Nobody's forcing anybody to buy the giant ones, though, so a few good choices existing is enough that "car seats" isn't a reason on its own to buy an SUV.

It just seems super wasteful to me the number of vehicle-miles that are driven in the suburbs by enormous and medium-sized ("Tall Hatchback Camry") SUVs with a single driver carrying a couple bags of groceries. Most of the time, most commuters and even people with up to 2 small children ought to be perfectly fine driving a 4-door compact, which is substantially more fuel-efficient and lighter than even the midsize SUVs. But the incentives don't exist to make people consider that. They figure, "Oh well, I'll spend $25 extra on gas each month but it's worth it so that I can transport lumber once a year."