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"Photos:    One thing that has united many environmentalists and some enthusiasts is a mutual disdain for sport-utility vehicles. These large, car-cum-trucks are often seen as gas-guzzling, road-hogging physical embodiments of the worst in conspicuous consumption.   Oddly, for all the opprobrium heaped on this class of vehicle, the SUV lives on, like a certain undead count from Transylvania, but this time seemingly immune to whatever stakes society tries to drive into his heart.   Video window may take a few moments to load...          It wasn&amp;#039;t long ago Porsche purists reacted with aghast at the idea of the Porsche Cayenne. How\u00ADever, since then, many of these faithful have come to terms with the idea of an off-roader from Zuffenhausen. And to be honest, Porsche, then independent, might not still be around if it wasn&amp;#039;t for the volume and profits produced from this vehicle in a segment far from the company&amp;#039;s core business. In fact, so successful has Cayenne been, Porsche now plans a little brother called Macan. While the concept of a high-end SUV was not unheard of (see Land Rover/Range Rover), the acceptance of the Cayenne has opened the door to new luxury entrants from unlikely sources, the most recent being Bentley, which displayed a concept at , and Lamborghini, which showed its version of an SUV at the Beijing Auto Show.   While economics plays a large role in the thinking of these two limited-production makers of high-end cars, the other reason is not quite so obvious, a result of the law of unintended consequence. In most other segments, particularly the mass market, an SUV is viewed as the largest, most fuel-inefficient and invariably most profitable entry in the lineup. However, if your raison d&amp;#039;\u00EAtre is to build lavish, high-profit, high-powered vehicles with 8, 10 or 12 cylinders, quite the opposite can be true. By building an SUV, which in some markets actually have a lower set of emissions and fuel economy standards applied to them than high-powered automobiles, a manufacturer like Bentley or Lamborghini can actually use an SUV to reduce its carbon footprint.   Stephan Winkelmann, Lamborghini&amp;#039;s chief executive, notes that if the company decided to build its sexy SUV, he favors the use of a twin-turbo V-8 hybrid system that will get better fuel economy and emit less CO2 than the V-10 Gallardo or V-12 Aventador. Further enticing Lamborghini to enter the SUV market is the fact that there is nothing quite like this concept on the market today, whereas the other model under consideration, the 4-door Estoque concept presented in Paris nearly two years ago, would face competition from the likes of the Aston Martin Rapide. So, the appeal of an SUV lies not just in the economic prospect of larger volumes (Lamborghini predicts a worldwide market of about 3000 of these vehicles, which is nearly double the 1602 cars it sold last year), but also the contribution that such a vehicle could make in reducing carbon emissions.   The same holds true for Bentley. While the reception its SUV concept received in Geneva can be charitably put as less than enthusiastic, such a vehicle in production, like the Lamborghini, could leverage a corporate VW platform and provide the basis for introducing diesel, hybrid or electric technology that could reduce overall emissions and increase fuel economy, offsetting the W-12 Continental GTs and Mulsannes.   Similar reasoning can be found at other manufacturers such as Maserati with its Grand Cherokee-based Kubang, yet another candidate for dieselization or hybridization in a model range that is currently only gasoline-fueled. So it seems that SUVs will soldier on for the foreseeable future, this time in the service of some pretty rarefied marques. And will probably spawn a new market for SUV license frames that read, &amp;quot;My other Lamborghini is a car.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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