A lighter, less thirsty SUV has been designed by a group of US scientists. John O'Dell reports from Los Angeles.
An environmental group long critical of sports utility vehicles (SUV) has unveiled its own design. The group claims it would save millions of barrels of oil and thousands of lives at little extra cost to consumers.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) says its design for an SUV called Guardian incorporates fuel efficiency and safety technologies already used in some vehicles.
A lighter, lower, less-thirsty SUV with rollover-sensing air bags, high-strength steel roof supports, electronic stability control and a high-output V-6 engine would cost between $735 and $2,960 more than a Ford Explorer, says Jason Marks, the California-based director of the UCS Clean Vehicles Program. "At today's gasoline prices, the difference would be recovered in just two years," he claims.
California, where air-quality regulators have drafted the toughest automotive pollution controls in the US, is seen as a key market in the group's campaign to get consumers clamouring for a safer, more fuel-efficient SUV.
The US version of the Guardian, with acceleration, towing and hill-climbing power equal to or slightly better than a V-8 powered Explorer, would get 27.8 miles per gallon, a 31 per cent increase over Ford's best-selling SUV, he adds.
A bigger potential benefit than fuel efficiency, Marks says, is that the Guardian's safety features could reduce traffic accident deaths attributed to SUV design by as many as 2,900 a year in the US.
"It's just a question of bringing it all together, and that's what the auto industry hasn't done," Marks continues.
Ford, whose Explorer was used as the basis of comparison for Guardian's performance data, declined to comment.
A spokesman for the Washington-based Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said that safe and fuel-efficient vehicles are already available, but are not always selected by consumers.
The UCS has issued SUV reports in the past claiming that fuel efficiency could be boosted substantially with available technologies. Marks claims that frustration over the auto industry's insistence that increased fuel efficiency would come at the price of reduced safety pushed the group to design a vehicle.