Tundra trucks and Sequoia SUVs exit the assembly line as finished products at Toyota's truck plant in San Antonio, Texas, U.S. on April 17, 2023.Jordan Vonderhaar/Reuters
Our growing thirst for SUVs and trucks is curtailing the environmental gains we should be seeing from more fuel-efficient engines and growing electric vehicle sales, a recent study shows.
The study, conducted by the Sustainable Transportation Action Research Team at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Burnaby, B.C., states that SUVs and trucks accounted for about 70 per cent of new vehicle sales in Canada in 2022, up from 50 per cent in 2010.
And while all gas-powered vehicles have been getting more fuel efficient and polluting less because of fuel economy standards, SUVs and trucks still produce on average about 30 per cent more CO2 tailpipe emissions than cars, according to the latest federal inventory of greenhouse gases.
Because of better gas engines and growing sales of battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), the average fuel consumption for all new cars dropped to 8.1 litres per 100 kilometres in 2022 from 9.5 in 2010.
There would have been a more than 30 per cent bigger drop in emissions – to 7.2 litres per 100 kilometres – if there hadn’t been a growing market share in SUVs and trucks, the SFU study shows.
While research has already shown that surging SUVs have been making it tougher to reduce CO2 emissions worldwide, this study provides specific numbers for Canada, says Nate Wallace, a program manager with Toronto-based Environmental Defence, which commissioned the study with Équiterre, a Montreal-based environmental non-profit, and the David Suzuki Foundation, a Vancouver-based environmental non-profit.
Why go big?
Studies show that consumers associate bigger vehicles with status and think SUVs are also safer for the occupants.
The SFU report states that not only are SUV and truck sales increasing, but the vehicles are getting bigger and heavier over time, specifically a 7-per-cent increase (136 kilogram) in average weight since 1990.
These ideas about status and safety are fuelling a size arms race and studies show this increased size is making roads significantly more dangerous for sedan, hatchback and wagon occupants, pedestrians and cyclists.
SUVs are nearly 30 per cent more likely to kill pedestrians when compared with cars, according to a 2020 study.
Wallace says automakers are pushing consumers to buy bigger, more expensive vehicles than they need because they’re more profitable than smaller cars.
“Automakers spend approximately 80 per cent of their advertising budgets marketing trucks and SUVs,” Wallace says. “Most North American automakers have stopped making [sedans and smaller cars] entirely.”
While ads show SUVs hauling big families on road trips or heading out on camping adventures, most SUV owners use them mainly for daily driving to work, school or the grocery store, he says.
He points to a 2023 survey of Quebec SUV owners for Équiterre, that showed 74 per cent of respondents said they never use their SUV for towing and only 38 per cent said they use all their available cargo space at least once a week.
Wallace argues that more Canadians would be buying smaller cars if they were more available, especially because they’re cheaper.
”Canadians currently have very little choice, and the market options available to them [force] them to pay more every month for gas than they otherwise would.”
Loopholes for bigger vehicles
Emissions regulations in the U.S., which Canada generally follows (and which the Trump administration has said it will revoke in an executive order), are more lenient for bigger trucks and SUVs – largely because of automakers’ lobbying efforts, Wallace says.
“There are allowances (in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) that say if there’s more square footage between the four wheels of your car, we’ll allow you to meet a weaker target,” Wallace says.
According to the EPA, the current rules require heavy-duty trucks such as Ford’s Super Duty pickups to cut their CO2 emissions by 46 per cent by 2032 – but they can still emit more than three times more CO2 than a light-duty pickup like the Ford F-150 and nearly four times more than a passenger car or compact SUV.
That means car companies don’t have to spend extra money to design more fuel-efficient trucks and SUVs, which would drive up their purchase price and make them less attractive to buyers, Wallace says, adding that most buyers base their decisions more on purchase price than fuel costs.
“If you’re ratcheting up the standards a lot stronger on the small passenger car and not on the truck, you’re actually pushing up the price of the more fuel-efficient [car],” Wallace says.
Those emissions standards don’t explicitly require companies to sell more EVs, he adds.
But Canada’s EV sales mandate – which requires 20 per cent of new vehicles sold to be BEVs, hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles or PHEVs by the 2026 model year and 100 per cent by the 2035 model year – is necessary because it will force companies to eventually steer away from selling big gas guzzlers, Wallace says.
That’s why he says car companies are lobbying to remove it.
“They’ve said that if we just follow the emission standards from the U.S., we don’t need the mandate,” Wallace says. “But the U.S. rules have been ineffective at actually reducing emissions because of these [loopholes] that encourage vehicle upsizing … and it looks like even those rules are ending.”
Brian Kingston, chief executive officer of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, argues that decreases in overall fuel consumption show that “emissions standards are working” – even if the SUV boom is curbing that decrease.
“I looked at that report and thought that they’re missing the headline, which is these regulations are working, they’re extremely stringent and automakers are innovating to ensure that they’re compliant and increasing fuel efficiency,” Kingston says. “People do like larger vehicles, but we’re seeing big, big efficiency gains there.”