Drivers in crowded cities ought to suppose twice earlier than shopping for an enormous SUV, says the top of a motoring organisation.

Steve Gooding, from the RAC Basis, stated: “We should always all select the precise automobile for the precise journey to chop the scale of our carbon footprint.

“It’s proper to query if suburban drivers want a automotive able to ploughing over rivers, throughout fields and up steep hills simply to pop to the outlets.”

His feedback come as analysis confirms most SUVs are purchased by city drivers.

It reveals that giant SUVs – typically often called Chelsea tractors – are certainly most prevalent in locations similar to Chelsea. They face complaints from different highway customers – particularly throughout the faculty run.

The report from the think-tank New Climate Institute stated: “The numbers arise long-held suspicions that these autos ostensibly designed for off-road are literally marketed efficiently to city customers the place their massive dimension and better air pollution ranges are a worse downside.”

The report says:

The report says areas the place SUV homeowners dominate are additionally the locations the place highway area is most scarce, and the place the very best proportion of vehicles are parked on the road. It says many massive SUVs are too massive for the standard UK parking area.

Andrew Simms, from the New Climate Institute, stated: “It seems that the house of the ‘Chelsea tractor’ actually is Chelsea. One among promoting’s largest manipulations has persuaded city households that it is completely ‘regular’ to buy groceries in a two-tonne truck.

“However the human well being and local weather injury completed by SUVs is big and must be undone. Simply as tobacco promoting was efficiently ended, it is time to cease selling polluting SUV’s.”

The UK Residents’ Meeting on local weather change has supported restrictions on SUVs. However motoring organisations stated the evaluation was too simplistic.

Whereas Mr Gooding supported the precept of constructing applicable selections of autos, he informed the BBC it was incorrect to protest in opposition to medium sized vehicles that appear to be SUVs however do not clog the streets and are economical to run.

“The time period SUV has grow to be so broad as to be unhelpful,” he stated. “(Some) motorists would possibly simply be in search of the consolation and comfort of comparatively tall however nonetheless modestly-sized vehicles that include the SUV badge however are economical to run.

“The recognition of the SUV body-style seems like it is going to be with us for a while as some auto corporations have already launched totally electrical variations with extra to come back later this 12 months.”

Edmund King, from the AA, informed the BBC: “Speak of banning the promoting of SUVs is a naïve strategy. A number of the cleanest vehicles come within the SUV form however are all electrical such because the Jaguar I-Tempo, Tesla Mannequin X or Hyundai Kona.

“The auto business is growing a variety of cleaner, greener autos with among the finest in SUV kinds,” he stated. “Not all SUVs are massive. Small SUVs are among the many hottest vehicles on sale, as a result of they often provide the high-set driving place, practicality, security and appears of extra conventional off-roaders, however with out the excessive worth, operating prices or emissions.”

He added: “Vehicles just like the Nissan Juke are sometimes the household automotive of alternative in suburban areas.”

The report says advertisers have misled customers by pushing messages round SUVs similar to ‘get again to nature’ and ‘assist the setting’.

The authors have written to the promoting company Spark44, which runs a number of SUV campaigns, asking them to stipulate how they plan to satisfy the UK authorities’s local weather change targets.

The company says it may’t provide a response as a result of it hasn’t had lengthy sufficient to contemplate the report correctly.

A study by the International Energy Agency stated growing demand for SUVs is the second largest contributor to the expansion in carbon emissions.

Annual emissions from SUVs rose to greater than 700 megatonnes of CO2, and if SUV drivers have been a rustic, they’d be the seventh on the planet for carbon emissions.

Observe Roger on Twitter @rharrabin