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SUVs and off-road vehicles are now ca. 30% of new sales in Germany. The Greens have asked the Government to explain this. The Transport Ministry's response puts the blame firmly on consumers who "need more space to transport pets, tools and disabled relatives" (thread) https://twitter.com/JensHilgenberg/status/1295651072346853376
This is what we have called the "cargo function of the car" and it's a real factor explaining car use over short (and long) distances. (see our research at http://www.demand.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/DEMAND-insight-3-RI3-cargo-final.pdf & https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2016.04.010).
BUT does that explain increasing SUV uptake? I'm not so sure...
BUT does that explain increasing SUV uptake? I'm not so sure...
First of all, are SUVs really more spacious than other large cars? I haven't seen any strong evidence of that https://twitter.com/Rhodos/status/1295996979135361025
Also, good (empirical) questions here 
. It's a shame there is next to no research on SUVs and who buys them https://twitter.com/anunezjimenez/status/1296008212337037312
. It's a shame there is next to no research on SUVs and who buys them https://twitter.com/anunezjimenez/status/1296008212337037312
What I think might happening though, is that customers looking for spacious cars find it increasingly difficult to buy a non-SUV vehicle (e.g. sedans, etc.), as these are progressively withdrawn from the market.
See discussion in the thread below https://twitter.com/iwengraf/status/983433720127516672
See discussion in the thread below https://twitter.com/iwengraf/status/983433720127516672
So why are alternatives to SUVs harder to buy these days? Well we know car manufacturers make higher profit margins with SUVs... https://twitter.com/giulio_mattioli/status/1277711421049122816
Also, apparently estates/station wagons are just not that much of a thing outside of Europe . And we know that economies of scale is a key driver of what the automotive industry does https://twitter.com/ckazok/status/1296008822377648130
. And we know that economies of scale is a key driver of what the automotive industry does https://twitter.com/ckazok/status/1296008822377648130
[see our explainer of what drives the automotive industry in this paper https://twitter.com/giulio_mattioli/status/1252336553633988608]
More broadly, the German Transport Ministry blaming customer choices for the SUV boom fits into what we have called the "individualism" variant of discourses of #ClimateDelay @DscrsClmtDelay https://twitter.com/giulio_mattioli/status/1278785967114129415
...and as such it's an argument that is typically used by the automotive industry https://twitter.com/andreasgraf/status/1221866580818255874
