Women are behind the boost in SUV sales but for the wrong reasons

   Aston Martin is about to reveal its first SUV model, the DBX, for the creation of which the British manufacturer made a research about what people want from such a vehicle. According to what Aston’s global marketing boss Simon Sproule said about the results of this research

to Motorin, women in particular, more than men, want to feel safe, protected and they want to be able to see ahead and the SUV class of cars have attributes that correlate more strongly with what women want (from a car).

   This is a classical example of a car producer that wants a piece of the sales boom in the SUV category, which has been built on the wrong base that SUV are more safe than “normal” cars. Even if the designers and the mechanics of every car manufacturer know that an SUV vehicle is more unstable than a road car due to its higher center of gravity, they keep their customers in the dark, believing that they have purchased, or are about to purchase, a vehicle with higher levels of energetic and passive safety than road cars.

   It is true than SUVs ensure to their drivers a better visibility, at least at the front, because of the higher driving position. But this is coming for a price for all the other drivers that are behind, or they come across with a SUV, who can’t see what is going on in front of it or at the back of it, because they sit much lower than it. So for all the other drivers of “normal” cars, let alone sport models, the SUVs are like small vans. So it is very “selfish” for one to say that he or she buys a SUV because he or she will be able to have a better visibility, when at the same time his or her vehicle will create a problem to all the other drivers. Let alone that if 75% of the private vehicle will become SUVs, that advantage will be lost.

   The problem with the companies that sell SUV models is that they don’t inform their possible customers about the true advantages and disadvantages of these type of vehicles comparing to cars, so that the customers can decide correctly which model to buy for his/her personal transportation, or for his/her family.