The Metaphor of the Truck & SUVs

It turns out that Canadians have fallen 'in love' with trucks & SUVs, just like our American friends.
To understand that this is a sad state of affairs it helps to know how this started, as described in the book "It's the crude dude" by Linda McQuaig. She described how car makers pressured Washington car makers in the 1970s to exempt truck from the new uni-body crumple zone regulations and  fuel efficiency standards because they were such a small par of the market. It turns out that because truck were made on old fashion body on frame construction they had a much higher profit margin than small fuel efficient cars that had to compete with cheap Japanese cars. So presto! SUVs were invented as being in the 'truck' category for one simple reason - increased profit margins. The companies then advertised this category like crazy and now everybody 'needs' an SUV, as you can see from the graph below.



The problem is that they, like a truck, are overkill for a driver in suburbia and much less fuel efficient than a car. So, while I think my many friends with trucks and SUVs are good people, I also do not think they have any right to complain about high gas prices or claim that they are doing their best to not pollute. Instead they should, now that electric cars are a reality, wait a couple of years for electric car prices to decrease, and buy one, for instance, the Chevy Bolt [which I own] - which can drive 400 km on a single charge! The cost per km to drive is 1/10 of an SUV/truck PLUS you do not contribute to climate change.

graph https://www.macleans.ca/economy/economicanalysis/the-most-important-economic-charts-to-watch-in-2018/