Copyright 2001 The Denver Post Corporation The Denver
Post
August 2, 2001 Thursday 2D EDITION
SECTION: DENVER & THE WEST; Pg. B-01
LENGTH: 546 words
HEADLINE:
Better SUVs, if we'll pressure
BYLINE: By Diane
Carman,
BODY: At Automotive Search
Inc. in Denver, the customers all ask pretty much the same questions
when they shop for an SUV.
How big is it? Is it big
enough? Is it too big?
Bill Burgert, account executive
for the broker of new and used vehicles, said the most important
thing to sport-ute buyers is 'to make sure the size will suit their
needs.'
Some want the biggest SUV they can find that
will still fit in their garage. Others want the smallest thing they
can get and still call it an SUV.
Size
matters.
And given that there's everything from a puny
RAV4 to a 7,000-pound Excursion on the market, that makes sense.
So the sales staff is used to responding to this query.
Questions about fuel economy, on the other hand, are not
high on the list.
So I wondered, is it like
dinner at The Palm? If you have to ask, you can't afford it?
'Actually, when it comes to fuel economy, all sport
utilities are about the same,' Burgert said, 'so there's not much
point in asking about it.
'I mean, it's not
like you can choose between two SUVs of the same size and one gets 12
mpg while the other gets 30.'
They all get between 13
and 20 mpg, he said, depending, of course, on size.
And nearly everyone outside of oil industry
stockholders agrees this is not a good thing.
Think about it. The less-efficient SUVs, which are
not required to meet the same emissions standards as cars,
produce about 240 million tons a year of air pollution.
And even if you're pro-global warming, it's a lousy
deal because SUV drivers spend 42 percent more on fuel than the
average automobile driver.
So here in
Colorado, where one in seven drives an SUV and most of us still claim
to be fiscally conservative environmentalists, this week's report
from the National Academy of Sciences should be good news.
The NAS said gas mileage for SUVs could be increased by
35 percent using existing technologies.
In
other words, we could tool around in burly four-wheel-drive comfort
and still get 17.5 to 27 mpg.
And the NAS engineers are
the conservatives in this debate.
In June, the Union of
Concerned Scientists said technologies exist that could produce SUVs
that get more than 50 miles a gallon.
And
Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety,
said they would be as safe or safer than the gas-guzzling lunkers
currently out there.
'Design, not weight, is the key to
building a safe vehicle,' he said.
As with
everything from condoms to space stations, it's all in the
details.
The UCS says the use of variable-valve
engines, high-strength steel and aluminum, low-resistance tires and
continuously variable transmissions are just a few of the design
changes that can reduce fuel consumption while maintaining safety
standards.
In addition, the scientists say
hybrid engines and space-age fuel cells are advancing rapidly
and could produce further improvements in fuel efficiency.
All we have to do is ask.
Well,
that and persuade Congress to require automakers to build a better
SUV.
Instead of just making them bigger.
Diane Carman's commentaries appear here Tuesday,
Thursday and Sunday.
Document 494 of 739. 