Think of it as Europe’s new “hate affair” with allegedly planet-hostile super-cars. A recent British poll found that 70 percent favor higher taxes on SUVs. A flurry of prohibitions, levies and initiatives from Spain to Switzerland testifies to a similar antipathy elsewhere. Says Sian Berry of the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s in London: “SUVs are emblematic of how our car culture has moved in the wrong direction.”
Popular sentiment may be turning against the giant automobile, but so far it’s not reflected in the numbers. Annual sales have almost quadrupled since the early ’90s, topping 1 million, or 7 percent of the total car market in 2005. “It’s been phenomenal,” says Peter Schmidt of the British consultancy Automotive Industry Data. “In virtually every single European country, SUV sales have been rising at double-digit rates.” Small wonder that environmental activists increasingly equate SUVs with the devil. It’s hard to square that dramatic sales record with Europe’s pledge to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2012.
Still, automakers should be worried. The latest sales figures from Britain–Europe’s largest SUV market–show demand down 6 percent over the past year. Soaring petrol prices offer some explanation, but the true cause has more to do with the vehicle’s questionable image in an age of deepening eco-anxiety. “Once, owners were proud to turn up at the golf club in a five-liter V-8 machine,” says Schmidt. No more. “I think we will see a steep decline across Europe.”
If so, the eco-warriors will claim part of the credit. In Paris, owners of SUVs take their goliaths out of the garage at real peril. Militant activists known as les dégonflés –the deflated–have lately been going around the city deflating the tires of parked SUVs. Others spray the vehicles with mud, or worse. No real damage is done; the antics fall more into the realm of pranks. But the message is crystal clear: the 4x4 belongs in the countryside, not the city. Serious eco-campaigners won’t condone such tactics, but they’ve certainly contributed to the wider hearts-and-minds campaign that aims to shame the SUV off the road. Says Aat Peterse of the European Federation for Transport and Environment, a Brussels-based lobbying group: “In 10 years’ time, people who drive an SUV will feel the same way that I would if I let my dog mess on the pavement.”
Increasingly, governments are joining the chorus of condemnation, just like Livingstone. In Paris, Deputy Mayor Denis Baupin has called the SUV “a caricature of a car” and publicly favored its total exclusion from the city. In Italy, the national budget, currently under negotiation, includes plans to charge every SUV owner a flat annual fee of €1,000. Already, height and width restrictions bar the superbeasts from the center of Florence. City fathers in Amsterdam have considered shutting off the city to 4x4s by refusing parking permits.
Not surprisingly, SUV owners see themselves as persecuted. “Stigmatizing one part of the population against another is absurd,” says Christian Delabre, president of the French 4x4 Owners Association. Numbers alone, say champions of the SUV, can’t justify such hostility. Yes, sales may have risen sharply in recent years, they say. But off-roaders still make up a far smaller segment of the market than in the United States, say, where SUVs account for 25 percent of all light-vehicle sales. Nor are they all on the same road-hogging scale as the giant Hummers. Indeed, the smaller European 4x4 is often no bigger than a family sedan.
Europe’s automakers aren’t about to retreat. SUVs sell at generous profit margins–especially welcome at a time when much of the industry is struggling to cover costs. Two French automakers, Citroën and Peugeot, will launch their first SUVs next year, with Renault to follow in 2008. Even companies that like to promote an eco-friendly image have given way to temptation and the promise of valuable sales. Back in 2002, after years of hesitation, Volvo finally built its own off-roader, the hugely successful XC 90.
Pressure from the automakers means governments may hesitate when it comes to imposing truly punitive taxes. What politician would willingly alienate a powerful and labor-intensive industry? Ask Magnus Nilsson, a Swedish environmental campaigner, why his government hasn’t taken a tougher line on the big polluters. “Two reasons: Volvo and Saab.”
Nevertheless, a legislative squeeze is coming, if not from national capitals. With emissions targets to meet, the European Union is growing impatient with the motor industry. In 1998, manufacturers agreed to a voluntary commitment to reduce average carbon emissions from new cars by 25 percent rather than face a mandatory cut. So far only three of the 20 companies–Fiat, Citroën and Renault–are on target, and the talk in Brussels now is of enforcing compliance at a still lower level, with inevitable consequences for the SUV. “The manufacturers are screaming blue murder because of the likely cost,” says John Wormald of Autopolis, an international motor-industry consultancy in Britain.
So far, the companies have responded by pointing to consumer preferences. Why build more ecofriendly vehicles when the customer wants raw power? “More fuel-efficient cars are already out there; they are just not being bought in sufficient numbers,” says Sigrid de Vries of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association in Brussels. (Politicians can be inconsistent, too. European Commission supremo José Manuel Barroso chose a bulky Volkswagen Touareg for his official car.) But if fashion has turned against the SUV, so too must the manufacturers. Just possibly, the end of the road–however distant–is in sight for the SUV in Europe.
