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A compact SUV is just a glorified station wagon. But at least it's smaller than the huge boxy SUVs and vans that take up more than one parking space. Hate those things and am dumbfounded at popular they are.
Except they don't get good gas mileage. These swoopy looking crossover SUVs may be slightly more aerodynamic but they still get 20-25mpg on the highway. And city driving which is how most people drive most of their miles is still very inefficient, in the teens
The 2017 CAFE standard for light trucks (SUVs are light trucks, not cars) before Trump killed it earlier this year was 29.4 MPG. The 2017 light truck fleet comes pretty close to that. Tons of compact crossovers on economy car platforms bump up the average. The CR-V is 28 city/34 highway. Rav4 is 23/30. Rogue 26/33. CX-5 is 24/31. Even a Ford F150 gets 19/26 these days.
The national mix of city driving vs highway driving is 55%/45%. There are plenty of car owners who mostly do highway miles. The more affluent the car owner, the more likely they are to log lots of highway miles.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Actually the boxy look was originally the station wagon. The early popular SUVs were based on the pickup trucks, with a cover over the bed and simple back seat added (Bronco, Blazer, Powerwagon). As more SUVs were added they became more like a lifted station wagon, such as the old Cherokees, Explorers and Suburban. Now it seems that the station wagon is going to be returning, as people grow tired of the current crop of SUV and Crossover that all look the same, and want something new. Since that old station wagon negative image is still around, they will probably still call them a crossover. There are also now some 2 door station wagons called a "Shooting Brake,"
I don't think that looks boxy or like a cockroach lol
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