Anti SUV site

[NRG = mc²]

About time someone made one...

http://poseur.4x4.org

Read on!

 

[jtr1962]

Too bad it's only a satire. I really wish legislators would actively try to discourage people ffrom purchasing SUVs. This line from that page sums it up beautifully:

This regression in automotive technology is pathetic, and we hate to see this trend destroy the progress that cars have made.

Since the fuel crisis in the 1970's, I would have expected cars to continually get more fuel efficient and less polluting, and I actually thought by 2002 we would be running 100% electric cars, not 10 mpg SUVs. The people who purchase these vehicles are truly thoughtless, selfish, and inconsiderate of those who must breathe the crap coming from their exhausts. Even in the absense of electric cars, the technology exists to make drivable cars that get 80 to 100 mpg by using very streamlined bodies, ultra-low rolling resistance tires, and regenerative braking(which recovers the kinetic energy instead of dissipating it as heat). These things would more than pay for themselves in fuel savings alone, and I think it's silly that we haven't mandated them, and also classified SUVs as cars so they would not be exempt from existing fuel economy regulations.

Maybe you should post this on SR. I guarantee you Jason will be the first one to defend SUVs, probably on the basis of personal choice or styling(he actually thinks they look good). To me SUVs are an abomination that shouldn't even exist.

 

[NRG = mc²]

Same here.

I'm sure Jason would think they don't look that good up close... real close, as ones about to run you over!

my sister just ordered a VW Lupo turbodiesel that apparently does 99mpg, I'll test it next month and report :mrgrn: Should make for a range of around 1000 miles on a tankful.

 

[Handruin]

SUV's annoy me also. I read an interesting article a while back in a car magazine that said the speed limit should be determined based on the mass of your vehicle. This way, SUV would only be able to drive at 35 MPH where as a light car could go 100 MPH. I don't think the idea is practical, but I think they made their point.

I'm also annoyed at something else, which maybe others can shed better light on. Here in MA, we pay excise tax every year based on the value of your car. From what I gather, this money pays for road up keep and improvement. (and probably $10,000 toilet seats) The part that bothers me is that my car creates less wear on the road then SUV'S because my car doesn't weight 3 tons, produce far less pollution (Low emissions Vehicle certified), and is safer (debatable I'm sure)

I feel SUV's and large trucks should be taxed higher because they use more of the road then I do.

How do others feel about people owning an SUV or a truck when they have a specific use such as towing a heavy trailer? I'm not sure what to think about this. For example, my girlfriend’s folks are looking at getting a ford expedition to replace their explorer. They pull a camper maybe twice a year. I personally think it's a waste since it's such a large vehicle polluting even more then their explorer.

I then think about what I drive. My car has 260 HP which is far more then anyone needs to get from point A to point B. However, the manufacturer of my automobile made a considerable effort to reduce emissions, and conserve fuel. I average 25+ MPG, and the emissions tests don't even show when they check the exhaust for pollution. Am I being a hypocrite complaining about SUV's?

Ford expedition:
5.4-liter SOHC Triton optional engine
Fuel Economy (4x2/4x4) Highway: 18/17 City: 13/13

Acura CL-S
EPA Estimated Fuel Mileage* (city/highway)
5-Speed Automatic: 20/29 mpg

 

[Clocker]

Try pulling a boat or havling a little off-road fun with your little Acura...

I had a chance to drive the Cheif Engineer's H2 over the July shutdown. I must say, it was an experience. THe nice and torque plentiful 6.0L V8 gave excellent performance and the off-roading at a local construction site was incredible.

$20K PROFIT per vehicle (split 50/50 between AM General and GM). OK, the gas mileage kind of sucks (somewhere around 12MPG I guess, they don't advertise) but it is what the public wants....so they get it.

Maybe we should all be using low-power Cruseo processors, onboard graphics, and 2800RPM hard drives to save energy...

C

 

[timwhit]

The 1 gen Hummer is so much cooler than that new one, which is built on a Suburban frame. I heard somewhere that you can buy ones that were used by the army for around $12k, sounds like a deal to me...

I have a Wrangler which gets horrible gas mileage (12-15mpg) but offroading in it is truley awesome. The reasons that I bought the Jeep were to be able to go off roading, and take the top off. (I wish I had it on last night when it rained, seats got kinda wet).

I wouldn't buy a SUV if I wasn't going to drive it off road. But I don't like to consider the wrangler a SUV anyways, it is more of an ORV (Off-road vehicle).

It's not like my old car got any better mileage though (Mustang GT, 15mpg).

 

[SteveC]

My sister just bought a Pathfinder, although I don't know why. She's in sales, and has to drive all over, but I don't still don't see the need for an SUV. I know she'll never take it off road. Personally, I like small cars because you have a better feel of the road and have much better handling. My car also gets better gas mileage than her Pathfinder (20/25 vs. about 14/18), and it's a 14 year old sports car. The only thing I'm missing is the storage space, which I don't need very often.

Steve

 

[SteveC]

That should be 20/25 vs. 14/18.

Steve

 

[NRG = mc²]

Try pulling a boat (with your little acura)

Unless we're talking about yachts here he shouldn't have any problems. I know someone who tows a small boat with one of these:

http://cloggy.net/this_is_a_niva.html

something like 70 hp :-?

Sure, it takes 20+ seconds to 60 so imagine the performance with a boat but the Acura should be more than fine with 260hp.

 

[Tannin]

It could be worse. This little beauty:

cruised at 18 knots (about 35kmh) for maximum economy, had a top speed of 30 knots (60kmh), and over her long service life averaged a mere 200 gallons per mile.

 

[Cliptin]

Handruin, Try to convince her folks to rent an SUV twice a year. The cost analysis should be easy.

I would not be surprised if the the majority of people driving an SUV would benefit by renting for those few times a year they really need the torque. Off road vehicles should not be allowed on the streets. To clarify, I used to drive my Nissan sentra through creeks. It was not an offroad vehicle.

While lots of cars might have the torque to pull a heavy trailer, most cars frames could take neither the downward nor rearward forces. Lots of people buy them either to appear more rugged or safty [sic].

 

[Dozer]

I used to drive my Nissan sentra through creeks.

No really, he did--I was there.

And I must fess up...I own a 1996 Grand Cherokee, which I do take off road as often as I can. Backpacking, paddling, and mountain biking all sometimes take place in difficult to reach places, and the vehicle has made both transportation of gear and getting there all the more enjoyable. It is also one of the few vehicles that my 6'3" 230 lb. frame fits in comfortably.

However, I do agree with the statement that most SUV owners' vehicles never see the dirt. In this case, I feel that it is a waste of resources to purchase these vehicles for nothing more than image.

 

[Clocker]

Most people I know who buy SUVs are because they offer increased versatility with a lot of cargo room. Women like them because they give them a sense of safety and good visability as well. Most never see a trail in their lives but, as I said, people are willing to pay for them. I think it really is the size and visibility that make people feel safe and secure in them. WIth all the gridlock we have around here, nobody cares about handling etc. That just want to be able to see WTF is causing the freaking jam-up 2 miles ahead of them

NRG...I woulden't tow a goddam canoe with that POS

timwit-
Correction...the H2 is based off the 25-series GMT800 (PU/Utility)front/mid frame with reinforced version of the the 15-series rear frame. The modularity of the GMT800 frame system is one of the strengths of the platform which gives it tons of versatility and reduces cost. The 15-series frame was used in the rear because it gave us the ability to use the 5-link rear suspension for increased wheel travel/increased off-road performance. The 25-series is used in front for strength and durability. Interestingly enough, Range Rover was found to be best in class for off-roading and the H2 was designed to exceed the off-road capability of that vehicle in all respects.

Comparing the H1 to the H2 is a big mistake. THe H2 gives you about 75% of the capability of the off-road capability of the H1 (within reason) and much more than just about any buyer would use at a fraction of the H1 cost. Also, you don't have a stinkey, loud, hard to find fuel for diesel and steel bottomed seats to deal with that you get in the H1. Instead you get leather seating, satellite navigation, power everything, Onstar CD-Stereo and all the other pedestrian toys you could never get in a H1 without taking out a 2nd mortgage. You may think that the H1 is cooler but we already have every H2 planned for this year sold

It's funny, people were bidding 1000's of dollars on eBay just to get on the dealer's lists to be first to get one.

If you guys want something smaller, H3 will be out soon...

JMO

C

 

[Handruin]

Some one had a red H2 at the campground i was at this past week. then I saw a comercial for one right after I came home...weird. I'm surprised it even gets 12 MPG. My brother-in-law's dodge ram gets about that.

I would not pull a boat or go off ro...wait I did go off road this past week for camping. (my car isn't that little clocker) My car was dirty as hell too. I shoulda bought an SUV for the dirt road. I was making a big stink above, but I do understand some people have uses for SUV's.

 

[jtr1962]

I have one question about all this. I don't care how much people like SUVs, the simple fact is that they are irresponsible and the automakers should not be building them. If they didn't exist, people would buy something more sensible, and there is no reason at all why they should be exempt from the CAFE standards. That alone would force automakers to either make less of them, or do something to increase their efficiency. As far as getting them just for safety, there are better means of protecting people in an accident than just making a vehicle heavier, and the very fact that they weigh more no doubt increases the damage they do to whatever they hit. Fact is, if you're that worried about safety, maybe you should stick to the bus or subway. Given the way most SUV owners drive, this would be a good thing, and nothing's safer in a collision than a nice 450 ton subway train(except a large ship).

In this day and age, no new car should get less than 80 mpg city, 100 mpg highway. How? 0.12 drag coefficient, ultra-low rolling resistance tires, and regenerative braking. Regenerative braking can be done by replacing the current transmission with an alternator on the engine and electric motors to drive the wheels. When braking, the motors would act as generators and charge up either a large capacitor or battery. When accelerating again, this burst of stored energy would be available. Since this storage system would eliminate the need to have huge peak engine outputs just for occasionally bursts of acceleration, the engine output could be reduced to ~30 HP, which would actually be enough to cruise at 110+ mph in such a light, streamlined vehicle. The costs of these new systems would be made up for in fuel savings over the life of the car. It's a damned shame the auto makers are not very forward thinking, but have been giving us the same old technology wrapped in new sheet metal every year. Well, they do seem to stick ever more electronic gadgets on cars each year, but that's about it.

 

[Clocker]

You make it sound so simple and easy. Do you have any experience working in the automotive industry, whatsoever? Do you have any idea how much investment you are talking about for minimal return? Do you think the automakers and their shareholders are in business to do what is what you feel is socially responsible or do you think they got into it to make money? If it were you're money, could you justify makeing the huge investments involved without having any expected return? The American public could care less how efficient their cars are because of the cheap gas we have here. If gas was $5 per gallon the public would start to notice but until that happens gas mileage is basically an afterthought for most consumers.

The bottom line is, the automotive business as a whole is a very low margin business. Very low...less that 6% overall. The technologies you mention are interesting but are not practical from a cost standpoint. If the public really wanted them and were willing to pay the premium they would cost today they might fly but they are not. Give it a few years... we have parallel hybrid electric/gas vehicles (full-size trucks no less) coming out in 1-2 years.

Jumping into technologies like than on a large scale demands a lot of capital and development that the highly competitive auto industry would have to reject because of the increased prices and lost sales they would cause. Some greenies out there would scramble to buy and electric vehicle but they are a very small portion of the market.

C

 

[Tea]

There is a simple method. Breathtakingly simple, and very, very effective. All you do is you tax petroleum products. You adjust the level of taxation however high you need to achieve the desired fuel efficiency improvements. You don't bring it in all at once, you phase it in over several years: 10% this year, 20% next year, and so on. That way you avoid the worst of the political backlash, and you avoid the massive economic dislocations of any sudden change. (Remember the "oil shocks" of the Seventies, that buggered up the world economy for the best part of ten years?)

Most civilised countries have done this long since. Even Australia - ever a backward child, the runt of the Protestant white industrial world, forever hanging onto the tail end of trends that more advanced nations started years before - introduced this under the Fraser Government in 1975. It was a great success. Alas, it was abandoned in a foolish, short-sighted attempt to buy a few votes by the Howard Government just a few years ago - to our considerable cost.

You need do nothing other than this. Market forces (your enemy if you are trying to achieve progress by regulation) become your friend. Detroit and its marketing people are doing your work for you. Detroit likes the rules, or at least tolerates them, because they have the opportunity to know what products will be in demand in five years time, and plan their production accordingly. And, because you have all those fuel-tax dollars rolling in, more every year, you can spend more on defence, or cut taxes, or balance your budget, or whatever else it is you want to do with the money.

As fringe benefits, you are decreasing your dependance of foreign oil suppliers (which means you can spend less on defence, because you don't have to go marching into the Persian Gulf every ten years with your F-15s blazing); reduce your foreigh exchange bill (because you are no longer having to buy all that expensive foreign oil); spend less on health care (because you have cleaner air and cleaner water and quite possibly fewer road accidents); you are making no restriction at all on your citizens: they remain perfectly free to buy and drive gas guzzling SUVs and limos if they want to, you are simply requiring them to pay more of the true cost of their lifestyle choice; and finally your economy becomes more efficient and more productive (because you have reorganised your up-front direct costs to more accurately reflect the true underlying cost structures).

It's a no-brainer.

Alas, in a country stupid enough to elect an oil-company executive to the highest office in the land, it is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

 

[NRG = mc²]

NRG...I woulden't tow a goddam canoe with that POS

Actually don't laugh but its off road abilities are enough to shame probably every other off road SUV built except for a handful (hummer, land rover, landcruiser etc), and it costs around $8000!

Obviously of anything off road its horrible, slow, truckulent and unreliable but its actually not that bad if you use it exclusively for off road, even if riding in it makes you think you're in a 1940s Willys jeep, all taht vibration its amazing it doesnt fall apart :roll:

 

[Pradeep]

Most civilised countries have done this long since. Even Australia - ever a backward child, the runt of the Protestant white industrial world, forever hanging onto the tail end of trends that more advanced nations started years before - introduced this under the Fraser Government in 1975. It was a great success. Alas, it was abandoned in a foolish, short-sighted attempt to buy a few votes by the Howard Government just a few years ago - to our considerable cost.

Are you reffering to the end of the auto increase in the petrol excise to correspond with the CPI? That excise was a tax on a tax, a frigging disgrace and should have been removed a long time ago. I thank jebus every day that I don't live in the UK with their insane 300% tax on petrol.

 

[Tea]

A tax on a tax? What on earth are you talking about?

The more expensive we make petrol, the better for our current account deficit, our air, our roads, the faster we develop better, cleaner fuels, and the longer it preserves our fast dwindling reserves of oil. In the longer-term, it helps place us in a position to take advantage of the inevitable world swing to non-hydrocarbon fuels by virtue of having our own expertise to sell. The now fast-dropping tax on fuel was the best thing the Fraser Government ever did. Howard's panic-stricken dropping of it was a disgrace.

 

[NRG = mc²]

He's right about the tax on tax and how much we pay for fuel...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/2000/world_fuel_crisis/933648.stm

But now LPG is becoming more widespread, the government partly funding the conversion of cars to it, and with its price and much reduced consumption it makes more and more sense.

 

[Clocker]

I have a problem with idea of proposing additional taxes as the solution to any problem. There is already too much waste and abuse in our government and tax systems. I see collecting additional taxes as just throwing more fuel (no pun intended) on that fire.

I’d much rather see significant tax incentivesgiven to either the automakers or consumers to encourage the development and use of alternate fuel sources, respectively. Since consumers are the ones really driving demand, I think tax incentives to them would be more effective. In the beginning, the incentives would need to be large and the effort would need to be coordinated with both the manufacturers and consumers. But, as a market for the new products develops and economies of scale take over, the incentives could be limited to consumers only and eventually, eliminated.

 

[Tea]

1: LPG is a hydrocarbon. It's easier to get a clean burn with LPG, but more expensive to make vechicles to use it, and to transport it, and incredibly dangerous from the point of view of a 911-style attack. A shipload of LPG going off in New York harbour would make the Hiroshima bomb look like a cigarette lighter. These problems aside, it remains a diminishing resource, and a drain n the nation's coffers (unless you happen to be sitting on large gas deposits, in which cases you have a short-term gain just so long as there is some left - which won't be forever.

But no matter how you wrap it, it's still a fast-diminishing resource and the more we use of it, the worse our climatic problems become. Sure, petrol is worse than LPG, and coal is worse still, but ... hey ... don't you guys read the papers? Floods in China, floods in Europe, black cloud over Asia, drought in Australia ... and you want to make this worse?

LPG use in Australia is higher than in most ofther countries in the worlds. This is because (a) we happen to have quite a lot of it, and (b) because we had the good sese to tax it, but less heavily than petrol, so that for people who do ~50,000k a year, LPG is cheaper (after you account for the cost of conversion). Fuel taxes work.

2: So don't add an additional tax, and for God's sake don't start one of those laybrinthine tax incentive schemes. Get rid of a few useless taxes - half a dozen or so - and replace them with one, simple petrol tax. You will make enough out of the fuel tax to be able to abolish several other taxes that do no social good (bar raise revenue).

If there is one thing that we, as Western econimies, have learned over the last 30 or 40 years, it's that, so long as it is possible to let free-enterprise market forces regulate an activity, then they are the most efficient and effective possible way to regulate that activity. You need one tax, collected centrally (i.e., in a very efficient way with minimal wasted effort on paperwork), and what's more, it's a voluntaryy tax: you want to pay less tax, you just drive a more fuel-efficient vechicle. Or take a train. You want to pay zero tax? Easy: you just get yourself a vehicle that doesn't burn fossil fuels.

An incentive scheme is a really good way to reduce unemployment though. You will be creating lots of well-paid positions for public servants, inspectors, tax accountants, lawyers, judges ....

 

[NRG = mc²]

Why would there be a shipload of LPG in new york in the first place? :-?

Don't pipelines bringing the stuff in from other countries already exist? Also, the LPG systems and tanks are tested to an extent that if done to regular petrol tanks would see them all failing there and then... or so they say.

Sure, its a diminishing resource and still does pollute the environment but since it can be put to use without any major changes to the engine or complications, its a middle step till something better is done.

 

[Tannin]

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

Speaking as someone who does pay $5 a gallon for petrol and some I think that is the only way to stop the gas-guzzlers. I hate paying it, but it sure as hell makes you think about what car to buy. We also pay a graduated car tax on new cars depending on their emissions. Another cool idea. There are no mainstream 6 litre engines on our roads. No bull bars before much longer. We can't afford to be trendy, and neither can the planet.

 

[jtr1962]

Do you think the automakers and their shareholders are in business to do what is what you feel is socially responsible or do you think they got into it to make money?

It's not what I feel is socially responsible, it's what must be done, period. Do you have any idea of the health costs caused by pollution, the damage acid rain causes to structures, the aggravation(road rage) caused by the sheer number of vehicles on the road? Truth be told, I would rather see everybody take public transportation, but since the US appears unwilling to subsidize rail and mass transit instead of roads and airlines, the next best thing would be 100 mpg cars. I've had this pollution argument many times here and at SR, and there does appear to be widespread support for vehicles that are less polluting.

If it were you're money, could you justify makeing the huge investments involved without having any expected return? The American public could care less how efficient their cars are because of the cheap gas we have here. If gas was $5 per gallon the public would start to notice but until that happens gas mileage is basically an afterthought for most consumers.

Well, Tannin hit the nail on the head. Phase in a $5/gallon gas tax just like the ones that exist in nearly every other developed country. It will make drivers pay the true cost of their driving, discourage production of SUVs, get more people into public transportation, and all the other benefits he mentioned. The things I mentioned would more than pay for themselves in fuel savings even at current gas prices, and the cars could be sold on that basis. How hard or expensive is it to put an alternator and four electric motors on a car, and make the required control electronics? Give me a budget of a few tens of thousands of dollars, and I could do it in six months in my driveway. I'm sure a good engineering team would be able to make a production prototype within a year. The fact is that the automakers aren't doing this because they're too short sighted to realize there would be a huge market for this type of vehicle. Many Americans care enough about the environment to buy such a vehicle if it existed. And what is the reason that all new vehicles don't have a very low drag coefficient? This is just styling, and since they change the styling every few years anyway, might as well make it more aerodynamic. That is probably what annoys me most about SUVS, wasting all that energy to push through the air(which makes them noisier to boot).

The bottom line is, the automotive business as a whole is a very low margin business. Very low...less that 6% overall. The technologies you mention are interesting but are not practical from a cost standpoint. If the public really wanted them and were willing to pay the premium they would cost today they might fly but they are not. Give it a few years... we have parallel hybrid electric/gas vehicles (full-size trucks no less) coming out in 1-2 years.

Aren't most businesses low margin? Outside of the music industry, where it costs $0.20 to make a CD that retails for $20, I'm hard pressed to think of many businesses that aren't low margin. The costs of these technologies would pay for themselves in fuel savings alone, and from a driveability standpoint I'm amazed an alternator/motor combination was used years ago in heavy trucks. The acceleration would be superior, and no need to bother shifting through 22 gears to reach highway speed. A complex mechanical transmission has got to cost more than an alternator/motor. If they finally are making full-size hybrid trucks in a few years, then I'm glad but it is long overdue. The technology to do that has existed since the diesel locomotive, which was first produced in the 1940's.

BTW, the last fuel crisis was in the early 1970s. I remember it well, and I thought that would finally be the push to get us away from the internal combustion engine for good. The auto makers have had 30 years to make a better vehicle, and they haven't. The handling, gas mileage, and noise of an SUV would make even a 1960s automobile blush.

Jumping into technologies like than on a large scale demands a lot of capital and development that the highly competitive auto industry would have to reject because of the increased prices and lost sales they would cause. Some greenies out there would scramble to buy and electric vehicle but they are a very small portion of the market.

The automakers aren't solely to blame. If a certain fuel economy was mandated into law(say 65 mpg minimum average fuel economy), SUVs were lumped into that, and we had a $5/gallon gas tax, it would make economic sense for the automakers to invest the R&D to make those types of vehicles. And there would be a huge market for electric vehicles right now in cities like New York were people mainly use cars on short errands, especially if the cars used solar panels to recharge the batteries. Just think what a selling point that would be-a car that costs nothing in fuel or electric to run, and recharges in the parking lot. In fact, I think the City Council is currently trying to get legislation passed to mandate zero emissions vehicles in NYC by 2010, so in a few years you might need an electric car just to drive into New York City, and perhaps a number of West Coast cities as well.

 

[Tannin]

There was a team from the University of Queensland that made an electric car a few years ago. They drove it from Cairns to Perth (That's about the same distance as from Boston to LA.) It cist them $55,000 to build the car (about twice the price of an ordinary six-cylnder family car), and only $25 for the electricity to take the car and four passengers all the way to Perth. But the idea never took off, because it cost them $980,000 for the 3000 mile extension cord.

 

[jtr1962]

1: LPG is a hydrocarbon. It's easier to get a clean burn with LPG, but more expensive to make vechicles to use it, and to transport it, and incredibly dangerous from the point of view of a 911-style attack. A shipload of LPG going off in New York harbour would make the Hiroshima bomb look like a cigarette lighter. These problems aside, it remains a diminishing resource, and a drain n the nation's coffers (unless you happen to be sitting on large gas deposits, in which cases you have a short-term gain just so long as there is some left - which won't be forever.

Exactly, especially as regards the first point. LPG may not produce the noxious emissions of gasoline or diesel fuel, but it still produces CO2. While global warming due to CO2 is a source of debate, the other disadvantages you mentioned of using LPG are valid enough not to phase in its widespread use. Right now, I would say hydrogen is the best bet for the future(exhaust is pure water), but there are loads of problems with storing and transporting it, and unless you use nuclear generated electricity to make it, you are still creating pollution, just in the power plant instead of on the road. As I said before in other threads, I really hope fusion is viable sometime in the next decade. I just don't see that anything else will save our collective asses from the mess we're making of the planet.

 

[jtr1962]

But the idea never took off, because it cost them $980,000 for the 3000 mile extension cord.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

(Sorry about the cheap way to up my post count, but I thought this was funny without adding any comments of my own)

 

[Clocker]

jtr-

I guess well just have to agree to disagree on this one I think you are grossly over-simplifying the problem without considering all the performance, durability, customer pleasability, and what the mass market really wants. Personally, I have a lot of insight into the vehicle development, testing and validation processes required to create a vehicle that performs as intended and is safe for the public to use. You can't do it in your garage.

A move to alternative fuels is coming but it is taking time. Battery technology sucks. Hell, you can't even buy a battery that can power a laptop for a reasonable amount of time let alone have a vehicle pull around 500-1000 pounds of them for any reasonable distance. For economies of scale to really be effective, future alternative fuel or electric vehicles need to cater to the needs of more than the niche market you are referring to (when you look at all the $ investment required for tooling for new designs, shutting down plants, retraining workers, etc. the market is too small to justify.)

The next big step will have to be in the area of fuel-cells and that is where GM is going in the future. Infact, I see a lot of openings is Powertrain right now for that very reason...Most automakers are already making great progress with fuel-cell vehicles. An electric/fuel cell hybrid will probaly be one of the innovations we see coming out of this trend.

We will get there and I agree with you...we need to get away from these fossil fuels. But, the customer base needs to demand it or not be affected by the change. I don't think a tax is the right way spur demand but that is neither here nor there. One thing is for sure in my mind, if the future vehicles we're talking have reduced functional performance and capability then their old-school gas engine brothers that will cost less and perform better...they won't do well. There can be no loss is performance or increase in price because the customers will just go to the cheaper, better performing brand resulting in lost sales for the pioneering company. If they can make the transition with the customer not noticing, they will have a sure winner on their hands. Otherwise there will have to be some large incentives added to the mix to give people a reason to want them.

Just my 2cents. Peace.
C

 

[cas]

If there is one thing that we, as Western econimies, have learned over the last 30 or 40 years, it's that, so long as it is possible to let free-enterprise market forces regulate an activity, then they are the most efficient and effective possible way to regulate that activity.

The more expensive we make petrol ... the longer it preserves our fast dwindling reserves of oil.

Surely you know enough about market forces to recognize that we don't have to make a fast dwindling resource expensive.

If you truly believe that it is fast dwindling, let it run out.

The market will ensure that all of your alternative energy fantasies come true.

 

[Pradeep]

A tax on a tax? What on earth are you talking about?

The more expensive we make petrol, the better for our current account deficit, our air, our roads, the faster we develop better, cleaner fuels, and the longer it preserves our fast dwindling reserves of oil. In the longer-term, it helps place us in a position to take advantage of the inevitable world swing to non-hydrocarbon fuels by virtue of having our own expertise to sell. The now fast-dropping tax on fuel was the best thing the Fraser Government ever did. Howard's panic-stricken dropping of it was a disgrace.

Tony no taxes have been removed from petrol. There was an automatic increase in the excise (tax), I believe every 6 months. This has been abolished (and rightly so, it was increasing at a far greater rate than the CPI). I believe it also had to do with the fact that petrol was more expensive under the GST than before it.

Clocker: I believe GM is setting up a new fuel cell facility in Rochester, next to their old research lab.

 

[jtr1962]

jtr-

I guess well just have to agree to disagree on this one I think you are grossly over-simplifying the problem without considering all the performance, durability, customer pleasability, and what the mass market really wants. Personally, I have a lot of insight into the vehicle development, testing and validation processes required to create a vehicle that performs as intended and is safe for the public to use. You can't do it in your garage.

Fair enough. I suggested that I could build something that works in my garage. It would take a design team and massive R&D $ to make something that could be mass produced. Regarding what the public wants, I tend to think the general public is easily influenced, so the automakers(and other businesses) make the general public want what they produce through marketing rather than the other way around. If the automakers had stressed total cost of ownership rather than just purchase price, maybe consumers would care more about fuel economy. If you break the figures down, most people are intelligent enough to see that a $40,000 hybrid vehicle will cost them less over the lifetime of the vehicle than a $20,000 SUV. 200,000 miles at 10 mpg is ~$30,000 for fuel costs(@$1.50/gallon) while the same at 80 mpg is $3,750. Bingo, the hybrid ends up costing $6,250 less(and I purposely used a rather ridiculously high purchase price for the hybrid). Add in a few tax incentives and the picture is even better. Instead of stressing such performance parameters as 0 to 60(which is mostly meaningless once it is under 20 seconds for normal driving), maybe more relevant figures might be mpg, range(look how far you can go between fill-ups with even a 10 gallon tank at 100 mpg), and sustainable top speed(relevant on long trips, especially if we make our speed limits more sensible). Using these types of performance measures, current SUVs are a joke.

The simple fact is, having to choose between vehicles, I would pick one where my total cost of ownership is less. I don't really see any other criteria as relevant. Vehicle A won't get me to my destination faster than vehicle B due to traffic and/or traffic cops. Getting to 60 2 seconds faster will save a negligible amount of trip time. These are the rational ways I think the general public could be made to use when choosing a vehicle. It's all marketing, as it is with any business.

A move to alternative fuels is coming but it is taking time. Battery technology sucks. Hell, you can't even buy a battery that can power a laptop for a reasonable amount of time let alone have a vehicle pull around 500-1000 pounds of them for any reasonable distance. For economies of scale to really be effective, future alternative fuel or electric vehicles need to cater to the needs of more than the niche market you are referring to (when you look at all the $ investment required for tooling for new designs, shutting down plants, retraining workers, etc. the market is too small to justify.)

I know batteries stink, but they are perfectly viable for short distance errand vehicles. Maybe I'm not just thinking about changing the vehicles we drive, but also how we get around. The niche I see for cars is short distance errands, getting to/from railway park-and-ride, etc. Honestly, any trip more than 10 or 20 miles is best made by rail, so frankly I just see little need to worry about designing cars to go hundreds of miles when we should be building a national high-speed rail network for that. Once such a network exisited, as it does in Europe, why would anyone want to drive 500 miles when they car park their car, get near their destination in 3 hours, and then rent another car for the last few miles? So that's actually where I think we should be heading-cars as short distance shuttles and for running errands.

We will get there and I agree with you...we need to get away from these fossil fuels. But, the customer base needs to demand it or not be affected by the change. I don't think a tax is the right way spur demand but that is neither here nor there. One thing is for sure in my mind, if the future vehicles we're talking have reduced functional performance and capability then their old-school gas engine brothers that will cost less and perform better...they won't do well. There can be no loss is performance or increase in price because the customers will just go to the cheaper, better performing brand resulting in lost sales for the pioneering company. If they can make the transition with the customer not noticing, they will have a sure winner on their hands. Otherwise there will have to be some large incentives added to the mix to give people a reason to want them.

Glad to hear you agree about getting rid of fossil fuels. I think nearly everyone is with me on that, it's a matter of how do we get to there from here.

Well, we can certainly make the transition performance wise with fuel cell vehicles. Overall, though, I'm not really sure how much better that would be for the environment since I heard these will not be the hydrogen fuel cells NASA uses, but at least the car itself won't pollute. I think for various reasons the public must start driving less. Putting aside the pollution issue, I also consider traffic congestion to be a major annoyance as both a pedestrian and cyclist. The public can and should be made to use cars only for what they do best-short and intermediate distance trips in suburban and rural areas. Longer trips are best done by rail, and as far as I'm concerned, cars have no place at all in large cities like New York which already have compreshensive mass transit systems. I'm 39 and I've never had a license or car, and don't feel any the worse for it. In fact, an interesting statistic is that over 50% of the voting age population in New York City doesn't have a driver's license. I remember after 9/11 the National Guard was asking many people for driver's licenses as ID and were dumbfounded that many people didn't have one.

Just my 2cents. Peace.
C

Thanks. Same to you. I'm just trying to get across an alternative view point. Take it or leave it. I'm glad we're keeping the discussion civil as with that tax thread you started. If this were SR, Jason probably would have posted about 20 times to me in defense of SUVs.

 

[Clocker]

Yeah...SF is a great place and I'm glad to be able to chat with people like you and everybody else in this thread.

Kudos to NRG for starting a good one!

C

 

[Tea]

Yes we do have to make it expensive, Cas. The reason is that, like all non-renewable resouces, there is a more-or-less unlimited supply until there isn't an unlimited supply any more, and the transition happens very suddenly. The market takes its pricing from the balance between the cost of supply and demand. While the supply cost remains near enough to zero (and in this context the few cents it costs to pump oil out of the ground is almost zero) there normal economic balance does not work. We can only do one of two things: (a) use government regulation of oil consumption - which is clumsy, expensive, and not very effective, or (b) make the cost of oil behave more like the cost of all normal (i.e., renewable) resources.

Let's say the people of America take it into their heads to eat lots and lots of bananas. (I'm an expert on bananas, as you know.) What happens? Bananas become hard to get, so the banana farmers put up their prices and the fruit vendors pay the extra because they know they can still sell them at a profit because every American wants to eat more bananas and will pay as much as it takes. So the banana farmers put in more palms in their spare bits of land (the marginal bits, that aren't perfect plots for bananas but will do at a pinch). These plots cost more to work, and are not as productive, and we see the idea of marginal cost in operation. If the demand is strong enough, we see tomato farmers switching over to bananas, we even see people building hothouses in Maine to grow bananas if all the land in Florida is used. Eventually the ever increasing volume of and cost of production reaches a balance with demand, and the price stabilises.

With non-renewable resources, this doesn't apply. We just go on mindlessly sucking more and more of our children's oil out of the earth, and then, one day in the not too distant future, it is suddenly very difficult to find enough oil to satisfy demand. Because oil is such a critical part of our economies, the suddenly skyrocketing oil price is terribly, terribly destructive. (Anyone who doubs that has a very short memory: go look up "oil shock" on Google - the twin oil shocks of the Seveties, when the producing nations decided to take control of their pricing, rather than accept that the foreginers pumping up thir natural resources could do so for whatever price they felt like dislocated Western economies for a decade. It's only been in the last ten years that our economies and our inflation rates have recovered. You want to do that again?

In the meantime, because of the artifically low price of oil, we have no incentive to use it more wisely, let alone develop alternative technologies. While the price of oil fails to reflect its value, alternative fuels will indeed remain fantasies. Push the price up (by easy stages) to something resembling its true value, and alternative technologies will pop up all by themselves. That's how markets work.

Finally, the longer we continue to mindlessly consume fossil fuels, the worse we make our climate problems. Don't you guys read the papers?

 

[Tannin]

PS: Oil is a capital asset. You know what happens to enterprises that make a habit of living on their capital. They go broke. Anyone know of a good planet nearby? This one is fucked.

 

[Tannin]

Please excuse Tea. She posted under my name by mistake.

By the way, Tea, if you find that planet you are looking for, be sure to let me know about it.

 

[Cliptin]

I was considering purchasing an HEV for my next car. These are some of the links I thought were helpful.

http://www.ott.doe.gov/hev/
http://www.insightcentral.net/
http://www.insightcentral.net/registry.mv?action=ListLifetime
http://www.portev.org/solectria/ho/index.htm
http://www.solectria.com/products/accomp.html
http://advanceguard.dhs.org/conversion/ConversionStart.htm

You can always get a second vehicle for seat-of-the-pants driving. Under 20 second 0-60 time is unacceptable for highway driving. 0-60 in 9s is acceptable.

 

[Cliptin]

cas, I had been thinking this for some time but was not willing to go out on a limb fo rthe idea.

Tannin, You seem to presume that we(the people of earth) will daftly and suddenly forget how much oil supply there is in the world. The "oil shock" that you speak of seems to have been caused by a sudden decision and sudden change. I presume there are plenty of people looking at the problem. The list is probably topped by oil companies.

PS. I assume there are also mid-east political implications for reducing oil consumption. Won't some nations be upset at being reduced to having no resources of international value. Best I can tell the only folks in that region who have resources outside of oil and tourism is Israel and India.