And just how are you using this quote of a quote? It's explicitly described as not being his own words. It makes for good blurbs (as you demonstrated) in an attempt to dismiss any validity the book offers.

Even if you do not agree with the book 100%, there are many good points made and backed up as valid concerns with SUVs.

 

That, or there could be another fad spring up in a couple years. Just because GM is doing something does not mean it is what the market is looking for. They're typically behind in catching up with market, not setting the pace.

 

This has absolutely nothing to do with the argument but GMT-800 trucks came out in '99.

 

Bold statement, prove it.
No...you're wrong. Like I said, with innovations like electric assists, DoD, B100, and direct injection, fuel milage (hell, different freak'n fuels) can help gas milage into the stratosphere. Sure there's a wall when it comes to how much one single ICE can run on one tank of gas with no help, but we can maximize it just like we maximize power. There are schools competing in contests all the time maxing that out into the 1000's MPG. Those cars aren't remotely livable, but it still shows it can be done much better than it is today.
Uhhh, gee, lets see....The manufacturers??? I'd be more impressed with a 200 MPG $150K supercar than a 550 HP one. Take money out of useless things and plug it right into R&D, thats what I call progress.
Dead end argument until we throw a Smart and Suburban into eachother.
If he has an electric car that plugs into his self-sufficent house, then none of your point is valid

 

I never mentioned hybrids or hydrogen. Current solutions are always nearly optimal if you mean at current technology. In your post you led readers to believe that somehow we are close to extracting all of the energy from gasoline with the internal combustion engine. That is not true. Now you may have meant that we can extract as much energy from the gas as our engineering abilities allow at this point in time, but I submit that has been true for the entire history of the ICE.

Whooptie doo it does not relate to anything I said.

My point was that at least half of your post was simply wrong or misleading.

I said nothing about limiting your choices. Straw man, minus 10 points for you.

Oh ok, tomorrow I won't go out and prevent people from buying SUVs seeing as how I am the King of Earth and have the power and time to do that.

You've oversimplified yet again. If you ignore accident avoidence, then larger vehicles are safer.

See above

I'm an uninterested third party. However, I made no proclamations of what PacerX needed, nor have I ever stated what PacerX needs.

Why don't you tell the story about how I prevented you from buying a motorcycle? It should entertain everyone here. Oh wait, that never happened.

Yes we'd all be safer as we crashed into one another more frequently.

Colloquialisms do not improve any of your arguments.

 

Meanwhile, back on the topic.....

I'm surprised that noone has mentioned that the introduction of 3 way cat-converters made the fuel effency go down. When the auto makers had to switch from two way to three way (to combat oxides of Nitrogen) the A/F ratio had to go from a fuel sipping 16:1 to the 14:1 we have now. Which is why your grandma's Citation can knock down over 30mpg (and CRXs over 40) while newer cars have a hard time getting to 30mpg.

Just some food for thought

 

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstrac...archive:search

 

Shhh...news like that might send Pacer-land into peril

 

I would be very interested to see some more info on these schools or teams that are getting 1000s of mpg. Volkswaggen had a shot at it with its 1 liter car.
The VW 1 liter car is powered by a 0.3L one cylinder diesel that generates 8.5 horsepower. The car seats two (one behind the other for aerodynamic reasons) and weighs 290kg or 640lbs. The body is made almost completely of carbon fiber. ( it is unpainted)It was designed to use one liter of fuel to travel 100km and actually ended up using between 0.89 and 1 liter. This is equivilant to 264mpg. The engine is only used when the accelerator pedal is depressed, all other times the engine is off. The car also uses braking to reclaim some of the losses due to friction and uses braking to charge the battery. Here is a good website about it. http://www.greatchange.org/footnotes-1-liter-car.html

 

The bottom line is, if people demanded that MPG go up into the stratosphere, the manufacturers would have invested money into researching ways to do it. Since the SUV boom almost 10 years ago, it doesn't really seem like anyone's interested, does it? Besides, nothing is "free", especially new technology....how many people are willing to have thousands of dollars added to the sticker price of their vehicle (which we all agree is high enough to begin with) to fund the R&D for cars that get 100 MPG?

 

MPG averages will increase when gas gets expensive enough to significantly hurt people in their pocketbook. At that point, automakers will find a way to make vehicles more efficient.

Money talks. Everything else just whispers.

 

Bingo!!! When market forces push gas to $7 gallon, you'll see the industry respond.

Until then its a non issue, unless you want Govt to artificially inflate the price with excessive taxation, which would be a disaster.

I think the market has responded quite well and pretty quickly to the gas price spikes of the last 2 years. I'm plesantly suprised at the efficiency and speed at which they can bring products to the showroom in response. So in all reality I don't see a need for alarmism (which is a hobby for some around here) when throughout history any time there has been an energy shortage--whether it be whale oil, coal in the UK in the 1800s, or fears of deforestation in colonial America rendering fireplaces cold and empty--human ingenuity and the marketplace have always responded efficiently, in time, and successfully.

 

The funny thing about everyone who's venting about big SUVs and mileage standards and oh-my-god-the-world-will-end-if-SOMEBODY-doesn't-do-something-about-it is this:

If it wasn't for busybody nannyasses, we probably wouldn't HAVE SUVs.

Fact: when times are good, most Americans like big cars.
Fact: some bunch of socialist nutbags passed legislation mandating corporate average fuel economy (for cars), which gutted the big luxo-barges that we had in the past
Fact: people who wanted large cars found that their only real option was a truck-derived SUV, so that's what they bought
Fact: manufacturers noticed this, so they made more, rejoicing in the fact that they could build large vehicles again without being hamstrung by CAFE

So, you kill the barges, you get SUVs. Because the market dictates.

Legislate SUVs and high-horsepower cars out of the market, and who knows what kind of fallout there would be. Perhaps Peterbuilt WOULD start building smaller, high-horsepower, "Sport-Haulers" that could slip through the legislative loopholes since they were neither car nor SUV. And then maybe everyone WOULD start driving Peterbilts.

Farfetched? Maybe. But if you told someone in 1985 that Cadillac would be producing a vehicle with a CARGO BED, they would have laughed you off the face of the planet.

Bottom line: don't demand that SOMEONE do SOMETHING. Because that something means legislation. And that means more government intervention. And that means less freedom--and more unpredictable results, like SUVs.

 

What I find offensive is that we are being told we don't know better than to buy evil SUVs and that our buying preferences are somehow wrongheaded and immoral.

I am all for increasing MPG of automobiles across the board. I think if the consumer demands it loudly enough he will get it, with our without Govt meddling.

We have all these hybrids on the market today w/o govt meddling, don't we? CAFE has NOT been increased and we are still getting efforts from automakers to improve MPG through better technology and innovation.

But I find it arrogant that some suggest that buying public is too stupid to make good choices about what they buy, and that therefore the nanny state should regulate things more closely so as to produce the desired outcome. Who gets to choose what outcome that is? These people think we have to be protected from ourselves.

Give consumers a choice, give them all the info, and let them make their decision. The market always finds equillibrium if you don't screw around with it.

 

Ahh, GREAT point! I hate to turn this into a political argument of sorts....but these are the same kinds of tree-hugging wackos that insist we rely less on foreign oil.....yet WON'T allow us to explore and drill for our own here, WON'T allow us to build more refineries to make the process of getting gasoline to the pumps more efficient.....That is the problem of being well-intentioned but not thinking things through....

I always have to laugh at Hollywood stars who buy Priuses and tell us all we should too in order to help the environment and save energy....as they pull into their 10 car garage and walk into their 20,000 square foot mansion that they have to keep heated and cooled. Yep you're helping a lot, hypocrite!