Greening The Massive Government Vehicle Fleet
SUVs are great when you want to go camping or off-roading and have too many passengers/equipment for a jeep. But aside from some forestry/wildlife agencies, I don't think most government vehicles require an SUV. It's just more fashionable to drive an SUV over a van, which is a really stupid mentally that has unfortunately seeped into government purchasing and resource allocation.For instance, I live in a medium-sized suburb and our police department has a couple of SUVs despite their only ever being driven on paved roads. And whenever I've seen them driven around, they're completely empty and not towing anything.
Like you said, most hybrid SUVs seem to be in name only. Purchasing 100 conventional ICE sedans or vans is probably more fuel efficient than purchasing 100 mild hybrid SUVs. The government would do better to compile and promote a set of intelligent purchasing guidelines for state and federal vehicles. Just encouraging public agencies to take fuel economy into account would probably go a long way to improve the environmental friendliness of the government fleet. And it makes more sense than continuing stupid purchasing decisions just with "hybrid" slapped on each vehicle.
