidents than pedestrians, a small move of the needle in vehicle passenger safety due to larger vehicles might cause significant improvement number of total vehicle related fatalities despite pedestrian deaths increasing.

alamortsubite 3y ago
Heavier vehicles are deadlier to occupants of other vehicles, as well.
16bytes 3y ago
This is a hypothetical scenario. Larger cars impose more risk to both pedestrians and smaller cars. Even if it was an overall reduction, as the IIHS puts it, "The models that rank among the best and worst performers on both lists point to the unfortunate fact that vehicle cost remains a factor in road safety".[1] Optimizing public safety in this way may--even if it were true--leads to deeply inequitable safety. Large cars are safer for richer people while disproportionately affecting poorer people and children. [1] https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/latest-driver-death-rates-highlight-dangers-of-muscle-cars https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/latest-driver-death-rates-h...
- kcplate 3y ago
  I doubt that this is a rich vs poor situation or some sort of societal inequity. Where I live there is virtually no apparent difference between the size of the vehicles driven by folks at the various income levels. It’s not even a new vs old. I see plenty of newer SUVs and trucks in lower income areas. Overall vehicle related fatalities are decreasing even if pedestrian fatalities are increasing. Perhaps the solution to the pedestrian fatality increase isn’t due to the vehicle, it’s due to the opportunity for the two to come together.

GonzagueGB 3y ago

First EU SUVs are smaller than US ones (night and day). 2nd, the problem is not really the size of the car but engine does it un on. A Rivian, while being a huge SUV is still more eco friendly than my smaller Discovery 5 diesel…