The SUV is really just a mini van. Mini vans got a bad rep, which I think is a shame because I LOVED my Honda Odyssey. It drives like a car, and has a 3rd row that you can actually sit adults in. Also, with all the seats down, and middle seats removed, you could carry a LOT. We fit two full sofas from Ikea back there. It was a tight fit, but it worked great.
For whatever reason people don’t like the idea of mini vans, so they made the suv because TRUCK. We replaced the Odyssey with a Subaru Ascent, and that is great too, it has all wheel driving, and a lot more bells and whistles than the old Odyssey. The 3rd row is not nice to sit in as an adult though, and I miss the sliding doors, those were great in tight spaces.
They just need to put more sliding doors on these vehicles they expect people to get in and out of the back seats.
Most “SUVs” are lies – misnamed glorified station wagons. What an SUV is supposed to be is a vehicle that can ford streams and crawl over rocks. I own an old Toyota 4Runner and a Kia Sedona. The Sedona is absolutely the better car for most uses (especially hauling stuff), but it absolutely cannot do the things I use the 4Runner for.
SUVs are minivans for people too insecure to admit that they need a minivan.
So much of the car buying community is just letting yourself get up sold by images of a family of 5, cruising the open road, probably Alaska or Wyoming, quickly swerving out of the way of falling boulders or smoothly going over potholes, when they’re ninety nine percent of the time, they’ll be stuck in traffic and driving the same hand full of miles.
