Recently, I drove the 2013 Toyota RAV4 EV, a battery electric vehicle (BEV). It seemed to me that the BEV SUV makes a lot of sense, but nearly every other BEV that I've driven has been a compact or subcompact car, like the Honda Fit EV, the CODA Sedan and the Nissan Leaf. Hybrid SUVs are few and far between, and only the Germans bringing diesel-powered SUVs to the US.
The question that I hear most frequently from readers and from friends is "When are we going to get SUVs that get great gas mileage and still have the capability that we need?" Well, the vehicles are slow in arriving, because it's much easier to get great fuel economy out of smaller vehicles, which makes perfect sense. We'll see if more development leads to new SUVs, or if the SUV has been abandoned. Stay tuned...
Photo © Jason Fogelson