Stop buying SUVs already!

If you bought an electric vehicle (EV) recently thinking that you were doing your bit for the environment, I have some bad news for you – you wasted your time.

Because your neighbour who bought a big, gas-guzzling SUV, is wiping out all the good you are doing, and more.

According to a recent report from the International Energy Agency, although sales of electric cars in 2020 were up by some 50%, so many people bought super-gas-guzzling SUVs that they have cancelled out the oil saved by the entire global fleet of electric cars.

A growing menace

It’s not the first time the IEA has sounded the alarm about the harm that SUVs are doing to the environment, but this year’s report is deeply troubling.

The global fleet of SUVs, it says, is now topping 280 million vehicles, compared to fewer than 50 million in 2010. And during that period this class of vehicle grew to be the biggest overall contributor to CO2 emissions growth.

Because boy are those brutes thirsty. So much so that even during 2020, when emissions from every single other polluting industry were flat or falling, pollution from SUVs went up.

And it’s getting worse.

Around the world, SUVs are gobbling up market share, and even though there are around 100 different models of electric SUVs available, 97% of all new units sold were shipped with internal combustion engines.

I was at Singapore Maritime Week this week, where the shipping industry was earnestly discussing its attempts to decarbonize. I told one delegate that he should feel proud already because SUVs alone emit some 5 times more carbon than the entire global shipping fleet. He didn’t believe me.

Where’s the logic?

Imagine sending your child to school every morning dressed in a suit of medieval knight’s armour.

Sure, they’re precious and need protection, but isn’t all that extra weight just a little bit ridiculous? You just wouldn’t do it.

And yet millions of people are doing something equivalent when they drive their kids to school in an SUV. With the larger models weighing up to 6 tons, these things are lugging around an incredible amount of useless weight, and drinking petrol as they do.

But for what? A better view? A feeling of safety? A need for absolute luxury on their journey? (Can we at least agree that 99% of the journeys taken in these things is to the shop or the school, not through desert, jungle, or outback?)

The fact is, there is no logic here. These sales, this mindset, are the result of advertising-led delusion that creates a mental wonderland in which, even though you live in a city, open roads and a carefree motoring life can be yours without any real-life consequences whatsoever.

Battling illogical decisions with illogical solutions

Given that these misguided mindsets are founded more on desire and emotion than on logic, what if we were to fight fire with fire? Approach the problem with the same strategy?

The question came to me when I was reading a book called “Alchemy” by one of the giants of the advertising world, @Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy and Mather.

Having spent a lifetime examining and analysing what makes people buy things, Sutherland has concluded that human behaviour is rarely driven by science or facts, and that minds can be changed with the subtlest of hints and the mildest of subliminal suggestions.

So I called him up and asked him for some tips on marketing jiu jitsu. Would it make sense, I wondered, if instead of blinding people with climate science, we spoke to their emotions instead?

Listen to our chat here, and let me know what you think.

P.S.

There are many, many people for whom circumstances mean an SUV is absolutely justifiable. This commentary is not meant for them. And there are plenty who will argue that safety is their paramount consideration, and that justifies everything.

Both positions are defensible.

But after about a century in which we have all been deluged with false advertising from the auto industry, isn’t it time to re-examine what safety really means? After all, the World Health Organisation tells us that air pollution kills an estimated seven million people every year, and that 9 out of 10 people worldwide are breathing air that exceeds WHO guideline limits.

If safety is your concern, doesn't it make even more sense to ditch the SUV? Perhaps even relocate?

P.P.S

And for those who did buy an EV recently, it was worth it. Soon you will not only be making a difference, you’ll be seen as the cool hero, too.

P.P.P.S

This article was originally published in the Tech For Impact newsletter. For more like this, you can subscribe here.

The image of armour is licensed under the Creative Commons: "File:Late medieval armour complete (gothic plate armour).jpg" by Rama is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/fr/deed.en