>In terms of real usefulness, it is a horrid "form factor" that wastes fuel and space

I never understood this. I used to drive a Land Rover Discovery 3, which is a SUV. And then I had a rental Open(or Vauxhall, for UK folk) Insignia for two weeks - your typical 5 door sedan, a typical "car" which does not invoke hate in most people. And I could not possibly understand how such a "large" car, with footprint as large as my Land Rover, could be so small inside! It took as much space on the road as my "horrid waste of space" Land Rover, yet it could only take 5 people instead of 7, and probably half the luggage. But if you put these two next two each other, you would be a lot more quickly criticized for driving the SUV, purely because it's an SUV. But both cars had nearly identical length and width - so how is the SUV taking more space? If anything, the Insignia was half as practical as the land rover.

> yet it could only take 5 people instead of 7

And both of them usually only carry one, the driver. That's the main issue.

So what is the solution? Have one small car when you are driving alone,and one huge for driving with family? That works somewhat - but I am fairly certain that the ecological impact of producing two cars is larger than that of driving one oversized one.