http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe...uvs/index.html


Looks like some TrailBlazer variant?

 

Isuzu Ascender(sp)

 

Isuzu's rebadged Envoy

 

The REALLY REALLY REALLY annoying thing is that Isuzu gives a warranty on GM's product that is more than TWICE AS LONG as the one GM gives on it's own product!



http://www.isuzu.com/ascender5_compare.jsp

 

That is freakin' rediculous. I'd buy the Ascender then put the GMC envoy grill on it. Sheesh. What dumb packaging.

 

Don't know how much Isuzu will come off , but I'd be willing to buy it under the Japanese nameplate just for the warranty.


Wonder why Ford & GM never followed Dodge's lead there ?


Britt

 

Kinda off the topic here but this is rediculous:

"Denis Baupin, a leading Green party councilor who tabled the resolution, says the designer jeeps are "not suited to towns" and he could not understand why people drove the fashionable "off-roaders."

"They're polluters, they're space-occupiers, they're dangerous for pedestrians and other road users. They're a caricature of a car."

Deputy Mayor Baupin said Wednesday that the resolution could lead to a ban on the increasingly popular vehicles in about 18 months if it is included in an overall project to improve traffic flow in the city.

"We have no interest in having SUVs in the city. They're dangerous to others and take up too much space, " he said on Europe 1 radio."

Of course the French wouldnt understand why people do stuff (btw, I'm mostly French backround here so pardon my home-bashing for a second), they never have! BAH! France irritates me more and more with their ridiculous thinking. Anyone see how they're gonna spend lots of $$$ to build a HUGE bridge over a tiny river? Their intentions are good (filtering traffic out of a heavily congested area and connecting two major roadways) but their execution is ridiculous with tons of money being wasted. Now they wanna tell people what they can and cant drive in what areas. I know city streets all around Europe are much smaller than here, but c'mon, if the person wants to and is capable of driving the "bigger than normal" vehicle in tight spaces then let them!

/rant mode off/

Anyhow, I agree Darth, that warranty thing is kinda bogus.

 

Seems some of the Brits are equally as oppressive to things they dont like:

"The proposal, certain to be opposed by motoring groups, follows similar remarks by the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, who in May month described SUVs as "bad for London -- completely unnecessary" and called their owners "complete idiots."

Sorry to babble on about non-5th gen related stuff but with the way Europe seems to be moving in the automotive arena, I'm proud and thankful we live in the good ole USA

 

...eh...I agree with them... Their unneccesary polluters and most drivers of these vehicles don't know how to drive them correctly.

 

I wish the government, insurance companies, and oil companies would do what they did to the muscle car in the early 70s to the SUVs of today.
They are so totally irresponsible.

They are why gas prices are so high right now.

Demand for fuel goes up; mysteriously, supply goes down, and wham! Prices go up.

If people started driving more efficient vehicles, demand would drop, supplies would go up, and the price of gas would drop.

Oil companies are charging what they are charging right now because people are buying fuel and not hesitating at the prices they are currently at.
I wonder what the price is when people say enough is enough and put away their SUVs?

 

You could say that about any car over 250HP too

I feel bad for the people that really need and uses SUVs and trucks, remember not everyone is a yuppy soccer mom with a household income of over $200,000.

 

Not really... 250+HP with 30 MPG certainly doesn't rank up there in poluters IMHO. SUV's with 250+HP and 14 MPG whos owners actually only NEED once every year or so but use as a daily driver counts as an unneccesary poluter, to me.

And I think this is only applying to SUVs, not trucks. If the SUV people actually need all that space and offroad ability (very seldom) then they can just trade in for a truck or they alreaddy own a truck so they won't have to worry about it.

 

I'm just affraid all this anti-SUV stuff will hurt those that have a legit need for pickup and that use their pickups. Remeber pickups use just about as much gas and pickups are very popular in rural areas. Rural people generally make less money and need to drive more so by raising gas prices your hurting them more than the urban SUV driver that doesn't need a vehicle that big.

The solution: Make cooler cars so people will want to drive them over a bling blinged SUV

 

AAAANDD... it also saves you 2-3k off MSRP. makes sense. NOT. of course, the Chevy/GMC variants probably knock about that off with incentives and rebates anyway. oh GM... hope someone out there still loves you...

 

The problem with gas is that it's (almost) perfectly inelastic. What that means is that demand of gas does not increase / decrease with price change - the demand is roughly the same (provided price increase is not outrageous relative to income). It's like diabetic and insulin - even if the price is high, the diabetic will still buy it.

If people started driving more efficient vehicles, it would have to be on a mass scale to result in any drastic effects. A lot of fuel goes to transportation industry (airplanes, trucks, buses). Then you have people driving vans out of necessity. Or driving SUVs out of want.

The percentage who would go to smaller (or more efficient) cars is not that great, IMO.

What we need is other players to enter the oil market. When Venezuela started producing oil, eventually the prices dropped. An increase in price usually brings an increase in supply, and an increase in supply may create surplus, which equals reduction in price.