We can modify our cars as long as we use Air Resource Board approved parts, the CHP won't pull you over in central valley unless you're going over 80 (which seems to be the average speed on LA freeways outside of rush hour), now California finally is moving away from forcing manufacturers to sell electric vehicles!

If this stuff keeps up, the only nutjob anti-car legislators will be in Massachusetts.

http://www.freep.com/money/autonews/bnews6_20030306.htm

 

would be nice... nutjob anti-car legislators will be in Massachusetts. ..yup..thats us..get them out of here..move to Vermont..lol

 

I don't know... nothing has passed yet and I just don't see the tree-huggers giving up the fight that easily.

 

*shakes head* why would they give up like that?

 

Not to play Devil's Advocate for either side, but it's only a matter of time before there is no more fossil fuel to burn (at a tolerable price). So like it or not, the combustion engine is going away. Sometime in the middle of this century . So I think most people born before the mid-80's are covered for a while. Ya, some people don't believe it, but you'd better believe it, that at some point the cost of extraction will make it economically unfeasable. Don't forget the demands of an expanding world population. 50 years on, what'll it be?

Yeah, some of these people out in California and Mass. are nutty, way over the top and unrealistic. And the lawmakers and politicians seem to keep (ahem) 'overlooking' the contributions to pollution from heavy industry and power generation.

But I think there is a reasonable compromise in that we have keep moving forward on clean up our act, using fossil fuels more efficiently and cleanly, whilst trying to use alternatives where it is practical (unlike hydrogen electric cars - producing the hydrogen for these cars is not exactly efficient use of fossil fuel). I'm all for the efforts GM has made in developing technology like the 400HP LS6 that gets >20 mpg and also meets low emmissions standards. Let's hope we see 25 mpg in a couple years with more tech like variable intakes and exhaust timing, computer contolled valvetrains etc.

Doesn't anyone here care about a clean(er) planet for our future generations or their own kids? Many people do - that doesn't make them crazy tree-huggers, just realists. Like it or not stiffer regulation is comming, it's up to us car guys to fight the legislations that are plainly nuts (like banning aftermarket exahusts - pffft - how is this going to make a dent in global pollution caused by cars and trucks) whilst at the same time accepting that certain compromises are needed like meeting emissions standards and making new cars (and trucks and SUVs please for God's-sake) that are more fuel efficient than the previous models whilst *still* making the horsepower we all want.

Sorry to preach, I just believe in trying to strike a balance between preservation and the influence of innevitable human expansion.

 

i don't mind alternative power.. just as long as I can still burn dino juice for a reasonable price with good availability.

 

Increased government legislation is never the answer to ANYTHING. When (and if) fossil fuels become too expensive, the market will take care of the problem.

Thank God CA is giving up on that idiotic edict.

 

Z28 Marcus,

There's nothing wrong with increased efficiencies and new fuels and lower emissions.

It's just that electric cars were NEVER the answer.

I can't believe that it took 10 years for those morons to figure out that a car hauling around hundreds of pounds of toxic batteries inevitably charged by power plants (running on fossil fuels to produce electricity) was a stupid idea.

 

Especially in the middle of an electrical power shortage.

 

I intend to be dead long before that.

 

That what I meant by realistic solutions. Sometimes people (like the all electric car supporters) get so blinded by the fantasy that they fail to see the reality. What happens to all those millions and millions of batteries (assuming we all start driving electic cars) when they have reached the end of their lifetime and have to be replaced? Recycled? Possibly, you'd hope so. But again that processing uses energy of one sort or another. It's trading one evil for another.

Steam turbine powered vehicles, i.e. superheated steam from Nuclear Fusion.... that's what I want to see .

 

I have read very recently that the world still has over 350 years of fossil fuels (Oil) left before we run out.....and they are finding new places with oil all the time....by the time it starts to run out im pretty sure we could have a viable solution to the problem....

There will be ways to fix the Ozone layer holes also.....It has to be possible, why couldn't it be done, we make artifical just about everything else.....

 

They should get off their azzes and bring in some of that 350-yr supply NOW with these freakin record gas prices