Recently, while traipsing from showroom to showroom in search of a used car for my growing clan, the iconic line from Christopher Nolan’s seminal Batman movie The Dark Knight came to mind: “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” And by villain, of course, I mean an SUV driver.
Because, if you haven’t shopped for a secondhand family car recently, I’ll save you the shock: wherever you look, it’s SUVs.
It’s no surprise when these giant cars now make up 30% of all cars on the road and were 50% of all new car sales in rich countries in 2023. The look has been so popular that traditional body styles have been modified into taller, wider frames. Even Volvo, the defining family car brand, now only offers SUVs in the UK. All of which means that if, like me, you want a car under 10 years old, hoping it lasts another five, your options are “tank” and “tank-ette”.
There’s also a supply issue. Manufacturers make more on SUVs and in the us have less stringent emissions caps, so they make a ton more. Annectodally several friends and relations have looked at getting minivans only to be confronted with months-long waitlists. The equivalent capacity SUV they could walk off the lot with that day. So, guess which they ended up with?