Size & Weight Matter

It sometimes surprises me how rarely people realize this, but fuel economy isn't only about the size of the engine or the number of cylinders.

Big, huge SUVs are heavy. Small, sub-compact cars are light. The bigger and heavier an object is, the more energy (read: fuel) is needed to move it around. Cars and trucks have steadily gotten bigger and heavier over the last 20+ years, and subsequently the engines have become more and more powerful to deal with this. In spite of the fact that technology has advanced, the simple fact is that a more powerful engine needs more fuel to produce that power.

Yet, the North American obsession with SIZE has blinded so many people to this fact until very recently. The trends of the past decade have dug the deep hole we're all in now, and it took $4/gallon gas to smack Americans upside the head before they finally saw the problem. Everyone wanted to buy the biggest SUV they could afford, and now suddenly they're paying the consequences.

And this was all about "want"... nothing more.

Need... what's that?

The idea of responsible car buying was so utterly far from most consumer's minds for years, and now our roads are cluttered with 6000 pounds behemoths greedily gobbling up gas at a rate of 10-15 miles per gallon.

And then the bottom fell out!

The Big 3 can't give their trucks away and it seems like every week another truck plant belonging GM or Ford is shut down and shortly thereafter plans are announced to convert said plant to producing a particular small car platform.

Excessive fuel consumption is just the plight of the large SUV either.

The "crossover" SUV is smaller and lighter than a conventional SUV. Which in itself, is a good thing. However, these crossovers are really nothing more than a conventional car chassis jacked up for a few extra inches of ground-clearance and perhaps an optional all-wheel-drive system to give them a pretense of off-road capability. In short, they are nothing more than extra heavy cars.

Take, for example, the Mitsubishi Outlander crossover SUV. It's powered by a 2.4L 4-cylinder. The same 2.4L engine that also powered the Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback a few years ago. At that time my mother was in the market for a new vehicle and insisted on getting a SUV. Her reasoning was "I can see better higher up. I feel safer in a truck. I need space for the dog." She finally decided to buy an Outlander 2WD.

Why an Outlander instead of a Lancer Sportback? I wondered that myself. For all intents and purposes, they are nearly the same vehicle with naught more than a few inches of ground clearance difference between them. Her Outlander is nothing more than a glorified 4-door hatchback.

As for her reasoning:

"I can see better higher up" - Granted the Outlander is higher. What exactly are you trying to see from that vantage point though? Sails on the horizon? She's driven standard height cars all her life prior to the Outlander and she saw fine up until that point.

"I feel safer in a truck" - the IIHS rates the Outlander "Good" (their highest rating) in frontal impact testing, yet "Poor" (their lowest rating) in side impacts. Owning a "truck" is not making her any safer in this case since the Lancer has the exact same ratings. Underneath the sheetmetal they're quite likely nearly the same vehicle.

"I need space for the dog" - the Lancer Sportback has 24.9 cubic feet of cargo capacity with the seats folded up and 61 cu.ft. with them folded down. The Outlander, the truck she felt she needed so as to get all that extra space, has 24.4 cu.ft. (seats up) or 60 cu.ft. (seats down).

So basically, like too many others, it came down to "wants" and not needs. The simple fact is that she wanted a truck and there would be no convincing her otherwise. She has no extra cargo space, and she's no more safer than if she'd have purchased the equivalent car.

In the final tally, what did her truck provide? Well, yes... a higher vantage point.

And some utterly atrocious handling to go with that higher vantage point.

By the numbers, one last thing... about 10% worse fuel economy. The same engine provides motivation to both the Lancer Sportback and the Outlander... yet the added height, weight, and aerodynamic drag of the larger crossover costs nearly 10% more at the pump.