Obesity up in America. Among cars.

You don't have to be fat in America to be part of the obesity problem- you just have to think fat.

Granted, obesity is a huge and disgusting problem in this country, considered an "epidemic". Right. Let's name it the "Prosperity Epidemic". Let's face it, if people in this country weren't so wealthy for doing so little physical work, we wouldn't have obesity. However, this "Prosperity Epidemic" goes much further than the millions that gorge themselves on super-sized American meals every day. It can be seen in other things too. Take, for instance, cars.

SUVs rule the roads. They're inefficient debacles of vehicles, about as inappropriate for city driving as a salad is at McDonalds. Yet, in America, they are the rage. And the buzz about them is all good. "A modern SUV handles as good as a sports car," one co-worker informed me. Clearly GM's advertising department has succeeded where there engineering department has failed.

SUVs do not handle like sports cars. These days, even sports cars don't handle like sports cars. Everything in America is fat. SUVs are not only models of inefficiency, but they have also become the benchmark by which cars are compared. Take, for instance, the new Chrysler 300. This is a car set to rival SUVs not in cargo space, but in heft. It weighs in at two tons and has a 5.7l Hemi V8, just like the big SUVs. It consequently has the gas mileage to rival one too. And while sucking down gasoline like Cookie Jarvis, the so-called "muscle-car" can not out-run some other cars with a full two-hundred less ft-lbs of torque under the hood.

That is the trend.

Manufacturers are not making lighter, more practical vehicles. Nope. Instead manufacturers are throwing technology at the problem. The Chrysler 300 deactivates half of its cylinders when they're not needed to improve fuel efficiency. Other manufacturers, such as Ford, Toyota, and Honda, are promising hybrid-electric vehicles as their savior. We are seeing the birth of the hybrid SUV- an even porkier version of the original.

In America, that's how we fix things- we throw technology at a problem rather than fixing the cause. Technology gives the big car companies something to market, even if they're blowing smoke. Do we stop eating when we get fat? No! Why sacrifice? Instead, we join the latest fad diet and, when it fails, blame it for our failure. Hybrids are that latest fad diet.

In case you think these opinions do not have a foundation in real science, let me explain why:

Boxy trucks have both a low drag coefficient and a large front surface area. More curvatious vehicles may be more aerodynamic, as the advertisements are quick to inform you, but so long as the vehicle is large it'll still have a large front surface area for that drag to occur on. Highway mileage is almost directly proportional to this drag because "air" is the primary force your vehicle is fighting against on the highway. Remember an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by a force. Wind resistance is that force. When you buy a "hybrid" SUV, you are not reducing the drag on the car, nor are you aleviating the amount of work required by the engine. Highway mileage is thus virtually uneffected in a hybrid because the "electric" portion of the engine cannot regenerate. Meanwhile, the smaller gasoline engine has to work to its full capacity just to maintain your speed. Not surprisingly, the passing power of a hybrid is unimpressive.

The drag on SUVs (and trucks in general) is so bad that your gas mileage is said to actually decrease over 45mph. A modern car sees its best mileage at a much more typical 60mph. Ever see an SUV in the fast lane going 85mph? Some vehicles get as much as 5 miles-per-gallon less by going 10mph past their optimal zone. In an SUV, you can get half the highway mileage at 75mph compared to 55mph. Now, many modern car-based SUVs have a smaller profile to aleviate this issue, but it's far from gone. Even Honda, reknown for their fuel efficiency, can only muster a 23mpg highway rating for their Pilot SUV- and that's for the standard 45-55mph test. Not surprisingly, owners often report less. Hybrids do not fix this issue, nor do they even alleviate it. Even the makers of hybrid vehicles will tell you that the highway ratings on the cars are a compelte farse- some, like Toyota, are honest and are trying to get the NHTSA to revise the fuel efficiency tests for hybrids.

What hybrids do help is stop-and-go traffic. Whenever you hit the brakes in your vehicle, you are converting energy to heat- which is essentially wasted energy. Thus, any time you use your brake, you have wasted energy and thus wasted gasoline. (A smart driver uses his or her brake less.) Hybrids aim to fix this by storing the energy that would be otherwise wasted by braking. They do this reasonably well at the expense of a huge battery and additional electronics.

However, there is a drawback to this- the heavier your car, the more work it takes to move and stop it. The vehicle needs a more powerful engine (again, proportional to its weight) just to accelerate at the same rate as a smaller vehicle. When you buy a "hybrid" vehicle, you add the weight of a huge battery pack to the car- often more than 200lbs. While this weight more than makes up for itself mileage-wie in stop-and-go traffic, its benefits stop there.

Here's where my bias enters in. I hate heavy cars on an purely emtional level, too. No matter how big the engine, they make poor sports cars. I like sports cars.

Heavy cars feel heavy when you drive them. Driving a small, lightweight car such as a Mini Cooper, and you feel the difference. If you are used to a larger car, the sensation is akin to driving a go-kart. It's incredible if you're used to large vehicles- the car changes directions much quicker, responding immediatly. Hybrids adds enough complexity to the vehicle that they could eliminate the lightweight, fun-to-drive car, and for this I admit, I'm bitter.

Hybrids are not the answer to poor gas mileage, at least the way they're currently being employed. Smaller, lighter vehicles are. That does NOT mean less comfortable vehicles are required- hardly! It only means more efficient packaging of vehicles need to infiltrate the market, and us Americans need to drop the ego and purchase cars based on value and practicality instead of image. We don't. That's why the hatchback and wagon- the two most efficiently packaged vehicles on the road- went the way of the Dodo in the early 90's. In America, the efficient-yet-practical car does not really exist in our market, with only a handful of exceptions. Mazda has introduced the Mazda6 wagon, Subaru the WRX Wagon, Mini the Cooper, and a few others- these cars are all great examples of good packaging.

I don't think wagons are uncool. I think they're smart. Wagons can be small, efficient, and roomy. They make much more sense for the average SUV shopper.

In Europe, fuel-efficient cars have been around for decades. Some of Europe's small cars have more cargo room than America's family sedans! Even better yet, those European cars best the modern hybrid for fuel efficiency, too! Jeremy Clarkson of the Top Gear motoring show reports getting roughly 40mpg in Toyota's Prius hybrid while getting double the mileage in a similarly-sized diesel car. That diesel car does not have expensive batteries to replace and- amazingly- had much more highway passing power! Diesel fuel contains more energy than our typical petrol, and because hybrids use petrol as fuel, they cannot match a diesel engine for highway fuel efficiency. Studies show that even in stop-and-go traffic, where hybrids can shine, they still fall short of a diesel.

Yet the American government gives a tax credit for hybrids. No such credit is given to diesels or petrol cars that by way of being lightweight and smart acheive the same fuel efficiency. Here the government is interfering with our free market society to create an artificial demand for these inferior designs.

But even ignoring fuel efficiency, the experience of driving a large, heavy hybrid pales in comparison to their smaller European small-car counterparts. The typical American sedan has become painfully boring- it's an appliance not unlike the ones you find in your kitchen. No wonder everyone uses their cell phone when driving- they're probably bored to tears. The emotion and fun of driving has been lost. It's no surprise that many driving enthusiasts opt for older vehicles when tuning a weekend for-fun car. Honda's Civc has grown from 2100lbs to 2700lbs in ten years. BMW's M3 had a similar growth. Actually, most cars have. For what?

The growth spurt of the American vehicle ends at the SUV- the biggest, heaviest, largest vehicles consumers can drive on the road.

SUV's (and to a lesser extent, some large cars) have a high center of gravity. I'd argue that it is impossible to drive a car with a high center of gravity safely on a crowded roadway among smaller, nimbler vehicles. Driving tests in America do not prepare drivers for the responsiblity of driving such a clumsy vehicle. Our nations's truckers have to get a special license, and while certainly less critical, the same additional skills are required for driving an SUV.

I have a high appreciation for what an automobile can do, and when driving in an SUV the slow response of the steering wheel and poor braking do anything but make me feel safe. I feel even worse when an SUV is driving behind me. If I had to do an emergency stop in my own vehicle, I know for absolute certain that the SUV behind me would not be able to stop as fast nor turn to avoid me. Those who think SUVs are safer need a wake-up call- they're no safer for you, but they're far more dangerous to other drivers. Have fun living with the consequences of that.

The marketing departments of auto manufacturers would have us believe SUVs are sporty. Their commercials tell us so. SUVs continue to come with larger, more powerful engines telling us they're faster. Isn't this just making the cars more dangerous? What hasn't changed in SUV may be the most relevent to its safety: the vehicle's height.

The higher the center of gravity a vehicle has, the more weight it transfers from wheel-to-wheel when doing normal tasks such as braking, accelerating, and turning. When more weight transfers from left to right, or fore to aft, those tires become saturated from the extra weight (one reason why lightweight cars are so much more responsive). Thus, in a car with a high center of gravity tries to turn or stop, the tires become overwhelmed much more quickly than a lighter weight vehicle's tires would. The coefficient of friction of the tire drops, and thus the vehicle does not have as much traction. SUV's typically seat the passenger as high up as possible to give an empowering feeling to the driver, when in actuallity this is hurting the mobility of the vehicle.

The end result is a vehicle with low traction, somewhat akin to driving a normal car in the rain. The amount of grip an SUV has in dry weather measures roughly the same as a car in wet weather, and often even lower. Think about that- shouldn't drivers slow down in the rain?

Ford may advertise stability control to prevent the vehicle from rolling over in an accident, but the physics governing the vehicle's mass haven't changed. Stability control cannot add grip to the tires nor can it reduce the weight transfer for a given lateral force. The only way to prevent an SUV from rolling over is to reduce the lateral force the vehicle is capable of: in other words, by reducing grip even further. Grippy tires on an SUV actually make it more of a rollover hazzard.

Despite all these traits of SUVs- many of them unavoidable- SUVs remain The Thing To Have. Perhaps we need better driver education of what they're buying, or perhaps we just need to double fines for SUVs caught speeding. I hope that rising gas prices will spark some consumer awareness about the subject, though so far all I've heard from my peers is complaints. What do you often hear: "Gas prices are too high!" or, "I drive an inefficient vehicle!" Sure, oil companies are gouging, but the drivers still allowed themselves to be trapped by the oil companies.

As I said, I'm in favor of lighter vehicles. I envy cars like the Lotus Elise, which weighs 1900lbs. Being a sports car, it certainly isn't for everyone, however what if some of the same concepts- such as an aluminum tub chassis- were applied to a commuter car? The Elise has a 1.8l 4-cylinder engine, just like economy cars, however the Lotus Elise will hit 60mph in nearly five seconds due to its light weight. It's fuel economy is stellar for a sports car, and should a child run out in front of the car, it'll stop quicker than nearly anything else on the road. Such a lightweight car means putting less stress on the brakes, engine, tires, and road, reducing ownership costs and producing less total waste.

The lightweight materials cost more, but so do the huge batteries that power hybrids. For $3000, I'd much rather have a car constructed of aluminum than a steel car with heavy batteries. The reason is this: a lightweight car drives has benefits far more numerous. The entire driving experience is improved, so paying more for a lighter-weight vehicle makes sense. There is only reason to buy a hybrid vehicle, and that is as an investment into lower gasoline costs. The decision of buying a hybrid comes down to a simple bottom line determining cost of ownership. Lightweight cars can deliver impressive fuel economy savings too, but the improvements go much further than a simple cost-of-ownership calculation. They're lively.

Now, if Lotus would convert the Elise into a wagon, it could set the industry on fire. Sure, the extremist Elise would take some refinements to get it ready for the mainstream public, but even after adding 300lbs of additional sheet metal and sound insulation, it'd still be the third lightest vehicle in America today. Maybe they could offer the car as a diesel, too? The previous European Elise was said to acheive over 50mpg with a dated petrol engine, and I'd bet a modern diesel could average over 75mpg. That's better than any hybrid ever built, and this hypothetical Elise would still out-gun any SUV on the road.

Maybe it's an extreme example, but the point remains: lighter weight vehicles need to be in sharper focus for the automotive industry.

For more information on SUV's, go here: http://www.suv.org/safety.html