Slashdot Mirror
The SUV Is Dethroned
Wired's Autopia blog documents what we all knew was coming: rising gas prices have killed off the SUV. Auto industry watchers had predicted that the gas guzzlers in the "light truck" category would lose the ascendancy by 2010; no one expected their reign to end in a month, in the spring of 2008. Toyota, GM, Ford, and now Nissan have announced they will scale back truck and SUV production and ramp up that of smaller passenger cars. Of course there will always be a market for this class of vehicle, but its days on the top of the sales charts are done. "'All of our previous assumptions on the full-size pickup truck segment are off the table,' Bob Carter, Toyota division sales chief said last week during a conference call with reporters. Translation — we have no idea how low they'll go."
Wow, your moniker really fits your personality.
Even at $10 a gallon, I'll still enjoy driving my 6K lb vehicle into your latte sipping, bike riding, Mac toting, whining, holier than thou self. And hey, when you are flat on the road, with your (now) useless body don't say I didn't warn you with my horn.
Kisses.
~S
Bicycle riders are self-righteous.
...the SUVs will come back in some form. After all, they are pretty safe (for the driver) and pretty handy as soon as you get out of the cities. Sure it'll hurt if you get run down by one, but the thing is - a huge majority of pedestrians and bicyclists that gets hurt by SUVs are actually to blame themselves. A common mindset seems to be something along these lines: "Sure I see that SUV coming at me but I was here first and I have the right of way so I just keep going! - Hey, it isn't stopping... AUCH!!!". Sure the driver gets blamed but you get hurt (or killed)... It's just so stupid and here we can honestly say that in traffic stupidity usually hurts (or will hurt).
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Hmm, funny I'm in a contract to pay for the truck, I probably wouldn't care as much if I wasn't upside down, but when I bought it gas was much cheaper and I carpooled. I guess stuff like contracts don't matter in your world though.
And I don't get the house thing, I don't own a house and live 100 yards from a bus stop and I own a second car that gets 35 MPG. But I'm glad you find other peoples financial distresses fun. Like I said, don't say I didn't honk.
Big Wet Sloppy Kisses Very original. XOXOXO
Hey retard, tell me how to sell two cars that are upside down? And yes, I can repay them, I just wasn't expecting such a devaluation when it was bought.
~S
Not necessarily self-righteous, but they sure are obnoxious. They're much like SUV drivers in that they drive in the roads like they own them while piloting unsafe vehicles and they assume that everybody should swerve or otherwise avoid them because of the vehicle they're driving...while it's trivial to just ride on the damn sidewalk and stay the hell out of the way of the REAL motorists. Sometimes a smug SOB in neon bike shorts and a dickhead helmet is just as bad, if not worse, than a bitch in a Lincoln Navigator with a cell phone in one hand and a latte in the other!
Lovely. You fantasize about killing "hot rod kids" in Civics.
First against wall, etc.
Bah! I used the last of my mod points up this morning. Someone mod parent up. I never made the connection between dickheads on bikes and dickheads in SUVs. With any luck I will now no longer have to swerve my 1 1/2 ton truck off the road every time some guy in SUV comes along and expects me and my useful vehicle to get out of his way. =P
For someone to sit there and gloat about someone being easily murdered by an unnecessarily large vehicle I think is screwed up.
Except the first is reality, and the second is an obviously sarcastic statement not meant to be taken literally.
~S
I feel a little spring in my step every time one of 'em gets hit. Ahhh.
I have zero sympathy for bike riding scum. Zero. Gitmo is too damn good for them.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
I agree completely. The value of those SUV's, after this announcement, have definitely gone south. I don't feel sorry for those owners at all. They've know for years that this time was coming. What's funny and sad, even with high gas prices, I'm still seeing new SUV purchases. What's sad is that most SUV drivers could care less that they are killing the earth.
Mod this guy up. I've got an SUV, fuck you! It snows a Hell of a lot here in Michigan. I have dogs and go camping in rough terrain. Besides it gets 20 MPG, about 2 miles less than my Ford Taurus.
I hate ethics, I avoid them on principle.
Delusion: Thinking you know who's online.
I am a name troll of Westlake. Visit my homepage to learn why.
I always figured I'd give bicycles the same consideration on the road once they weigh 2000 pounds and can go 60mph. The law may be there, but it lacks common sense.
Don't bother putting so much effort into arguing. They guy won't even reply. The people that argue against trucks are dogmatic in their views and there's nothing you can do to change them.
I argued once with a guy who wanted a Prius, telling him its a bad investment. I told him financially it makes no sense and the only reason to get one is if it provides you with piece of mind - not that you using 30% less fuel than a compact car is going to make any impact - but whatever. If it makes him feel it does fine, then get a Prius. He got all huffy to this saying how can it not save him money on gas, its a good buy etc. It was all rhetoric without any facts, just buzzwords and propaganda. I posted a lengthy rebuttal using actual numbers to show that if you get a Prius over a similar sized regular car, it will take someone over 15 years to actually break even on the increased initial investment of the Prius. Furthermore, if someone were to take the initial price difference and invest it at a moderate 4% interest rate, they would actually pay off the yearly gas difference between the Prius and the compact gasoline car. To put it another way, the Prius owner puts up a lot more principal to get a return of $500 a year, only he never sees that principal. The point is at the end of 15 years the Prius has finally equal to the small car, but the owner with the small car also has that invested principal too - since it was in a bank and not used towards the price of the car! In the end it makes no financial sense to get one unless the price of gas were significantly higher or the cost of the Prius were much closer to a regular gasoline car. (I could write out all the numbers and exactly what I mean, but I'm just this this to illustrate my point.)
Anyway, after making this point with irrefutable numbers - you know actually working stuff out before I make an investment of $25k he never responded to me. He responded to other people in the thread, mostly just jerking each other off about how great the Prius is, but ignored my reply to his statement. For people who pride themselves on being intellectuals and open-minded it seems whenever something like this comes up logic goes out the window and everyone just gets passionate about owning economically stupid vehicles and how not doing so equates to raping the environment etc.
So yeah, don't even bother, just sit secure in the knowledge that they're wasting their money on stupid shit and driving tiny cars cause they don't know better.
I do not care what law says. Every law could be abused. I have no respect who put individual whims over public interest whether they are covered by stupid laws or not.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
DAMN STRAIGHT!
I dunno about you, but I am fucking sick of people who do NOT pay my bills telling me I'm selfish for spending MY money in the ways I see fit.
Hey, all you leftover hippies, eco-freaks and socialist/commie/liberal social-engineering types. I'll tell you what. When you are willing to PERSONALLY pony up the cash for my car payment, I will willingly drive whatever you holier-than-thou pricks tell me to drive. What's that you say? Oh, you can't afford to pay for my car? You just want to tell me how to live my own life? Well then, you can just shut up, fuck off and die. You have NO RIGHT to tell me how to spend my own money or live my life.
Frigging assholes.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Well, there are ways to run you off the road. Borderline, I admit, but it aint me who started the war.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.