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White House Issues New Gas Mileage Standards
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that the Obama administration has signed off on the nation's first rules on greenhouse gas emissions and set new fuel standards to meet a fleet-wide average of 35.5 mpg that will raise current standards by nearly 10 mpg by the 2016 model year. Although the new requirements would add an estimated $434 per vehicle in the 2012 model year and $926 per vehicle by 2016, drivers could save as much as $3,000 over the life of a vehicle through better gas mileage, according to a government statement. 'We will be helping American motorists save money at the pump, while putting less pollution in the air,' says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Dave McCurdy, leader of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing 11 automakers, says the industry supports a single national standard for future vehicles. 'Today, the federal government has laid out a course of action through 2016, and now we need to work on 2017 and beyond.' As the auto industry seeks to emerge from ashes, many manufacturers already are trying for the right mix of approaches, experts say. Some will try to sell more hybrids. Others are introducing not-so-gas-guzzling SUVs. They may also push slightly downsized and small cars, such as the Ford Fiesta."
Won't this just make people buy new cars less often?
CAFE was already set to go to 35 in 2020, the only major thing (ignoring .5mpg) is that it was moved forward 4 years.
> Won't this just make people buy new cars less often?
and this is a bad thing... how?
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I've read that in an effort to improve fuel efficiency some new cars are being sold with their spare tire replaced with a can of tire sealant, and of course the dealer will sell you a spare tire if your the kind of person who likes that sort of thing.
Maybe Saturn will go back to plastic panels, I bet that saved some weight.
A lot of the total carbon emissions from a vehicles lifetime are incurred in construction (extensive high-energy metalworking)
Keeping a car a longer time might use more fuel but less manufacturing carbon emissions result.
Personally I worry that the result of this will be leaden, electronics/batteries-loaded vehicles that lurch and rumble along on their hard suspension due to the extra weight of systems to reduce emissions...
I live in hope of someone designing a mid-sized car with ultralightweight materials and putting a slow-running non-turbo diesel in it with high gear ratios and the maximum possible low-rev torque setup - economy and long life without complications. And while I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Learn what an average means. Other vehicles in the fleet will have to get higher MPG to balance it out.
AnimePapers.org: Anime Wallpapers Handled With Care
Quotas, perhaps..
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
But more deaths means there are less people driving and using resources. Population control, its green!!!
"Fleet Average" is the key word here. ie, some things like trucks can be less, some things like small cars can be more. That's how an average works.
If Ford just goes and sells the cars it has for sale in the UK right now in the USA it will already be well on the way there, enabling it to sell the current crop of low-mpg trucks.
They may also push slightly downsized and small cars, such as the Ford Fiesta.
I've been to America several times and there are a few things that prevent this happening. First of all the Fiesta is far too small for your average American consumeer. These cars sell massively here in Ireland but they just won't work in America because you'll hear all of the horror stories about how they're not safe because they're small. Realistically the average weight and size of your average American citizen is a lot more too.
The problem is that I saw the VW Golf (you call it Rabbit now) all over the place in San Francisco, LA and Vegas. That sounds great except I only saw them in two sizes: 1.8l and 2.5l engines. You look at that same car in Europe and they sell better at the 1.4-1.8l range. What's the point in going to a smaller car if the engine is still big? I can only imagine if the Fiesta was to be pushed it'd have a 1.6l engine anyway.
Much in the same way that I think the Hybrid market was mostly lip service I think this isn't enough either. If you need a powerful car get one, if you don't then just get an economical one. Even with hybrids, it'd have made just as much sense for your averager American to switch to a 1.5l car to begin with because all of the cars out there are already overpowered or desperately inefficient - they're all automatic for a start! Just imagine the savings if every American switched down 30% in their engine size, more if your average Joe forget about his oversized petrol powered SUV and drove a modest saloon.
Let me put this another way; I look forward to electric or decent hybrid cars at a minimum. In the meantime I drive a SEAT Leon which is a badge-engineered VW Golf. I drive the 1.9TDI variant and on one 55l tank of diesel I drive 900-1050Km (550-650 miles roughly). I know that's diesel rather than petrol but the point is efficiency and it puts out the same horsepower as a 1.6l engine which would get you a good 450 miles plus per tank.
Forget the massive forced changes which will be rejected by the public - just start by reducing engine displacement and increasing efficiency. And hey, would it kill you to write the engine size on the back of your car like we do in Europe...awareness is half the battle!
I never get used to these constant resurrections
For survivability you don't want "sturdyness", you want the car to be crumply. The crumpling absorbs the crash energy so the occupants don't. Lighter cars also means lower crash energies. Lighter cars are less likely to crash in the first place owing to better handling and manuverablilty.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
An average fuel economy across a fleet of vehicles sold by a manufacturer. Just work out the mean of all the models available for sale that year, per manufacturer.
So if Ford sells a 10mpg truck, it needs to sell a 50mpg compact to offset it, with the goal being many more fuel efficient models available for those who want them, while still keeping things like big trucks around.
A quick back-of-the-napkin calculation reveals that that is an acceptable level of death.
Yeah, in Europe SUVs are largely diesel powered because that type of vehicle has more demand for grunt than speed. With diesel engines putting out their power in the lower range and having far more torque they're the only ones that make sense. I'd much rather have a 3.0l turbodiesel than a 5l V8 running my SUV.
Even the Porsche Cayenne has become a running joke here, it's clear that whoever buys them doesn't know much about cars. Not even a Porsche fan would opt for one of those.
I never get used to these constant resurrections
...with the goal being many more fuel efficient models available for those who want them, while still keeping things like big trucks around.
And with the reality being that fuel efficient cars get sold with little to no profit which is a disincentive for manufacturers to build them. Face it, when people want a truck they buy American, when they want a fuel efficient car they buy Japanese, when consumers segment their purchases like this Cafe standards just bankrupt car manufacturers who consumers don't associate with fuel efficiency.
If they worked more on about aerodynamics than aesthetics it would be easy. http://aerocivic.com/
We need to make manufacturers calculate mileage averages from the total vehicles they sell, not the total vehicles in their lineup. This is just going to result in more abominations like the PT Cruiser, which was designed to lower the average mileage of Dodge's truck line rather than to be a useful (or even safe) passenger vehicle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pt_cruiser#Overview
If you read through it, you'll notice they allow all-electric cars to count as zero-emission vehicles, when in actual practice, the emissions depend on where you get the energy from.
So, each manufacturer gets an allotment with a cap for any electric cars they churn out.
But someone in a state which makes electricity from coal - like Wisconsin - creates more emissions pollution using the same all-electric Chevy Volt car than someone in a state using hydroelectric, nuclear fission, solar, wind, and tidal like Washington State.
In Seattle, our utility is carbon-neutral - no emissions. In Madison it's carbon-heavy - coal.
Another thing to notice is that the mpg requirements vary based on the footprint of the vehicle.
So if you made a very thin batmobile you could get sucky mileage and be "better" than a car with twice the mpg that has a small footprint like a Smart Car.
Of course, none of this will prevent somebody installing an industrial electric turbine in their batmobile to go 0 to 60 in 0.9 seconds - cause all-electric dragsters outrace even the best gasoline or diesel vehicle. Unless you use jet fuel.
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Is this where someone is suppose to say, "Soylent Green is people!" Or, are we to believe that it would be more ecologically friendly if we consumed Soylent Green? I'm sure that would leave someone to comment about eating the neighbor's .... I'm at work, so I won't say it, nor the accompanying joke.
Pay more for better fuel economy? There's no need. Just put a smaller engine in the same car. Easy peasy.
One could also point out that, for $2000, you can buy a Tato Nano car that gets more than 60 mpg, uses less material to make it (thus less emissions during construction), and the excess capital between that $2000 and the $32,000 you spend on a hybrid can be invested in buying wind turbines in the US for a net loss of carbon emissions about 20 times that, over the lifetime of the vehicle, than for the hybrid
My current 1996 Saturn SC2 gets the required EPA mpg already. And it's paid for.
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about saving $$$ in the long run. Everyone I know wants to see savings now because they need the savings now and not broken down to $1 per day over three years.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Spending the majority of the effort on a fraction of the problem won't solve anything.
What is funny is that my 1999 Toyota Corolla regularly gets 40 MPG and it has 180k miles, if cars could get that then it should be no problem to produce them to get that now and better. And no I have not done any modding/hypermiling.
In Europe they have 50 mpg already. 35 mpg is way way way behind EU standards.
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As raising the CAFE has proven time and again, every time they are raised, they have the effect of increasing the amount of time older, less-efficient cars will remain in service, instead of being replaced with newer, more fuel-efficient models, and, once again, the country's overall average mileage will shrink. Way to go. Of course, once they ram cap-and-trade through the way they did health care, no one but Donald Trump, the President, and Congress will be able to drive. So much for sticking it to those rich people.
If there were a noticeable decrease in the average weight of cars, wouldn't that actually reduce total deaths, due to lower average kinetic energies involved?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Fuel economy standards are actually a stupid way to reduce petroleum usage. A far more effective way to do this would be to put a hefty tax on gasoline, and then the market can decide what the optimum trade is for fuel efficiency. Unfortunately, tax is such an incredibly dirty word in politics that this is just flat out impossible; anybody trying to do such a thing would not merely be voted out of office, they'd very likely be lynched.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I use a bucky ball ballon car. It may look like a Mars Lander, but it has excellent survivability.
For survivability you don't want "sturdyness", you want the car to be crumply.
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For survivability you don't want "sturdyness", you want the car to be crumply.
It's striking how well that works. It's common to see wrecked cars where everything in front of the passenger compartment is crushed, but the windshield is unbroken and the passenger compartment is completely intact.
Solution: per-class MPG numbers, and actually enforce the classes properly. Specifically: if you're selling compact SUVs to soccer moms, don't classify them as light-duty trucks, classify them as sedans or minivans and make them adhere to the stricter MPG ratings.
That's why I'm going to drive a monster truck and drive over your Dodge Ram or F250.
You're a fucking idiot. Freighters are the most efficient way to transport goods that humanity has ever developed.
Not really. The most efficient are non-powered or sail-assisted barges on canals. Freighters use a lot of dirty bunker fuel.
I know this because I've been on both and I own shares in a freighter company.
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Until those who are driving around overweight behemoths are made to pay for their huge negative externalities. E.g. with mandatory sentences for manslaughter every time they bump into a smaller car and kill someone, increased taxes, etc. It's hardly fair that those who do the responsible thing are penalized.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
A better bet would be, don't sell trucks or truck-like vehicles, to soccer moms in the first place.
Or outlaw kids and dogs being in them.
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Ford makes class leading cars in the UK. Not just "average cars" - they make genuinely desirable, high quality, class-leading cars in several size/usage classes with some of the best handling and best engines available.
There is no reason for them to be selling shit in the US, which is essentially what they are doing with all but their trucks. They make some amazing vehicles, and do so profitably in Europe.
The engines they sell *right now* in the UK are way, way above what these CAFE proposals are mandating. They don;t even need to do any reseach so there;s no "bankrupting" going on - they just need to bolt those engines into the US models, or just tweak the UK models slightly so that US licence plates fit onto the back (ours are thinner but wider) and Bob's your uncle.
Maybe also tweak the screen slightly - I remember a story somewhere about the US safety requirement for airbags is to assume the occupant is not wearing a seatbelt, so the screen has to be more upright to account for this in some models. Just lobby to have that common sense thing changed and we're done.
The big automakers in the US like to hide behind that "oh woe is us, it will cost too much and we don;t have the time to do the R&D, and the margins are too low" wailing, but they are really just dragging their feet. Ford is *very* competitive in the European market, and has innovated and picked its game up to get itself there, in the commercial and the consumer market. Hell, the light commercial it sells is the word for van in the uk: Transit Van, and you can't turn left without seeing a Focus, Fiesta, Mondeo, Ka and occasionally the odd Galaxy (I'm afraid the French have pretty much sewn up the soccer mom van market - it's the only segment Ford doesn't have a class leader in).
With some minor tweaks here and there (nowhere ear enough to bankrupt them), Ford could sell its Euro models in the US and be right on top of those regulations. Even if they skipped out all of their diesels (which are outstanding) and only sold the petrol ones, the lowest mpg petrol Focus they sell is 35.3mpg - for the automatic one. The worst diesel automatic does 48.6mpg (best does 74mpg, but you need the manual gearbox).
Really, the crumpling reduces the acceleration, which helps with the real enemy, the energy in your body.
You have to deal with all of it, the various restraint systems and other crash safety systems help to keep the forces involved below damage thresholds.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The original Model T got better mileage than most of the cars on the road, actually.
The problem is that we don't charge a $10 a gallon carbon tax on fuel like most of the world does.
Do that and you'll see fuel efficiency skyrocket.
Classic supply and demand curve.
Use the carbon tax from fuel to pay for building high speed passenger trains instead of airports and to build wind-powered and solar-powered refueling stations nationwide.
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Yeah, if you my other comment I'm driving a 1.9TDI and I'm getting 60mpg+.
I never get used to these constant resurrections
So long as you don't mind sacrificing safety.
A motorcycle, for example, can easily get 45 to 55 mpg. With rider, even a large bike won't top 500 kg.
About 20 years ago, MADD put up a billboard with a crushed Toyota Corolla - a man and his 4 children were killed when the distance between the dashboard and the trunk was reduced to a mere 6 inches by a drunk driver. They were trying to demonstrate the evils of drunk driving, but the impression it left on me was that we've been trading mpg for safety for quite some time in this country. It shouldn't come as any surprise that teens who grew up seeing the smashed cars caused by drunk driving are now buying behemoth SUVs with full frames.
Long story short - unit body construction saved hundreds of pounds of structural steel from car designs. It raised gas mileage. But the whole car - crumple zones and all - simply folds up like a tin can in an accident. Accidents which used to be survivable are now deadly, thanks to the weakening of car frames designed primarily to boost fuel economy.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
But the issue is that this is a low, low target. Yes, it's a fleet average. But my 2005 Corolla gets 35 mpg even around town, and my mom's 2008 Prius gets at least 45 mpg. We're talking about cars, on average, with a DECADE more technology than these ones. And the CAFE for Toyota is already 30 mpg.
This bar has been set really, really low, EVEN for a fleet average! It's pretty pathetic, really.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Consumers can already buy cars that get that kind of gas mileage if they want them. This really means fewer options in car purchasing.
Translation: "People don't know what kind of car is good for them, so we will to force them to buy the right kind."
Politicians are too cynical. I'm smart enough to make decisions for myself. I didn't need the old regulations and I don't want new ones.
Overall, the U.S. transportation sector accounts for 33 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions and highway fuel consumption for 20 percent.13 Other greenhouse gases from the transportation sector such as methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons contribute an estimated 23 million metric tons of carbon equivalent,14 which is equal to about 5 percent of transportation carbon dioxide emissions.15 The remaining two thirds of U.S. emissions are attributable mainly to the industry and to industrial and commercial buildings and the energyusing devices they contain; this includes emissions from the generation of electricity, nearly all of which goes to the industrial and buildings sectors. The numbers show that U.S. greenhousegas emissions cannot be sufficiently reduced by focusing on motor vehicles alone, but neither can they be sufficiently reduced without a significant effort in the transport sector.
SHUT THE FUCK UP! I am so fucking sick of this bull-shit. You live in a society on a world where resources are becoming scarce. There isn't going to be enough of everything (and never was) for everyone to have whatever the fuck they want. If you don't want to be regulated by society than you're on your own. If so, I'll kill you and take all your shit! Dumb-Ass!
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
And money. Clearly, our whole society would benefit much more (and create much less pollution) by switching over completely to electric. If the government spent even a fraction of the money they spent on the TWO useless oil wars we have going on in the middle east on nano-capacitors or eliminating costly and vile corporate patents on battery technology, we would have better more reliable cars (electric cars have many, MANY less moving parts), that would be cheaper to operate, own, and be faster and quieter.
Here are some promising links that lead me to believe our government is completely corrupt, incompetent, and wholly a subsidiary of various oil corporations:
http://www.physorg.com/news188637189.html
http://www.physorg.com/news180704455.html
http://www.physorg.com/news180713660.html
http://www.physorg.com/news186850199.html
Even covering part of existing roofs, driveways, roads, or other surfaces with solar panels would ensure our energy freedom in the long run. Not doing this is just plain stupid.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Oh I agree. 35mpg here is the target for an SUV - if you drive anything smaller, we're already way up.
My 1995 beater got 35mpg until the cambelt failed, and I now drive a large diesel MPV that has been doing 45.9mpg in my weekly use (a 2003 Xsara Picasso in fact).
My sister just bought a Ford Fiesta that does 65mpg. There's no reason US cars can't get the better figures!
Bullshit. The main reason why light cars are more vulnerable is that there are big bulky Hummers out there; that is, discrepancy between masses of colliding objects. Other than having to be heavier than the other guy, big cars are not safer than well-designed small cars. Beetles and Minis are rather safe in collisions, unless there are big ugly SUVs involved.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Not questioning your point, but are those UK gallons or US gallons for the mpg figures you quoted?
Thank you for the polite discourse. I have downloaded the report and will be reading this soon.
I remember back when I was in high school of teachers telling me US's gas mileage was not measured in anything close to real conditions, basically with the clutch disengaged and at constant speed, which totally canceled the effect of the car's mass and aerodynamics, among other things.
Is it still the case or have the US, like the EU, worked up a realistic measurement ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
50mpg on ICE is ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC.
I drive a large turbo-diesel saloon (sedan, for americans), a Ford Mondeo 1.8TD. I frequently get overall fuel economy in excess of 55mpg over an entire tank of fuel. and thats in an 11 year old car built using 1980s diesel technology.. but even after 180,000 miles it still does the distance, and can sprint to 3-figure speeds (yes, miles not kilometres/hour) given a lot of time for acceleration (and preferably a tailwind)
Show me one of your electro-gasoline abominations after 180K. Be lucky if it even moves let alone gets 40mpg
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
And why is that? You make a claim, but not provide justification for it. Why exactly is this bad? Is there some religious principle (free economy?) that is being violated, or is the term itself inherently evil?
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
The rumors of our death have been greatly exaggerated.
The United States still makes many things, and is still one of the worlds largest exporters, with over $1 Trillion in exports in 2009.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports
http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres10_e/pr598_e.htm
It appears that cars accounted for 11% of those exports:
http://www.trademap.org/tradestaz/Country_SelProductCountry_TS.aspx
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I got them from Ford's UK site, so presumably UK gallons - divide by 1.2 for US values, which makes the worst petrol automatic Focus 29.4mpg.
Doesn't burning gas more efficiently mean more pollutants are released as exhaust?
Does that mean we're trying to have our cake and eat it, too?
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
I've been saying for years that there's no reason that American car companies can't sell the same cars they sell in Europe in the US - in the last couple of years, they've finally started listening (at least Ford has). Starting later this year, there will be one Focus for the entire world again!
Also, I'm pretty sure you're looking at imperial gallons, not US gallons - imperial gallons are bigger, so they skew mpg numbers when trying to compare cars.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
There is one good reason: American car companies donate large sums to our representatives.
Technologically? No, there's no reason we can't get better MPG in our cars and trucks. Politically? There are millions of reasons. They all are colored the same green color as our money.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
As raising the CAFE has proven time and again, every time they are raised, they have the effect of increasing the amount of time older, less-efficient cars will remain in service, instead of being replaced
That's why they do "cash for clunkers" incentives.
You can't take the sky from me...
1.It gives exemptions for flex-fuel cars. This is WRONG. The correct step is to mandate flex-fuel in all cars (with limited exemptions for cars where flex-fuel is not possible). By changing this, car companies cant simply make their gas guzzling SUVs flex-fuel and avoid the need to make them more efficient. (or simply to make and sell less of them)
2.It does nothing to address the fuel efficiency of big rigs, garbage trucks, utility trucks, buses, construction equipment and other heavy vehicles.
3.It gives companies like Jeep that make large amounts of SUVs higher targets than companies that make more fuel efficient cars. Numbers need to be lower to force a shift of the aggregate fleet (i.e. all new cars available for sale and sold in the US) towards more fuel efficient cars (which would hopefully mean smaller cars too)
Also, the rules for what counts as a "truck" should be revised and properly enforced so that things like the PT Cruiser do not count as "trucks". To be counted as a "truck", a vehicle must either be able to take more than 10 passengers or it must have at least 50% of the floorspace of the vehicle permanently dedicated to cargo. Anything else would be considered a "car".
FWIW Ford is becoming quite competitive once again in the US as well. The 2010 Fusion has won numerous awards and is favorably reviewed against its peers. Quality ratings are consistently rising and are now as good as or better than their Japanese competitors. The new line of "ecoboost" turbo engines, finally replacing the trash version of the Focus with the superb model available in Europe, the introduction of the new Fiesta - all of these things are conspiring to resurrect Ford's passenger car line and sales are rising to match.
Alan Mulaly has done great things for that company and I hope he continues.
They are not politically taboo. If there is an industry that pushes change to more efficient engines, it's shipping.
These are companies that calculate the cost of every gallon of fuel.
If they allowed nuclear shipping vessels, you bet your ass that's where the industry would go.
Unfortunately, ships are heavy and moving that much weight costs a lot of energy.
I would like to see some actual numbers and not some random post on de intertube.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So long as we're just making up numbers, smaller, more maneuverable cars will lead to perhaps one trillion fewer deaths per year.
It's been argued that the ability of small, maneuverable small vehicles to avoid accidents outweighs the increased risk of dying upon a major collision. Gladwell provides numbers to back up his claim--deaths per driver are much more relevant than deaths per accident. Per driver hour or driver mile would be better, of course, and he doesn't normalize against different populations of drivers* (Do bad drivers simply prefer SUVs?), but so long as you note the caveats, actual data beats the mental random number generator any day.
*Disclaimer: I haven't read the article in years.
Couple of reasons for my statements.
If your referring to social engineering is evil, than it is a matter of principal, as whoever has the most political clout starts forcing everyone else to live there life by a given social agenda. Social Engineering is when you use physical methodologies to enforce political ideals (automated speeding tickets, traffic circles and so on). History is rife with examples of people abusing political power and forcing others to a certain political view. Think of it as a freedom thing, doesn't matter the ideology of those in charge, anything can be abused.
If your talking about getting real, than it is a matter of perspective with people that have misplaced priorities. It's politically correct to hate on certain cars so people do it as a matter of groupthink. The desire for reduced pollution is good, however there are far more effective means of reducing pollution. Reducing the pollution put out by large sea going ships would have more real world affect than any level of change to cars ever could. Things like building nuclear power plants instead of coal easily outstrip the pollution a nation of cars could ever put out. People need to learn where pollution really comes from, follow the math, and you'll quickly see that energies have been misplaced from politically unpopular ideas to politically correct ideas such as the new fuel standards.
The 16 ships quote is misleading. The linked site specifically attributes the pollutant as Sulpher Dioxide, and contains no figures as to other pollutants such as Carbon Dioxide.
Sure those 16 ships spew out more Sulpher Dioxide than all the worlds cars, but I find it extremely improbable that they spew out less Carbon Dioxide.
Yeah, someone mentioned that above - divide my numbers by 1.2.
I've never owned a Ford in my life. Three Chrysler's, two VW's, two Hondas, a Toyota and a Nissan. If I were to buy a car tomorrow, it would be a Ford.
I think they are making all the right moves right now.
I'd much rather have a 3.0l turbodiesel than a 5l V8 running my SUV
Of course you would. A three liter engine running at 10 pounds of boost has an effective displacement of 5.04 liters. It has nothing to do with the fact that it's a diesel. Although, most turbo engines have a torque curve that can hardly be considered "torquey" due to the difficulty of building significant boost at low rpm. There's a good chance that most normally aspirated 5 liter gasoline engines have better low end torque than most turbo diesel 3 liter engines.
Tomorrow?
Do it today?
(I own Ford stock.)
Tell that to VW, who use the same engines in their US models - the Euro engines exceed the US emission requirements and have for some time.
The other safety differences tend to be about things like the screen issue I mentioned - a US requirement being to assume the passengers are not wearing a seatbelt, affecting the angle of the windscreen.
Another thing about this plan is they mislead you trying to say you save $3000, when it's $3000 over the life of the car. what is the life of the car? 20 years? $3000 over 20 years (or even 10) means your losing money with the up front cost of $900.
as with you, i own small cars 1.5L engines and under.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Amen... even ~15-20 years ago (the time is pretty fuzzy to me now), I was involved in a head-on (at about 30mph for each car) in a Honda Civic. My entire family was in the car with me, and had fortunately decided to put on their seat belts (which was kind of rare those days).
After the shock wore off, I got a chance to look at the totaled car. The engine compartment had perfectly crumpled underneath the passenger cage, and all of us passengers had gotten away with nothing more than bumps, bruises & a black eye or two (from smacking heads on the backs of the seats).
Damn impressive given the kinetic energy & momentum involved, and this was even before stuff like air bags & recent advances in material science, dummy testing & extensive computer modeling.
They do. They crumpled. Now what? That truck is still moving into the passenger compartment at 75 miles per hour.
Incorrect. The crumple zones absorb the energy from the truck so that the passengers don't have to... the truck is not still going 75 mph. The chance of surviving a high speed head on collision is still pretty low... it's not magic. But there's no question today's crumpling designs are far safer than old cars with separate frames.
Extra stiffness from something like a roll cage only works well if you are securely fastened down with a 5 or 6 point harness and are wearing a helmet... that's the safest way to go and how it's done in race cars, but we don't really wish to sacrifice so much convinence for that level of safety on the street.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
The Contour was a nice (for the time) car that suffered mightily at the hands of Ford's US brand management. It also suffered from unfortunate timing, being a smaller and more "efficient" car than most of its direct competitors at a time when gasoline was ridiculously cheap and SUVs were taking off like wildfire.
Subsequent generations of the Mondeo (the euro-spec car on which the Contour was based) have gone on to be hugely successful class-leading vehicles in Europe.
You've used this term twice in a couple of posts you've made. What the hell is a 'screen' in a car? Are you talking about the grill on the front of the car near the bumper or something? A screen to me, is the wire mesh thing on a window on a house...I'm not sure what a screen on a car over there is?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If you want real change look at things like trying to clean up commercial trucking, or improving the economy of a garbage truck. Run the numbers and tell me what happens if you can improve the mileage of vehicles like garbage trucks.
My city just switched to once-a-week garbage, with bigger bins, down from twice every week. So we just doubled the economy of our garbage trucks.
Plus, were there not central garbage pickup, each house would likely contract with one of multiple companies, each one going through the same neighborhood to pick up 15-20% of the garbage (for their customers). In comparison to the free market, then, garbage pickup is looking pretty good.
Though I would like to see garbage trucks running from hydrogen. Like most other high-weight fleet vehicles, they could likely be profitable if converted now.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
screen = windshield
I agree...if I'd not had the power, handling and braking of my corvette or the 930 porsche I had...I'd have been smashed to bit more than a couple of times by idiot drivers out there not paying attention, running red lights, etc.
Because I had cars that could speed up, stop and turn on a dime, I was able to (often just barely) get out of their way and save a crash.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Hello, just saw your post. I checked your link, and I'd (genuinely) like more info. Calling it "pollution" is far too simplistic, don't you think? Basically, I'm just wondering if you have more info on this, such as some kind of emissions breakdown (what substances are released, masses, etc.) Because saying 16 ships pollute more than all the cars in the world doesn't really tell me much. More sulfur, I guess? What about everything else?
Not trolling, I just want more info. Because all I see tossed around is blah pollutes more than blah, and that's the end of that.
"Do the fractions, factor in things like coal power plants (instead of nuclear) and put cars in perspective. The math should make priorities clear, even if those priorities are politically taboo."
Oh yes, I agree. But what is the math? Where can I see some numbers? I don't doubt it, but I want to see some numbers, too.
And just saying this one more time to be extra careful. I suppose I don't need to; your responses seem quite level-headed, so I don't think you'll explode at me =) but I just want a little more info, and I'm just hopeful you know where I can get it.
You aren't buying what the guv'ern'ment is telling you to; you're buying what Madison Avenue is hypnotizing you to buy.
'Cuz you really need that Lincoln Navigator with the spinner rims to get you to your logging site up in the Appalachian.
Ford's UK Focus petrol cars exceed that 35mpg figure (in US gallons) for all but the 2 litre automatic, which has a US gallon figure of 30mpg.
Even leaving the diesels aside (which in Europe are often a collaboration between major manufacturers - (Ford's diesels were developed in partnership with PSA, for example).
We already have several low particulate diesels here in Europe and have for some time, that exceed the US requirements.
All of the petrol engines are more efficient for equivalent power.
Until those who are driving around overweight behemoths are made to pay for their huge negative externalities. E.g. with mandatory sentences for manslaughter every time they bump into a smaller car and kill someone, increased taxes, etc. It's hardly fair that those who do the responsible thing are penalized
Yeah, it's totally fair to mandatorily throw a trucker in jail when someone plows their Miata into the rear of the truck and decapitates themself.
I agree that automatic manslaughter would be excessive, and mandatory minimums in law are almost always a stupid idea, but turing didn't seem to be suggesting that everytime there was an accident involving an oversized vehicle and a fatality, that the oversized vehicle should be charged. Seems like he was saying "when the oversized vehicle is at fault."
Also, i'd give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn't mean do this for commercial vehicles like semi trucks, since one: there's no choice there, you want to ship stuff it only makes sense to put it on trucks or trains, and two, that would pretty much ensure that in a week, more than half our citizens would starve. And there's also the fact that professional truck drivers undoubtedly have far fewer accidents than personal vehicles. I'm going to assume instead he meant personal Hummers and other huge SUVs not actually designed for or used for off-road use. Can we all agree that those are nothing more than tacky hazards and should be paying quite a bit in taxes?
When 16 ships can emit as much pollution as every car on the planet
The story you're pointed to is about SULFUR.
Sulfur is is component of pollution, and talking about it in reference to gasoline makes about as much sense as talking about it in reference to urine. (Gasoline generally has very little sulfur in it).
Your statement about the 16 ships producing more "pollution" than all cars has to be about the most misleading statement I've ever seen modded up on slashdot.
AccountKiller
I'm out for the night now, I will do more looking and follow up this weekend. One thing to start with is the harvard report another person already replied with. It's something I've studied for a while.
Until those who are driving around overweight behemoths are made to pay for their huge negative externalities.
I don't see a case for making heavy vehicles paying for this externality when it is created by the drivers of lightweight cars.
You've been taken by the oldest ploy in politics. They are telling you "these regulations aren't for you, but are for someone else". All government regulations are for you. The government is only capable of passing regulations on people and the burden of any government action will ultimately fall on your shoulders.
Think about it this way, will these new regulations affect your ability to buy the car of your choosing? Yes, it will because manufacturers will need to balance the number of low mileage vehicles they sell with the number of high mileage vehicles to maintain an average that meets the regulations. That means they will change their line-up and may charge higher prices to dissuade customers from buying the lower mileage vehicles. Ultimately, that means that low mileage vehicles will either not be offered, or will be offered at a price that some will not be able to afford.
Does this bother manufacturers? You bet, because the resulting line-up will be less appealing, and that means fewer sales. Should you be bothered as well? Most certainly absolutely yes! You may no longer be able to buy/afford a vehicle that meets your needs once these regulations take effect.
Raising milage standards is a good thing, but better public transit and measures to discourage/make unnecessary individual ownership of vehicles in cities might be a better approach.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Garbage trucks make great hybrids: http://green.autoblog.com/2008/04/08/volvo-introduces-first-hybrid-garbage-truck-works-on-dme-fuel/
Long haul trucks do not make great hybrids. With current infrastructure, the main advantages of hybrids are constant engine rpm and regenerative braking. Long haul trucks don't brake or change speed much so, aside from a perhaps a small regenerative kicker to help get them rolling or a switch from road to rails, there isn't a lot of room for improvement.
A large container ship can transport a full container (30,000kg, basically one truckload) 6,500 mi on about 150 gal of oil). Your car transports about 90kg 4,500 mi on about the same amount of refined fuel. This doesn't sound bad until you consider that about 250,000 cars per day cross the GWB: 22,500,000 kg * 60 mi or 500,000 gal of gas every day.
Ideally hard and you go right through the obstacle, feeling nothing
Only if the obstacle is made of marshmallow fluff. If it is made of a similar material, the collision energy is dissipated by the squishiest object involved in the collision - the human.
Lighter = less momentum, sure, but it also means less control.
Clearly the Lotus Elise is the apotheosis of the ungainly clunker, unable to turn any corner at more than 20 mph.
Better handling is subjective, and I vastly prefer the feel of a heavier vehicle.
You clearly have never driven a light car, or suffer from terminal confirmation bias. Better handling can be defined by at least one absolute number (lateral g-force it can hold) and one relative number (exit speed from a corner).
Finally, stability is related to where the center of gravity is located, not with absolute weight. And most heavy cars on the road today are SUVs, which are terminally top-heavy.
Sheesh. I expect that any moment now you're going to tell me that 4-wheel drive helps in stopping distance.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
For survivability you don't want "sturdyness", you want the car to be crumply.
Afaict you want BOTH in different parts of the car.
The section that does not contain the passengers should be crumply to absorb the impact. The section behind it that does contain the passengers should be sturdy to prevent the passengers being squashed.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
My city just switched to once-a-week garbage, with bigger bins, down from twice every week. So we just doubled the economy of our garbage trucks.
The garbage trucks still have to go to the dump and they'll have to do so twice as often. And this sounds like a reduction in quality of service. I wonder why fuel economy of garbage trucks is more important than the citizens they serve?
I agree strongly with the parent. Light weight carbon fiber cars can have extremely high crash safety if they are engineered intelligently. Indeed, my suspicion is that they can be more safe than steel cars. It is all a matter of engineering structures that will efficiently absorb shocks. I can imagine structures that would have carbon fiber parts that would come under tension in impact situations, and would fail in a cascading fashion throughout an impact event, thus absorbing and perhaps isolating the shock from a crash. I suspect that the crash behavior of carbon fiber cars could be "fine tuned" far more than steel structures. We can see the potential safety of carbon fiber structures carried out in Formula 1 race cars, that absorb crash impacts that are at least an order of magnitude more severe than anything a regular driver would ever experience.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Turbo gasoline engines, maybe. Turbodiesels have small turbos that spool up at low RPM. The one in my Beetle TDI (a 1.9L I4, by the way) kicks in at about 1600 RPM, with idle at 800 and the redline at 5000.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
With some minor tweaks here and there (nowhere ear enough to bankrupt them), Ford could sell its Euro models in the US and be right on top of those regulations. Even if they skipped out all of their diesels (which are outstanding) and only sold the petrol ones, the lowest mpg petrol Focus they sell is 35.3mpg - for the automatic one. The worst diesel automatic does 48.6mpg (best does 74mpg, but you need the manual gearbox).
Are those US gallons or Imperial gallons? Makes a big difference
--
The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
The linked article defines pollution as sulfur emissions, but ignores the other byproducts of combustion including carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and benzene. Should ships reduce sulfur exhaust? Absolutely. Does that eliminate the need for sensible personal transportation choices. Not at all.
I'll start you off with the following link for reference that talks about just the ships.
That link only talks about sulfur emissions and not anything else. If we're talking emissions that's a different debate. The debate here is fuel efficiency or fuel consumption.
The regulation won't lead to having everyone drive an econobox. It will only force manufacturers to either stop producing inefficient vehicles or produce more econoboxes in their lineup to offset the inefficient offerings. It doesn't mean that the buyer will purchase those models. It will certainly drive up the cost to build a fleet of cars.
For survivability you don't want "sturdyness", you want the car to be crumply.
All that liberal science claptrap is just a bunch of nonsense. I always judge things with my gut, and my gut says that sturdy stuff don't break. Them liberals believe in hippy crap like "inertia" and that hippy Newton and his "Laws of motion". I believe in the strength of American Steel.
AccountKiller
You're deciding for people when it's okay to drive what kind of vehicle, defining particular exceptions which of course, if codified into law, would need layers upon layers of clarifications and loopholes. What exactly is a professional driver? What's a commercial purpose? Am I only allowed to use designated commercial vehicles for designated commercial purposes?
Don't worry about it, just sit there and assume that you in your almighty wisdom can in fact account for every scenario, just taking for granted that everyone should bow to your will.
This isn't a game of Civilization and it isn't a banana republic. In a free society we don't handle things that way.
Why the Gov't couldn't just raise the standard to 40MPG RIGHT NOW. It's doable.
We don't need a bunch of fucking assholes in Washington telling us what to drive.
Which was my point. It really isn't enforcing anything to do with the environment. It is just annoying car companies to no real results. The on the road mpg average might hardly change at all. All ford has to do is offer a fuel efficient vehicle.
It is like my dad buying vegetables to be healthy. Without actually EATING them it doesn't help a whole lot.
can you substantiate your statements? Are you actually suggesting, eg, that 1200 lb. mini car is safer in a 'pile-up' of cars on an interstate? Where do you get such data? Less mass nearly always equals "more squish!" When ALL vehicles are of same approximate mass then perhaps your ideas hold water. In this real world of USA driving, that is plainly not yet the case.
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
The problem is that the Ford Focus sells for (starting at) nearly $30,000 USD in Europe. That's why Ford can afford to put in extra quality into the European Focus - I've driven one before and they're very nice.
No American would buy one at that price. They'd expect almost an entry-level luxury car (i.e. BMW 3-series) at that price range. In America, the Ford Focus sells for around $15,000. The barebones model with manual, roll-up windows, no power locks, etc. will be under $12,000.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Whenever I hear the word activist, I reach for my revolver.
I bet your revolver is "sturdy" rather than "crumply."
Yeah, but we can't pay a carbon tax to mother earth. What happens is we will pay it to government, who will piss it away along with all the other money sent that way. It will go to the usual stuff, not for "environmental" uses or reasons. Yes, you are paying to breathe.
I don't understand this argument. So it is the government's job to force companies to do something by creating a penalty based on some random gas that people need to live?
And this is supply and demand?
Hmm, sounds like a classic redistribution of wealth curve...
This is an interesting point, the UK is very highly densely populated compared to the USA. England is 395/km2 compared to the US 31/km2 - that surely has an impact on fuel consumption.
Where do you get such data? Less mass nearly always equals "more squish!"Are you actually suggesting, eg, that 1200 lb. mini car is safer in a 'pile-up' of cars on an interstate? Where do you get such data? Less mass nearly always equals "more squish!"
Exactly! He probably looked it up in a book, or some elitist "engineer" told him. He should have looked it up in his gut. People like you and me know what all that science stuff is just hippy double talk. It's obviously all just about mass and lots of steel. Did you know you have more nerve endings in your gut that you do in the whole rest of your body? Look it up.
AccountKiller
No worries I am sure they will have my flying car ready by then as predicted.
At best, a turbo can spool up instantly and offer a torque curve that is the same as a larger normally aspirated engine. Under no circumstances will a turbo work better at low rpm than at high rpm.
BTW, turbos provide the same benefits to both diesel and gasoline engines, they provide air at a higher pressure so that more fuel can be mixed in to get more energy from an engine of lower weight. Gas turbo engines benefit from small turbo bodies too. For a really wide operating range, some use two turbos and cut one off at low rpm. This gets boost built quickly while not choking airflow at higher rpm. Still, it won't match the grunt of a normally aspirated engine of much larger displacement.
Now, I'm not saying turbos are bad. I'm just mentioning that you don't get low end torque by going turbo. At best you don't lose low end torque.
This is slashdot, not a material science and crash engineering forum. The stage of the argument we're at is "uneducated moron who's experience with materials and impacts amounts to his own ability to crush beer cans" vs "person who has a decent understanding of physics, momentum, and deceleration".
The point of the GP was merely to say that "sturdy hard frames != safer".
AccountKiller
Often times I find that people who advocate population control are actually looking to eliminate competition in the game of life.
What a ridiculous comment. Not everyone uses their vehicle solely to drive to the local starbucks. There are many reasons large vehicles are required, such as recreational towing or equipment hauling. Obviously there are some idiots who buy huge trucks for no reason at all, and your solution is to charge people with manslaughter?
Ditto here in Australia. Ford Australia makes some really nice cars. As does Holden (which is the Australian GM subsidiary). I've driven Fords int the US though and they feel a lot cheaper :(
A friend of my purchase a new Focus for about 15 grand. I was very impressed at how much value he got for so little. I keep saying to myself "This is Ford? WTF happened, and why didn't it happen sooner"?
If I can afford it, I'm really jonesing for a Mustang GT. I want something that will replace my 99 Miata, yet seats four. Unfortunately, I'm really skittish about purchasing a new car in this job market. So, I'll prolly hold off.
Life is not for the lazy.
Apart from carbon steel, cars also contains lots of organic (carbon based) plastics. So you got to subtract the carbon that is trapped in a car from your equation.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Sorry, your math is wrong. You cannot compare US and Brit mpg figures directly.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
...and if we repeat it a few more times, it will become gospel and will be preached in churches and quoted in political speeches and global warming documents.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Lighter cars grip the road less. Simple fact.
As your parent stated, lateral g-force tests disagree.
When Atlanta was in drought a few years ago they managed to get people to conserve water. Then the city starting crying they were losing income because of reduced water usage, and increased fees on water. Government leeches NEVER back off. If we use less fuel because of better mileage vehicles. government leeches will increase the tax to make up for it. These new regulations will save us exactly nothing, and in fact will almost certainly cost us more because the vehicles are more expensive and the government will raise taxes to make up for the revenue otherwise lost. Only an abject fool would trust the government on an issue like this.
It took them some time though. 15 years ago they were far behind.
One problem the US manufacturers have is marketing credibility, after selling their high margin heavy low tech crap for decades with "big is good" mantras.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
I'm curious, why would you not want something that increases the volumetric efficiency AND helps the engine produce more torque?
I got them from Ford's UK site, so presumably UK gallons - divide by 1.2 for US values, which makes the worst petrol automatic Focus 29.4mpg.
That means that for every one of those Focuses they sell once the new guidelines go into effect, they will need to sell one of a model that gets 41.6 mpg. Now go back to that list and out of 100 people who are going to buy a Ford how many would buy a car that gets over 40 mpg? How many would buy a car that gets less than 30mpg? Does your estimate have enough people buying high mpg cars to offset the people who buy low mpg cars?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
NO Ford (and all the other manufacturers) must do more than offer a fuel efficient vehicle. They must produce their vehicles in such numbers that the harmonic mean of the gas mileage of all of the vehicles they produce that fall under this regulation meets this goal. What happens if they can't sell enough of the high mpg cars to offset the number of low mpg cars they sell? They then have two choices. Don't produce more of the low mpg vehicles than can be offset by the demand for the high mpg vehicles or arbitrarily set the price on the low mpg vehicles high and the price on the high mpg vehicles low so that you can adjust demand to favor the high mpg cars.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Waste Management in the US has a pilot program where they run the dump trucks on methane produced at the landfills where the trash is dropped off. Hydrogen is a dead end, as you still need electricity or natural gas to create it.
I really hate the push for mandatory reduction in fuel consumption. One of the primary ways they do this is by reducing the drag coefficient, which means lowering the roof. I am 6'5" and I cannot find a car that fits me anymore. It used to be that trucks and SUVs had much more headroom, but even now when I try the newer models, the roof is so low I cannot sit up. Besides serious discomfort, it also adds severe safety hazards. Most people don't think about the roofline, but because they keep on lowing the roof, my vision gets cut off at the top of the window. The consequence is that I cannot see strait out, but I have to look down. When I come to a stoplight, I cannot see the lights unless I lean into the passenger seat. I once ran a red light and my wife screamed... I didn't even see there was a light because it was above my vision. I don't have a problem with reducing emissions, and, protecting our environment is important, but please don't push a 'one size fits all' car on me that was made for someone 8 inches shorter than I am!
google for inelastic demand.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What kind of car you have the ability to purchase is a liberty? Fail dude, all sorts of fail. You have the ability to buy a car with basic requirements specified by the government. What next? You'll bitch that you can't buy a car without seat belts and air bags?
There's a good chance that most normally aspirated 5 liter gasoline engines have better low end torque than most turbo diesel 3 liter engines.
One of my vehicles is an 08 Tundra with a 5.8L V8 supercharged engine. Fuel economy is 17 city, 20 highway. Engine output is now ~504 HP and 550 lb-ft of torque. While it's probably putting out less torque than an equivilent diesel, I've gained 3-5 mpg by switching to a force intake from natural aspiration.
Which is entirely pointless, as vehicles similar to the ones being targeted for removal are being sold new. What's the point in destroying a perfectly good 10-year-old truck when someone else is buying a brand new one that is no safer, gets no better mileage and has no cleaner emissions? It's nothing more than a waste of money and resources. I say severely limit the sale of new large vehicles, and let the people who still want to have such vehicles fight over them in the used market. As a start, the government could make it so 'light trucks' have to meet the same standards as passenger cars - if truck and SUV drivers had to pay the true costs for the type of vehicle they want to drive, then maybe more of them would choose something else.
Someone failed physics.
"Hi, I heard you got cancer. Here, have a car that doesn't work."
yeah, you can spout all the formulas you want, but the truthyness of it is, bigger is better
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
OK, they have changed the name back to Golf in the US. There is no limit to the inanity of the US arm of VW. The name history of this line over the years has literally been Rabbit, Golf, Rabbit, Golf.
old cars eventually die, who cares if they stay in circulation a couple more years if the next car they buy is 25% less pollution than it would have been?
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
Most US consumers are about as intelligent as a turtle, but we do have the Golf and Jetta (Bora in the real world) and (until recently) New Beetle TDI here, and some of us have the sense to buy them. Actually the TDI is quite prevalent on VW dealer lots these days. My best tank of fuel in my 99.5 Golf TDI has been 792 miles, and that is with an AUTOMATIC transmission. I regularly get well over 600 miles. Ours was detuned to 90 hp (raised to 100 for 2004 and 140 for 2009), but with all the torque it feels like much more and is plenty fun to drive. But get this - ONLY VW (and Audi and Mercedes, but at insane prices) offers a diesel passenger car in the US, so I ask you: is it the chicken or the egg that comes first?
Oh, and VW offers financing deals in the US, but specifically NOT ON DIESELS! And they won't bring the Polo TDI here.
The secret to having real fun in a TDI is to upgrade the suspension to Bilstein PSS9 so you don't have to slow down as much on the corners.
Sell unencumbered diesels! It works for Europe, and I actually believe it will work here. Why can't we clean up our diesel fuel and sell these cars here!?!
I'd like to see the numbers, personally. I think crumple zones probably are safer in minor to moderate accidents, but in severe accidents, a full frame offers better protection than crumple zones with a unit-body construction. Ideally, you'd have both.
The real problem is not the crumple zones, but rather that cars don't have the structural rigidity that a full frame provides. Sometimes - like when sandwiched between two trucks - you just need something that will dissipate or deflect far more energy than a sheet metal crumple zone provides. Granted, the sudden acceleration is not going to be pleasant, but studies have shown that people can actually survive 80 Gs - that's nearly 800 m/s. Even 200 mph is not even 100 m/s. Thanks to improvements in things like seatbelts and headrests, getting rear-ended by a truck going 85 mph is actually survivable - if your car has the structural integrity to keep you from being crushed between your engine block and the one behind you.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
At one point my dream car was a ZR-1 Corvette. However after having owned one for a while my tastes have changed.
Now I am looking for a car that is strong and powerful like a gorilla, yet soft and yielding like a nerf bat. Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWn0R68yFKQ&feature=related
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Sure, so long as you pick up the tab for externalized costs. In this case that might include line items for pollution and dropping bombs on brown people.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Frictional force exerted at the road is given by weight * coefficient of friction [u]. Since weight = mg that all boils down to mgu.
Lateral acceleration at a velocity v on a curve of radius r = v^2 / r. Since F = ma, The
lateral force = mv^2 / r.
As long as the first force is greater, the car is gripping. When it ceases to be, you skid. The limiting case is where mgu = mv^2 / r. The m cancels out, and you, sir, fail @ science.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
To drive 100k miles at 25mpg means 4000 gallons.
To drive 100k miles at 35mpg means 2857 gallons.
There's your answer. Clearly, keeping the car to 150 or 200k miles could result in substantial savings.
On the UK website the Focus starts at £18k ($27k) but to compare like with like you have to take VAT off the UK price, so the dollar amount is around $23.5k. The Focus in the UK started at around £13k up until recently, when the collapse of the pound made this impractical - the Focus is built Saarlouis in the eurozone. I think over the history of the model the UK base price would work out around $20k. If the US next-gen Focus starts at the $12k range it's interesting and shows their pricing schemes to be regional and a bit arbitrary.
...the US is still behind the rest of half the world. 35.5 mpg == 6.6 liter / 100 km
Europe: 5 l/100 km by 2012
Japan: 6.7 l/100 km by 2010
Australia: 6.7 l/100 km by 2010
China: 5.7 l/100 km since 2008
Better late than never, though.
The terrible thing about this decision is that it just screws the middle class. Yes, the middle class might occur some mythical savings of $3000 in fuel for an estimated (likely low) increased manufacturing costs, but what this will really do is force the middle class to take on more debt to get that extra $1000. So, right away, that $1000 in increased costs is going to come at a price approaching $2000 in interest, and further reduce the opportunity cost of the middle class to do things most effectively possible with its money.
Capital costs are killer for lower income brackets, and the left simply doesn't care, and this in my mind is proof that they are just trying to make cars less available, like so many other things, less available for the average guy and to make him poorer over all.
This is my sig.
Which is entirely pointless, as vehicles similar to the ones being targeted for removal are being sold new. What's the point in destroying a perfectly good 10-year-old truck when someone else is buying a brand new one that is no safer, gets no better mileage and has no cleaner emissions?
I worked for one of these programs for a summer. The point was to get people with vehicles from before 1996 off the roads, because the ozone emissions standards changed that year. That and getting people to check their tire pressure, for fuel economy.
And yeah, SUVs need to have their little "farm equipment" subsidy removed (retroactively, I say! Grrr! Revenge!).
You can't take the sky from me...
'sa right boss, I'll stick with my '73 Red Eldorado.
Maybe this will force the auto manufacturers to finally start selling some decent cars in this county like they sell in the rest of the world!
Ford and GM sell freaking awesome cars in UK and Europe, and I can't figure out why they dump the crap here. In Europe, Ford sells the Modeo (same as US Ford 500) with a 330 Ft Lb 2.2 turbo diesel, thats about as much torque as a v8 mustang, AND it gets about 50 MPG!!!!!
I have a VW Jetta TDI, and I love it, it gets better milage than a prius at highway speeds, is much simpler, and is actually a total blast to drive, the low end torque is awesome, and it feels fast. I test drove a prius, and basically it felt like a sponge, a soft mushy SLOW sponge.
I'd love to see some competition for the Jetta TDI from the likes of Ford and GM, I really would have preferred buying Ford, but all they sell in the US is junk compared to their UK offerings.
I was talking about the very worst petrol one they sell - the majority of the Focus models they sell (75% of the petrol ones and 100% of the diesel ones) are above that figure (in US gallons).
Only the worst mpg model is below the new target figure.
The best diesel Focus does 61.8 (US) mpg, and you can buy them right now.
Someone failed physics.
Wasn't me. And this wasn't a physics problem. People buy small cars knowing that there are much larger vehicles on the road. When people create externalities by their choices, they should be responsible for them right? So someone who buys a small car and creates an externality (even if it is themselves who are affected by the externality) with the large vehicles on the road, well they get what they chose.
Gasoline use may have some short-term imelasticity, but the data (from previous price jumps) show that in the medium and long term demand is elastic..
In the longer long term, elasticity comes from resource substitution-- as is true with almost everything. When the price of whale oil went up (because of whale depletion), whale oil use decreased. Not because people decided not to use lights at night, but because they switched to kerosene and gas lights.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I wonder if anyone has done a study on how much gas is wasted due to the presence of the catalytic converter. The device clearly reduces power which forces the driver to step on the gas more. So is the wasted gas equal or greater than the amount of pollutants generated? AFAIK, the converters were created when most cars used a carburetor which most people never had adjusted properly. Now with most cars having fuel injection and computer controlled engines, are the converters really necessary?
And then there's the inexorable issue of morons in government with no technical, scientific, or engineering background making arbitrary specifications without knowing if they can be achieved. Yes, I realize that the rumor that an Obama official suggesting that the laws of thermodynamics be repealed is false but that does change the fact that you can design anything you want on paper or in the computer but you can't build it or build it in a cost-effective way. A number of years ago a group of researchers took an off-the-lot car and tore down the engine and fine-tuned everything. They were able to get 100mpg out of it. Sounds great until you realize what it cost to do that in terms of time and money and skill levels needed. IMHO, we may be able to get there but cars are going to cost a lot more than they do now.
>>Can we all agree that those are nothing more than tacky hazards and should be paying quite a bit in taxes?
Well, I don't know about being "tacky" (and if anti-tacky should be mandated by law, per se), but as far as taxes on SUVs go, here in California we're already there.
And how many of those that do over 35.5 mpg do you think they will sell for every vehicle that they sell that does less than 35.5 mpg?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Well, in the UK, pretty much all of them - no one buys the 2.0l petrol automatic.
Whether that will translate in the US market, who knows. The rules are calling for a fleet average though, so even if only a few sell, the fact that they are on sale is good enough, and can gradually drive economy upwards.
But in America, diesel is expensive and stinky. That's why we can't use it.
(The number on the sign is larger for diesel, which makes it undesirable for the 95% of the population here that can't do math. Also, we haven't gotten around to mandating really low-particulate diesel yet.)
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
No, this is true, but the Euro diesels are already there. They're a long way from the rattly, stinky clankers of old.
The diesels are dearer here too, but when petrol and diesel cost $8 per US gallon, you start to look at TCO rather than just purchase price.
Fleet average means that the average of all of the vehicles (not models) that a car manufacturer produces must equal the standard for mpg. That means that if they don't sell, they have to do something with the cars (generally, they either sell them for a loss or produce only a limited number of the more popular, low mpg models).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
There are lots of reasons they can't sell world cars. The price of those European cars is way out of line with the price American consumers are willing to pay (see an example posted elsewhere in this thread). Although safety, noise, and emissions standards are similar between the US and Europe, they are not the same. If you're a niche manufacturer (i.e. Porsche/Volkswagen) you can get away with trying to be a "jack of all trades". However, my opinion of VW cars is that they're small, overpriced, and have quality issues (I've seen more fully involved VW car fires than all other makes combined). Then there's overall market differences. The US is a big place, with hugely varied climates and driving conditions. Ford and GM have to sell cars that work in the 120 degree Sonoran desert, the near Arctic conditions of Alaska and Northern Minnesota, and everywhere in between. It's not just American companies. Toyota (no slouch at making small, efficient cars) doesn't bring their smaller minivan to the US market. Somehow I think that disproves that it's an issue with the big 2.5.
Turbocharging a Diesel allows smaller cylinders resulting in a lower heat loss during compression, thus further increasing efficiency, and allows lower RPM thus increasing available expansion time. It is a win/win option. In the engine of my small European car, the exhaust turbine enclosure is cast into the exhaust manifold, with the result that the turbine is so small as to be almost unnoticeable, yet it is a variable vane design. In the last week I've recorded an average of 48 MPUSG on 500 miles of motorway at an average close to 70mph. Under the same conditions my first Diesel car, a normally aspirated lump with lower air resistance, would have achieved around 36-40MPUSG. It was slower, needed more frequent servicing, and produced soot. The new engine needs an oil change every 10,000 miles and produces no visible soot at all. Progress.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Well, in the US that's not how the program ended up working. There was no minimum age requirement, and I believe the average age of the vehicles turned in was 11 years, so over half of them were from 1996 or newer. One of the big problems with these programs is that generally to get the rebate, a new car must be purchased. That means the cars that are turned in are cars that belonged to people who could afford a new car. The worst polluting cars generally stay on the road, because those belong to people who can't afford a new car (even with the subsidy). An unintended consequence is that some of these cars may even stay on the road even longer, since the government mandated destruction of the turned in vehicles reduces the pool of inexpensive used vehicles that poor people rely upon.
Thank you! 40posts below my original post and you are the only one to answer my question. Interesting system... I suppose it works unless a company is really shitty at predicting the market. Then I guess they are just fucked.
Mind you! I still don't get how it'd work for like Mazeratti or anything. If all their cars are uber sports machines.
I believe a far less arbitrary method would just be to tax gas (much more) and then allow for market economics to kick in. Or if you don't like that then there is a better idea. Add a graduated tax to vehicles based on MPG(obviously give credit to busses or w/e) so that efficient cars would not be taxed at all, possibly even given a light credit. That way you can't call it a government money grab. And it allows for much more vehicle freedom.
Really who the fuck thought up fleet averages. Is there any advantage to it over taxing vehicles that you know of? (since you seem to be informed)
The advantage of the CAFE standards over a tax is that politicians don't have to pass what would be an unpopular tax. You are right that a fuel tax would be more effective at driving up fuel efficiency. The problem with a fuel tax is that it would dive up the cost of everything that needed to be transported.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
My 2nd idea on adding to the price tag of the vehicle wouldn't have that problem. It could actually lower the cost of driving by funnelling a tax on innefectual cars to efficient ones. I thought for sure they could come up with an interesting name for that to ram it through.
But yeah, I guess ignorant people + cowardly politicians is as good a guess as any.
For all intents and purposes that is what happens. Automobile manufacturers sell low mpg cars at a premium and high mpg cars at a loss.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
and let's not forget aerodynamics. A light car with a good aerodynamic shape can actually grip the road better than a heavy one at high speeds. Think F1.
American? We started making steel again?
Consider a spherical horse in vacuum...
You don't need to use gasoline.
You just think you do.
You don't need 600 hp in your car.
You just think you do.
Here endeth the lesson.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If you wouldn't call NASA a bunch of idiots because of the occasional mistake (leaving off units), why would you imply that about a ./ poster? I'm sorry if don't triple check my posts, but nobody's going to die because I make a typo in an online forum.
Really. It's akin to calling a person an idiot for making a typo. It happens, it might get corrected, but everyone pretty much understands what is going on.
And I'm not going to reply any more to this thread. I've said what I wanted, proven my points, if you disagree - fine. The evidence is out there, and I don't think anything more needs to be said. I honestly didn't want it to go this far, but I simply couldn't put it all in one post.
Anyway, good troll. Sometimes the debate is needed to debunk the crumple-zone believers. I remember the first time I heard about them in a dealer showroom - on the Corolla, no less. I didn't have at that time the data I needed to prove him wrong, but now there's a wealth of accident information out there. I just hope no one buys a smaller car thinking the crumple zones will effectively mitigate the safety disparity between them and larger vehicles.
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