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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
If I ever buy an SUV out of fear, I guess the terrorists really will have won.
It's your fellow Americans who drive like maniacs you need to worry about. And who drive while yapping on cellphones, applying makeup and fiddling with the 6 disc CD player. They kill about 15 times more people each year than were killed in all US terror attacks combined.
Let's not forget the police who do nothing about it except show up on holiday weekends doing seatbelt checks. Maybe they're too busy looking for signs of "real" terrorism.
Any casual research would lead one to conclude that it's really not rocket science to make cars even fairly large ones to have 35 or 40 or more mpg. And since the average new car price in the US last year was $30,000 it seems that people have the money to pay for it. Assuming the car companies don't try to rape everyone by doubling the price of a car for $1,000 engineering tweak.
Lest we forget that the difference in manufacturing cost between a Cadillac and a Chevy is less than the sales tax of the vehicle....? Which it is.
So I'll even grant them a 100% markup on the differential cost to make a mid sized car that gets 40mpg. Still leaves me wondering why they would refuse. And before anyone starts with conspiracies with oil - keep in mind that high fuel carrying costs don't give an advantage to the sales volumes for cars.
Perhaps the problem with the law is that it doesn't go far enough. Make it so that it forces ALL car companies not just American car companies to stretch. If foreign fleets get slightly better mileage today then a few mpg more is to their advantage. But if the gap was much further than that then Toyota (80% of their product line is trucks and SUV's now) and Honda and the rest would have no distinct advantage either way. And Detroit, doesn't have a credible excuse any longer. Everyone is in the same spot.
I was actually talking about highway terrorists. I've been driving since 1974, when we had the at-the-time smallest car on the road, a Ford Pinto. Then we moved up to a Chevy Citation. I've got a long history of riding small cars on increasingly aggressive American highways. So far I've never been the driver in an accident, and so far I've never regretted my decision. And so far, the only people I knew who were killed in accidents were in SUVs. When it comes right down to it, statistics aren't all that genuinely predictive of what is likely to happen to us as individuals. Being a careful, defensive driver is much more likely to ensure your safety than driving a gas guzzler.
Our Odyssey, which weighs 4300 lbs, gets 24-25 MPG at 80 MPH. That is not great gas mileage, but it is when you consider that it is carrying five people and lots of luggage. If I drove at 60 it would get 28-30. Gas would have to be $10 a gallon for that to happen. An SUV or pickup of the same weight and carrying capacity would get 10 MPG at 80 MPH. Why? It's called wind drag. The reason the Odyssey (and the Prius) get such good highway mileage (each for their size) is streamlining. At interstate speeds (75 here in Idaho) the hybrid nature of the Prius is not relevant, but the shape, narrow tires, etc, are.
I know that in a few years gas will be $10 a gallon, due to market forces. By then there will be lots of highly streamlined cars to buy, not necessarily hybrid, which is not very advantageous where there is no traffic. I'll buy one. BTW, it will probably have lots of horsepower and go from 0-60 in 6 seconds. And that have no effect on the gas mileage, because if all it takes is 40 HP to travel at 80 MPH, that is all the gas it will consume, whether the peak HP is 300 or 90.
>>it will probably have lots of horsepower and go from 0-60 in 6 seconds. And that have no effect on the gas mileage, because if all it takes is 40 HP to travel at 80 MPH, that is all the gas it will consume, whether the peak HP is 300 or 90.
Poppycock.
been driving since 1974
That's interesting. In 1974, the nearest highway to me was 2 lanes in either direction with a wide median of grass and bushes in between, and traffic lights every mile in towns and maybe every 5-10 miles outside of towns. Today, it's 4 lanes in either direction, no median, and no more traffic lights. Traffic lights been replaced by merges, so your average driver on the roadway is not used to slowing down every mile or so for a traffic light. Of course, back then I was able to play on the highway on Sunday afternoons while visiting with my grandparents, because there was virtually no traffic on weekends. The number of cars on the road was a fraction of today's traffic, as birth rate and immigration have greatly increased the population here and sprawl has wiped out the uninhabited areas between what used to be quaintly considered "towns."
So learning to drive on today's superhighways is not exactly what it was like in 1974, and new drivers have not had over 30 years on the roadways to get accustomed to increasing rates of traffic, daredevil behavior, travel unimpeded by stoplights and cellphone-chatting idiots. I know 7 people who have died, and three people who survived traffic accidents and were bankrupted by medical bills. None were in SUVs.
So it looks like your world and my world are different places. I won't presume to know your driving history and traffic conditions, and you won't even begin to understand mine.
I grew up in Chicago, and the first time I drove on my own I witnessed a fatal accident. My cousin died in a car crash in 1982. So I guess there were at least a few dangers associated with highways even back then.
--apparently more of a geezer than I knew
A gas tax would drive consumer behavior and create bottom up demand for more fuel efficient cars. Any manufacturer would have to respond to that or lose market share.
Regulations, such as CAFE, on the makers creates top down supply for which there may be little demand.
Taxes may distort the market, but not as much as the externalities of the war, environmental damage, national security, and all of the other things that are not paid for in the gas we purchase.
A gas tax would allow entrepreneurs and investors to start technology ventures to help solve some of these problems without their worrying that the oil producers will drop their price for just long enough to put them out of business (it has happened before).
A gas tax could be used to start paying for the war in Iraq (why else do we care about the middle east, but for oil?), or it could offset an income tax cut, thus transferring tax revenues from income to fuel consumption.
I view a gas tax as the best and really only solution to the problem.
I own a Prius. I am very happy with it. I did not get it to impress my friends or to demonstrate any sort of moral superiority. I also did not buy it to save money over the lifetime of the vehicle, though I won't spend much more and odds are actually pretty good that I will save money if gas prices go to where I think they are going in the coming years (think of the demand from China, India, Eastern Europe, ...).
I bought it so that I could be less of an impact on things that I don't like. I bought it so that I could give less money to oil producers and more money to a visionary auto maker that took a huge risk.
I would rather that my money end up in Japan producing even better cars than in the middle east producing "better" terrorists.
I don't judge anyone else, but I do control my own actions and purchases and when I buy something I am placing a vote for and against.
I got tired creating a demand that sends other people's children off to fight in foreign wars in order to keep our energy supply safe.
I got tired of sending money to people who fund the people who fly planes into buildings, blow up nightclubs, and otherwise kill innocent people all over the world.
So far I get 48 MPG. That means that I create one third the demand to be in foreign wars and I send them one third the money to fund terrorists than I did with the my previous vehicle.
Is my Prius saving the world all by itself? No. I do what I can, when I can. So do others. You can do whatever you want. I am not passing judgment. If anything, I have had to defend my purchase to friends. It is amazing how much hostility a car can produce.
What would happen if everybody got 48 MPG?
Lastly, thank you. For you are helping to subsidize my Prius through Federal and State income tax credits. You also subsidized my wife's Prius. :^)
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