Why do cars have to be bigger and bigger?

How can the still ongoing SUV trend be explained? What does it give people, especially against the background of the climate crisis?

Here are some facts that Ines Imdahl was allowed to explain in the Quarks und Co program on WDR:

✔Women apparently sometimes have a special emotional benefit from driving SUVs - especially when it is a family car.
✔They "buy" the feeling of freedom in the basic feeling of a "controlled" everyday life. (it's not about them buying it themselves...)
✔ On the fixed everyday routes between (part-time) job, childcare and household, the SUV conveys at least "theoretically" the ability to drive your own and other routes. To be able to break out of the (traffic) structures.
✔Of course, almost nobody really drives off-road - it's about maintaining the feeling of not being stuck in predetermined structures.
✔Fun fact: the most frequent illegal parkers are women with SUVs - namely, especially when they quickly pick up the children from school or daycare. Here, it is apparently particularly important to demonstrate the freedom that you could do things differently at any time...
✔Demonstration of the sublime and standing above things is conveyed with the higher seating position.
✔Feeling of security and practicality of the car, because supposedly a lot fits in - are more post-rationalizations and not the actual reasons for the car.

✔In order to stop the unsustainable SUV trend, these desires for self-determination and less regimentation in everyday life must be accommodated elsewhere! The desire must be lived out without harming the environment so much.
✔The good news: women are more open to electromobility than "combustion engine men"! (Wording rheingold salon!)

Click here for the article in the WDR media library – from minute 2:38 you can see Ines Imdahl.