Slashdot Mirror
Ford Launches First American Hybrid
Ford has finally rolled out their Escape hybrid SUV. Ford's website has more information. Ford will use Toyota's first-generation hybrid technology in the SUV (the 2004 Prius is Toyota's second generation technology). Best of all, the Escape is street-legal in residential areas. Update: 08/06 22:31 GMT by M : A reader points out that GM will be selling a hybrid pickup soon, but it isn't available for sale to the public yet, so Ford is still the first.
Perhaps now the trend of ever increasing oil use in the USA and elsewhere can be reversed.
Economic Left/Right: -0.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69
At least it doesn't look weird like those hybrid cars with half the rear wheels covered by the outer body.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
My mom needed a new car, and being an enviromentalist in a snowy area, she wanted the Escape. The only problem is that the waiting list for any Escape was 9 months- not counting customized options. Would be nice if they improved their production, because it looks like people want big cars that do not require $80 to fill the gas tank.
.. because I'd love to buy one of these. The only thing americans wont buy this for in many cases is the higher price.
Toyota has been in the hybrid game longer than Ford and is licensing it's technology to Ford. My take is that Toyota will know how to implement it better.
http://www.detnews.com/2004/insiders/0407/31/c01-
"Case in point: Toyota Motor Co.p. and Ford Motor Co.'s new Escape Hybrid SUV. Last March, the companies said they had concluded "licensing agreements for hybrid systems and emissions purification patents" -- lawyerly language that soon gave way to talk that the first hybrid SUV from an American automaker was actually powered by Toyota.
Even if it wasn't. "
If you really want an energy-efficient sports utility vehicle, try a bicycle.
----- Vegans don't send SPAM.
The point is to have a hybrid that isn't fugly. And has AWD for those of us that want to go skiing without borrowing our friends Subaru.
But seriously, I've wondered how long it'd be until somebody sued an SUV driver for running into them in a car which they bought specifically because it would give them a higher survival rate. I can see the prosecution lawyer now: "Now let me see, you bought this car specifically because you knew it would kill the occupants of the other vehicle, and not your own?"
Anyway, got me thinking again.
I'm loathe to reply to anything that equates traffic weight laws to slavery, but here goes...
Opinionated as that article may be, there is a good point. No one is saying get rid of SUVs. But they do cause greater damage to roads than a smaller car, and as such they should have to compensate for that somehow... whether that be by not driving on those streets or by paying a higher tax.
You can't have your cake and eat it too... either take the tax cut, and avoid driving by my already pot-holed street or pay for the extra up keep.
"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research." - Einstein
I have to say, as a (very new) rescue technician and EMT, that it's not just your decision to drive that SUV - because you're driving it in a community full of other people.
It's when you're riding 60 mph in a 25,000 lb truck, the wrong way down the Beltway, in order to shove yourself through shattered glass and twisted metal and jaws-of-life some blood-spattered libertarian out from under his dashboard (and bag up the kids in the Focus that he killed,) that you begin to wish that people had actually read the Wealth of Nations all the way through to the end, where the caveats are.
Economic decisions don't occur in a vacuum, and we don't usually have (or have the money to get) enough data to fuel the marketplace appropriately, (e.g. I am happy to wake up and go do the above, but I sure would like some extra cash into the firehouse for every Expedition in our first-due area, because man do they make a lot more work,) so we make laws. All together - ideally, a democracy lets us generally agree on the solutions to problems the marketplace can't get a handle on.
Too much of this "let every individual decide" BS is really based on faith statements...
Now, post-rant, clearly this is just a misfired law; the problem is, when you go to make truck routes so that they don't, e.g., run through elementary schools, cul-de-sacs and nursing homes, that it's hard to get a handle on what is and isn't a truck. So they went for weight - which is a pretty good proxy for danger to others, noise, and road damage, the things that we as a society were really hoping to minimize the cost of.
The author is certainly correct that it is the SUVs that have changed, not the law. But what about slavery? Slavery used to be legal, and it was the people in America who changed and started believing slavery was wrong, not the law. So would the author be in favor of slavery back then because 'It's the people that have changed, not the law'. In my opinion laws in a democracy should change, to benefit the people living in the country. Just because a law is already a law does not make it sacred.
Sorry, the laws of physics are somewhat sacred, and don't change over time. 6000 lbs. 50 years ago is the same as 6000 lbs. now, and is still doing more damage to the roads than a 2500 lb car. The only way to rectify this is for SUVs to lose weight, or for residential roads to be built to handle that weight. Morons like you apparently want the largest vehicle possible, so if we're going to go with option #2, then someone needs to pay for it. Since you're the one with the huge vehicle, why don't you pay for it through higher taxes, instead of getting a tax break. I don't see why I should subsidize your penis extension.
This comment is totally elitist, totalitarianistic, and harsh. How about rather than regulating everything you don't like out of existence, just leave me alone? If I want to drive a vehicle that has a higher risk of rolling over, then LET ME. Why do you care if I kill myself? I know what is best for me better than you know what is best for me.
Because when your overweight vehicle hits me because you were too busy talking on the phone and screaming at the kids to pay attention to the road, I'm the one who will die. It's called living in a civilization: actions you take will affect other people. Because some people are too stupid to take responsibility for their own actions, government has to step in and regulate their behavior.
I'm amazed how you quoted parts of the article to completely misinterpret the meaning, while advancing your own agenda. Here is the core of his argument:
It's no accident the automakers churn out so many SUVs that break the 6K barrier. By doing so, these "trucks" (and that's how they're classified by the U.S. Department of Transportation) qualify for a huge federal tax break. If you claim you use a 3-ton truck exclusively for work, you can write it off immediately. All of it. Up to $100,000 (in fact, Congress raised the limit from $25,000 just last year). Heavy SUVs qualify for similar state tax breaks in California (up to $25,000) and elsewhere. These vehicles are also exempt from the federal "gas guzzler tax" because they're trucks. (And you probably know that many SUVs are exempt from the tougher gas mileage and safety standards of cars because they're classified as trucks, but that's another story.)
Tax advisers actually warn their clients to make sure they buy vehicles that are heavy enough to qualify for the tax breaks. Some offer helpful lists of which SUVs will tip the IRS's scales.
(California's Legislative Analyst's Office estimates the average L.A. driver pays $700 a year in vehicle repairs because of crummy roads.) Yet despite the increased road wear their vehicles cause, heavy SUV owners can take tax breaks that mean they pony up much less to the tax system that funds street maintenance.
As it stands now, big-SUV drivers have it both ways: They use their trucklike status when it benefits them, yet they ignore the more onerous restrictions that "real" truck drivers face.
So you can buy a monster truck/SUV if you want to, no problem, but you damn well better pay the same taxes I do to buy a vehicle, and you damn well better pay far, far more toward road repair than I do. And that is the common sense that most people seem to lack.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
"One but i hate to break it too you: American cars are just as well engineered as Japanese cars"
No way. Read the "Lemon Aid" books sometime, especially regarding trucks and SUVs (I bought a Pathfinder a little while ago). Overwhelmingly, the Not Recommended vehicles are American, while the Recommended ones tend to be Japanese. This is on the basis of safety, reliability, and performance, all backed up by lots and lots of recall records and so forth.
This comment is totally elitist, totalitarianistic, and harsh. How about rather than regulating everything you don't like out of existence, just leave me alone? If I want to drive a vehicle that has a higher risk of rolling over, then LET ME. Why do you care if I kill myself? I know what is best for me better than you know what is best for me.
Because when you roll over, there is a good chance that you'll land on somebody else. What's worse, you'll end up causing a huge traffic jam. I don't care whether you want to kill yourself or not, I just don't want to be there to suffer the consequences of *your* actions.
Feel free to do whatever you'd like to do to yourself as long as you don't affect other people.
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by. --Douglas Adams
becasue it's easy to take your dog, 3 kids, and pull you boat from a Bike.
I could count on one hand the number of SUVs I see per day that have more than one person in them.
I think the most important part of the story is that people are trying to play both ends against the middle. On one hand, they're buying vehicles over 6000lbs ON PURPOSE for the tax break. When they're told that they can't drive a vehicle that large on the road, they claim that the gross weight may vary by a bit, and their vehicle is just slightly UNDER 6000lbs. So, the people that do the MOST damage to the roads are getting a tax break for it!
That's just wrong. If I lived in the states I'd be furious. As it is, I'm pretty aghast at it.
Did the car reviewer also review the normal one they compared it to or just took the number from literature? I found that in pretty much ALL car reviews they get lower than sticker MPG because it's not their car and they drive it pedal to the floor and try to "test performance" instead of saving fuel.
Then at the end of their run they calculate the MPG and, OH SURPRISE, it's fairly low.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
Because this is an SUV. It has the power to kill the driver of a normal sized car, something you can't say for the Prius.
Plus you get to not see stuff in your rearview mirror accurately and totally run into other cars in the parking lot.
This actually happened to me. I wasn't in my car, and I was parked away from all the other cars, in the OfficeMax lot, and an Avalanche backs right into my hood. $3500 and a couple of weeks later, it's fixed, but there should be a visibility and safety bumper requirement for large vehicles. Heck, tax 'em more if they cause more accident damage -- you should be able to drive what you want, but nobody says it has to be at everybody else's expense.
Heck, tax 'em more if they cause more accident damage...
I would bet insurance companies have already beat the government to it. SUVs cause more damage in accidents (higher liability insurance rates), and they cost more to repair (higher comprehensive insurance rates). Seriously, more people should consider Subarus or just the plain ol' family sedan, and, then, rent a darn truck when they need an SUV. They'd save a ton of money (and probably a ton of gas, too, literally).
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
There's something wrong with a 160lb person (average) driving a vehicle for day-to-day use that weighs almost 40 times more than they do, unless they are doing so to earn a living (delivery truck, dump truck, etc.). Think about it: this is 6000lbs of raw metal and technology just to haul their lazy ass around town, when a decent sedan is well under 4000lbs and often under 3000lbs.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
Why not toughen emissions standards? The people that bitch and whine about that it would kill small business & farmers can just STFU. Those vehicles would still be available, one would just require them to be owned and tagged as commercial vehicles. Big deal. Farmer Brown doesn't own the machinery costing well in excess of $100K that he uses to operate his farm now. The little corporation that he set up does. The same goes for most small busineses. People that legitimately need them would still have them and the soccer moms can go back to their mini-vans or station wagons. The problem is that car companies are using an exemption that is supposed to be for commercial vehicles to sell lots of high margin vehicles (aka macho station wagons) for use as passenger vehicles even though they do not meet the safety standards.
I would imagine that once a company builds a full-sized hybrid, then you might see some cab companies try them out. I guess it depends on your corner of the world, but I've never seen a taxi that was a small or mid-sized car.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Screw 4000lb sedans, most people need nothing more than a Smart car, or at the most, a Hyundai Accent (~2300lbs). They get along fine in Europe like that, anyway.
Hell, lots of people could use a freaking bicycle, and it would have the benefit of making their fat asses a little less fat!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
A Hummer is simply a pointless abomination. At least the Hummer II. A Hummer I is just about acceptable, if your daily commute really covers 60 miles of unmade terrain - but even then you'd be better of with a Landrover, because you wouldn't look quite as much of a prat.
Using "environmentally friendly" technology in an SUV is a bit pointless - you know, like painting your coalburning firestation a pleasant shade of green.
Anyway, Ford actually do do some nice cars (Volvo, Jaguar, Aston Martin and (oops) LandRover). Now a hybrid V70 I would consider buying.
no taxation without representation!
Just because the vehicle has three people and a dog in it once a year means it's sensible to drive two tons of metal menace around the rest of the time.
;)
Granted, that is likely
no taxation without representation!
So while it may look better to not have to put $80 dollars in gas into the car weekly it is only because you prepaid it through the premium of buying a hybrid car.
Until they cost the same as a similarly equipped vehicle these only are good for CAFE and feeling good about yourself (while ignoring the obvious fact you lost money on the deal)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
And the funny hting is, the Japanese cars are built in the US, and the US cars are built anywhere else. The moral of the story is that if you want safetly, reliability and performance, buy a car built in the US...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!