Slashdot Mirror
EPA Proposes Grading System For Car Fuel Economy
suraj.sun writes with this snippet from CNET:
"The EPA and Department of Transportation on Monday proposed a fuel economy label overhaul to reflect how electric and alternative fuel vehicles stack up against gasoline passenger vehicles. ... The changed label, mandated by the 2007 energy law, includes the same information on city and highway miles per gallon and estimated driving costs based on 15,000 miles a year now available. But the new labels add more comparative information, rating cars on mileage, greenhouse gas contribution, and other air pollutants from tailpipe emissions. That means that consumers can look at a label to see how one vehicle compares to all available vehicles, rather than only cars in a specific class. One label proposes grades, ranging from an A-plus to a D. There are no failing grades, since vehicles need to comply with the Clean Air Act."
Just how stupid do you have to be to need a giant letter grade on a car? I hope that version doesn't fly.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
They already have a 1 to 10 scale on the stickers, how is that any more difficult than an A+ through D system?
Stop with the dumbing-down idiocy. Give the people some god damn credit. If I give a rat's ass about fuel efficiency, I can do the basic, I mean BASIC, algebra.
Give us a reasonable set of numbers. This A-D is a bullshit, a marketers' dream, but it's a pure, unadulterated insult to the people of the US.
Keep this up, it won't be long before our children start migrating to Asia and Europe for better life.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
'Greenhouse gas emmisions'?
Does this include the source power generation? Of course not, because some regions use wind/solar/nuclear, which have a vastly different greenhouse gas emmsiions then others.
Why not use SIMPLE standard units. It's up to the buyers to know the source of the fuel.
N/m@0-10km/h, 11-50km/h, 51-80km/h, 81-100km/h
All cars can compete on this scale. If a 3000kg SUV takes 40kN/m to go from 0-10km/h, and an all electric 1000kg Prius takes 5kN to achieve the same task, we can figure out what is better.
They should also mandate the energy density be displayed at all fuel pumps/charging stations.
e.g.
diesel: 1000N/L
gasoline: 300N/L
natural gas: 200N/L
(my mind is fuzzy on how to apply this to all-electric, but plenty of the folks on here are smarter then I am), but my point still stands.
Label everything based on the one common denominator: energy.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
I'm generally in the "fuck copying Europe" camp, but they've got something with the liters/100 km approach. Gas and Diesel cars should be rated in gallons/100 miles, and electric/hybrid cars should be given an equivalent assuming that the power comes from a modern coal plant delivered to San Diego, and that CO2 emissions are measured in gallons of gasoline. Of course, the activists won't go for that, because they'll be forced to admit that their precious cars pollute arizona instead of socal. However, it'll give a fair comparison for everyone else. Nobody knows what a newton or erg is, so Newtons are absolutely useless. However, we know how much energy is in a gallon of gasoline ... roughly a gallon of gasoline.
think of the people who make 20k/year and can't replace their aging clunkers, but they still need to get to work.
A van that carries 15 people at 15 mpg is not worse for the environment than someone driving a 50mpg vehicle by themselves, but I'm guessing the same ratings will apply. Have they given up on the concept of multi-passenger vehicles and just assume everyone drives alone?
I don't think this will make a difference. 99% of the car buying public goes after features first: they may be looking for a pickup to haul stuff, a minivan to move people, something inexpensive but fun, or even just looks and the need to express masculine virility. It's a very rare person who goes specifically after emissions, and they're all driving a Prius. The rest will be going after price they can afford versus the features they want. There is also the fact that most people know the cost of fuel is small compared to the cost of a new vehicle, so it often makes sense to buy something cheaper and pay more in gas. So the whole idea of grading cars is next to useless.
I'll use myself as an example. I went car shopping 3 years ago, after my old car died. I wanted something cheap as I had to finance, I wanted enough room to be comfortable, and I wanted enough power to make the car fun and able to tow a trailer. I ended up getting a Chevy Optra hatchback (sold as a Suzuki Reno, Buick Excel, Lacetti, etc., in other parts of the world). And you know what? It's bad on gas (~30 mpg). But it's roomy enough that a full size adults are comfortable in the back, and the 120 hp engine/manual transmission can handle a 2000 lb trailer plus 1000 lb of cargo in the car. It'll do 0 to 60 in under 10, and with the right tires it handles great (Yokohama Avid Envigor). I could have gotten something 20% or even 50% better on fuel (diesel), but it made no economic sense.
Be relentless!
The CO2 emission numbers would be misleading for battery electric and plug-in hybrids because it only states the tailpipe emissions.
Example... A battery-electric vehicle may use 34 KW/h of electricity per 100 miles. According to official data, in the USA, about 0.6 Kg of CO2 is emitted for every KW/h of electricity consumed. So for every 100 miles, about 20 Kg of CO2 is released into the atmosphere. So the data should state that 200g of CO2 is emitted per mile, not the 0g it currently states.
Ignoring other sources of CO2 emission and only looking at tailpipe emissions are misleading for technology which does not have a tailpipe. For example, a battery electric vehicle which uses 40 KW/h of electricity per 100 miles would release more CO2 into the atmosphere than many small gasoline vehicles.
No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
Anyone know what's going to be in the "Smart Phone" QR block? I'd love to see it have enough data so an app could take that info, plus a the data from a week/month/year of GPS &/or accelerometer data (recorded by my GPS or smart phone) and give me a better estimate of how much a car would cost me to operate, if my driving habits remained roughly the same. At the very least, it could probably factor in my true mix of city/highway, and it might even be able to tweak that if I've got a heavy left foot, and insist on 1G starts at every stop sign.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/science/earth/26star.html
THL phish sticks
No failing grades? Have we already forgotten "No child left behind" and how that worked out?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Nibble, nibble. You can get Win7's experience index down as far as 1.0 if you've an old enough GPU that doesn't have a driver. I've seen ones with supported GPUs down as far as 2.9 because of their CPUs (Pentium-D 830 @ 3.0 GHz), and new Atom-powered netbooks can be lower yet because of the CPU.
Funnily enough, moving up to a real Win7 version from the Starter it was bundled with increased the experience index a fair bit, because Starter doesn't have a 3D accelerated interface. Starter gave 1.0, and Enterprise bumped it to something like 2.5.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
So if there's a solar car with really poor efficiency, would it be rated "D Flueless"?
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
battery-electric vehicle may use 34 KW/h of electricity
That IS bad. After only 3 years of engine-time, you'll need a full Nuke plant to power just *one* of those.
per 100 miles
Criminey! Assuming it averages about 50mph, that means it'll only take 23 hours to require a 1GW dedicated power plant, and it only gets worse from there!
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I submitted a comment to the EPA suggesting that the "Gallons / 100 Miles" number be more prominent relative to MPG. (Converting to metric is a lost cause, unfortunately.)
I also suggested that they add "Gallons SAVED per 100 miles" relative to an average car in its class. This statistic can be surprising: switching from a 33mpg Corolla to a 50mpg Prius saves one gallon per 100 miles, but switching from a 10mpg Hummer to a 14mpg Land Rover saves three gallons per 100 miles driven.
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
What are we at right now for a fleet average -- ~25mpg? Average 12,000 mi/year, average vehicle age 9.5 yrs and growing (implying average lifespan of about 20 years). 20 * 12000 / 25 = 9,600 gallons of gasoline. So your 2 ton vehicle -- most of which will be recycled -- contrasts with 33.6 tons of gasoline, all of which ends up burned and straight into the atmosphere.
I know it's trendy to pretend that production energy consumption being left out reverses the equation (because people often used to leave production costs out), but that doesn't mean it's the case.
"... even though he sins so much that people cast him out of demons."
Maybe. Or perhaps grade like they do in the bond ratings business, add more letters and pluses.
So instead of A+ being the top grade, it might become A++ or AA+, etc. And over time, add more .. heck, the grades could eventually resemble eBay positive feedback with lots of As and +s.
Ron
Unlikely, as this would make it harder for smug retards to complain about me driving a 14 year old car.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
It won't make any difference. Then why the complaint?
I suspect it will indeed make a difference. People will get a story going forward. There is already experience in the marketplace that labels like this work. Energy Star being the biggest example.
The fact is, that the labels do provide a wide variety of information. This along with features, price and lust will make a difference (If we were all about features and price we would all be driving Kia Amanti's but very very few people do).
There are a universe of new cars out there, and the car industry cannot be trusted to provide much objective information that can be compared to other cars. Information that may or may not be useful to all customers, but for some and I would propose a significant number of customers, they will look and understand the information. If presented in a way that makes sense.
I think the comparisons between all cars, like cars, and cars in its class pretty much provide the information that is most likely to be valuable.
If you don't think it will work, who cares? If you think it will cause harm, by all means speak up.
But I really do not think that you should limit the information about cars to that just limited by the manufacturer or the car dealer. To do so, actually does provide harm to the customers. And to expect them to all go to some third party doesn't make sense either. Only a small amount of consumers do that. That is why were are not all driving Ford Taurus's.
where you get a score which can be relatively compared to older and newer hardware.
I have a feeling that would spell disaster for auto makers/dealers. If people could compare their car's economy to vehicles from the 80's, they would plainly see just how inefficient their vehicles are. Not that I would be opposed to that, but still.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Thus, Proving that the score is useless MS Marketing BS. The score should reflect your hardware capabilities regardless of which version you have licensed as it should be encouraging someone with starter to say upgrade to a higher version since it can support it, this is one of the reasons i don't like the whole Vista OS (yes 7 is just a patched version of Vista) - Still using XP for my win partition (Win7 Ultimate is just slower for most games)
No, once a car has been graded, the grade shouldn't need to change unless something is done to the car that makes it more fuel efficient somehow.
Is there any reason for us to think this new system will be any more meaningful and less arbitrary than the last? Case in point: my twenty year old Audi was rated 18 city, 24 highway... but I actually get well over 30mpg on the highway (closer to 40, even, if I stick to 55). Granted, she's extremely aerodynamic with a rather tiny, multi-valve, turbo-charged engine and very tall gearing... but that's beside the point: the fact is, if we couldn't rely on the EPA for fair and accurate info back in '91 (when corporations generally had far less control and influence over the regulatory bureaucracy than they do today), how likely is it that this new system will be a worth a goddamn thing?
If a car performs really well, it might get an A...
But then a few years down the road, improved technology could make that A rating in 2010 look like a C- or D in 2015, and other "A" rated cars come out that perform far better. Yet the 2010 car still has the "A" rating... so it isn't fairly compared to newer cars.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
or their clunkers were too good to get a hand out... because they made a decent decision 15 years ago...
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
I know a lot of people think all of society's problems can be solved with more regulations and laws, but don't you think that manufacturers will just find another way to game this new system?
I guess i really don't have an alternative, but it's just a little frustrating to watch us go through the cycle again...
If people could compare their car's economy to vehicles from the 80's, they would plainly see just how inefficient their vehicles are.
Yeah, right. Oh, the Horror!
I suppose it depends on your source (pdf)
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Do all cars really meet the requirements of the Clean Air Act? I can name a few that I'm pretty sure killed trees as they drove by.
The real measure of a car's operating cost (even taking into account CO2 emissions--more on that in a bit) is the cost per mile. However, since that is usually in the too-small-to-be-meaningful range, let's assume a typical fill-up, or charge-up, will take a car 400 miles tops. That seems to be the typical range the engineers design a tank for.
(Side note: I'm not counting driver's insurance, since that cost is incurred before a driving pattern can be observed. Life's surprises can alter those calculations too much for my purposes here.)
Okay, my Taurus gets about 25 miles per gallon. A low-ball gas price around here is US$2.50/gal. Figuring that (cost per gal)/(miles per gal) gives cost per mile, that means it costs about $0.10 per mile. Over 400 miles, that's $40. Therefore, the fuel cost per 400 miles is (cost per gal) * 16.
My last car was a Honda Civic CRX, that got 42 mpg typically. Its fuel cost per 400 miles came to roughly (cost per gal) * 9.5.
Now, take a look at an electric car. My current cost for electricity is $0.06/kWh. To cost the same $40 as gasoline at $2.50/gal, and get the same 400 miles (giving the same $0.10 cost per mile), the car would need to consume 667 kWh.
The Chevy Volt's charge-per-distance figures come in at 25 kWh/100 miles. At $0.06/kWh, 400 miles would cost $6.00.
Once you find a place to plug it in. And assuming you never go farther than 40 miles between charges.
I said I would consider the CO2 emissions, and I will. The fact is, the central generation points are better maintained, and much more efficient, than the millions of vehicles' emission points. Putting those millions of vehicles onto the grid would do wonders for reducing CO2 emission.
Sure, if you want to pick the one source which shows different figures, go for it.
Unfortunately, even your own source shows that efficiency has increased overall, while the efficiency of imported vehicles has decreased. Let's compare the most "efficient" year (1987), to the most current year (2004):
Passenger cars went from 28.5 to 29.3
Domestic vehicles went from 27 to 29.3
Imports went from 31.2 to 29.3
Light trucks went from 21.7 to 21.5
Since they seem to be using weighted averages, the reason that the overall figure decreased by almost 2 mpg is because more people started buying light trucks. However, the actual fuel efficiency has clearly increased over time, as even your own source shows.
I reiterate: Oh, the Horror!
Eh, how is that number excessive? That comes out to just over 40 miles per day.
Reachable for:
-someone who lives 20 miles outside of town
-or lives 30 miles from their employer
-or only 20 miles from work, but their children go to a school 10 miles in the opposite direction or past the office
Throw in a few longer distance trips to visit relatives and I can see people hitting that number quite easily.
To reduce that 15,000 number, un-sprawling needs to happen, good luck with that...
Well, my original point wasn't necessarily about the actual numbers; your average consumer hasn't a clue about actual numbers. What they see is the difference in MPG. All those older 80's model imports were sporting numbers that, compared to today, are pretty horrendous. Granted, the testing doesn't use the same methods as previously used, but people don't care about that.
When they see some 1983 Honda Civic sporting MPG of 50 (or whatever it was, certainly higher than today) they compare that to today's Civic and wonder, WTF happened?
It's purely related to image. When current hybrids are stating MPG lower than what they used to be, there is an image problem.
And your point about light trucks? There aren't even any light trucks available any more. The best you can do is a Ford Ranger. There are no more Toyota Pickups. All we have now are the beasts. If I could choose one vehicle to purchase now, I would like to buy a 2010 Toyota Pickup, not one of those Tacomas or Tundras, those are not light pickups.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
When they see some 1983 Honda Civic sporting MPG of 50 (or whatever it was, certainly higher than today) they compare that to today's Civic and wonder, WTF happened?
What happened is they got roomier, more powerful, more comfortable, and safer. Air conditioning, airbags, sturdier frames, triple the horsepower ... all of these things add weight and higher fuel requirements. Hell, some of the old Civics didn't even have a tachometer!
Maybe you're the kind of guy who prefers to have nothing but a box on 4 wheels. Maybe you also prefer to have a 19 inch CRT television instead of a 55 inch LCD. You are, however, in the minority, and people like you don't make up a large enough market segment to matter. I'm sorry that you're unhappy about it, but that's the reality.
How is 15000 miles a year excessive or wasteful? Around here if you work downtown and live in the burbs you can take transit to work and park the car (I do). But if work is outside of downtown in some business park or industrial area transit is mostly unfeasible. A 30 mile trip to work is hardly unusual. Sixty miles a day = 300 miles a week = 15000 miles a year (roughly). That doesn't include vacation car trips which could be easily another 2000 or 3000 miles in a 2 week trip.
Jeez, I do a good 30k a year, and I'm just a student! I'm guessing you're not an American?
What I don't like about a grade system is that it inherently doesn't take into account future improvements in technology. An A+ in 2011 will probably mean around 50 miles/gallon (e.g. Prius). An A+ in 2025 will hopefully mean 100 miles/gallon or better. So will a 2011 Prius get the same A+ grade on a dealer's lot in 2025?
However, the mere fact that a coffee machine or a breadmaker is safe doesn't actually make it any use for making coffee or baking bread - in fact, in the UK, makers of nonfunctioning "water treatment" products market them as WRAS approved - which is purely safety testing.
Any commercially sponsored test is flawed. Did you ever see a car magazine give a BMW a bad review? Usually they give critical reviews of second tier manufacturers or small cars, which have near-zero "marketing" budgets, and criticise very expensive cars (that their readers can't afford and whose makers don't advertise with them). I'm happy to pay taxes to an organisation that won't go out of business by telling the truth.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
or their clunkers were too good to get a hand out... because they made a decent decision 15 years ago...
More likely, they made a bad decision 2 years ago when they picked up that 15 year old car, qualifying or not (they couldn't afford to get the cash for their clunker) and are now stuck with it for 10 more years because most older cars are off the road and can no longer be purchased second-hand.
"His name was James Damore."
americans are still using imperial measurements .
Deleted
One label proposes grades, ranging from an A-plus to a D. There are no failing grades, since vehicles need to comply with the Clean Air Act
So we start with cars with A rating. Then next year we get A+ or AA. And in 20 years we'll have, what, A++++ vs A++++++ like an eBay rating ? That's pretty dumb. If it was for me I'd give a Hummer a Z and a Prius a U or something, and then let them fight out to get better letters, A being a perpetual motion machine !
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Trust me, nobody understands my minority status more than me (not racially).
I don't think it's so much that people want bigger things, but that people want what they are told to want or what society tells them to want. SUVs are a great example, as people certainly don't generally use them as "Sport Utility Vehicles", they use them for commuting. If I want something bigger, it's because it's practical. I bought a 23" monitor because they got less expensive and it's much easier for me to work with. My dad, OTOH, he likes to go bigger simply because it must be better, hence his infatuation with always buying the top-of-the-line tools/tractors/etc, even if it only gets used once a year.
One of the reasons I like the whole "green" movement isn't necessarily because of environmental concerns, but simply because it makes more sense. If that means Toyota might reintroduce a standard pickup, then I'm happy.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Or you could, I don't know, tax fuel, like every European country does. The more fuel you use, the more it costs you. The further you drive, the more it costs you. The more inefficient your car, the more it costs you. And you can tax at source and thereby stop virtually all "tampering" with the system where people claim to use less than they do, or modify their cars, etc. And you can use the gained tax to do lots of environmental-saving, road-maintenance and other good acts.
US fuel prices are locked low because the US are scared of charging their citizens more for it. They fear some sort of revolt, I assume. European fuel costs are mostly tax for many reasons, one of which is that it's the easiest, simplest, per-usage, pro-efficiency tax that you can put on petroleum use of every consumer.
Similarly, if electric cars take off and are similarly inefficient - tax battery technologies and/or electricity itself (second is probably a lot easier).
Home electrical devices in the UK are graded on a similar scale (I think the scale is international, but I've only shopped for them here). A few years ago when I was looking, the older models were down around the D-F bracket while the newer ones were B or C. There were no A-rated devices. Now, efficiencies have improved, and a lot of devices are A, but the scale didn't need recalibrating because it was built with some headroom. I think they've also added AA and AAA to the scale now, but I've not yet seen devices that have them.
Of course, you could always use numbers instead, with higher numbers being better. Give existing cars a 3-7 rating, reserve 0-2 for things that are so bad no one would buy them, and keep adding to the scale at the top end as required.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Is this similar to what the EU has been using for a while yet?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_energy_label#Cars
Seriously, can we not expect people to know what numbers are bigger than others now?
If the "average" citizen does not know if 25 is bigger than 31, we have serious problems that we should be working on rather than wasting resources coming up with a letter-based grading system for fuel economy.
Also, I don't want to know if my car gets an "A" or a "C." I want to know how far I can drive on a gallon of gas. "A" does not tell me that. "31 MPG" does tell me what I want to know.
Yes, let's dumb everything down for the LCD some more.
Actually, there is NO REASON that the "Windows Experience Index" should be or needs to be a hardware benchmark. As the name implies, it is ranking ONLY the performance of Windows itself--and having a crippled version of windows does indeed reduce its performance, as demonstrated in the benchmark. The marketing bullshit is that they sell the crippled version in the first place, not that the benchmark accurately reflects it.
So get yourself a real benchmark program and quit whining. And yes, XP is better for gaming on regular systems because of lower overhead and more compatibility, but believe me, win7 makes all the difference when you run an SSD.
I'm pretty confident that "light truck" as used for these purposes means, basically, pickup trucks, vans and SUVs of any ilk. It's certainly what it means when it says it on the front of an auto parts catalog.
I believe, but am not sure, that a 1-ton dually is considered a "light truck."
It does not, as you apparently believe, mean "compact trucks."
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
It can cost a lot if you have to have your car repaired to meet emissions standards. Many cars beat the standards by a substantial margin so that as the car ages it will pass by an adequate margin. A brand that gets a reputation for $1000 repairs at 60,000 miles will lose market share.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
UK has very high fuel taxation, AND road tax increases exponentially the more CO2 the car puts out. The latter has made a massive difference to the cars that fleets buy, which has in turn made a big difference to the design by manufacturers. Oh, and we pay road tax too for each vehicle, which again costs more the bigger your car is.
Coal produces 4 times as much C02 as gasoline for the same amount of energy. Even if it's a bit more efficient to produce electricity in central locations, it's not more efficient C02 wise. Also consider that the more efficiently gas or coal is burned, the more C02 is produced per unit of fuel.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Is really bad, whatever technology you choose. Plastics, rubber, glass, metals and the likes. Fuel is just a piece in the puzzle.
Those things sound more like marketing than real stuff.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Letters?! Who has the freaking time to learn letters these days?
Use colors! Everyone can see, and those that can't shouldn't drive. Just for spite make two of the colors red and green against color blind folks.
Also why even bother having a set of defined colors... then you have to worry about how many graduations etc... Just make a spectrum (or use THE spectrum if you wish), and label one end "Bad" and the other "Good".
Certainly some of the purchasing decisions are influenced by the "keeping-up-with-the-Joneses" syndrome. However, writing off the desire for larger/more comfortable vehicles in such simplistic terms is silly. I drive a Dodge Charger. I can honestly say that image and popularity didn't play the slightest role in my decision to make that purchase (although they are nice perks, in retrospect). When I first went looking for a new car, I test drove:
1. Kia Rio
2. Pontiac G5
3. Mazda 3
4. Mazda 6
I loved the price tag and the fuel efficiency on the Rio, but the engine was so underpowered and the car so cramped that my hopes for it were decimated only minutes after getting behind the wheel. The G5 was better, but still under-powered, and it just didn't feel good. The Mazda 3 was a SWEET ride - fast, maneuverable, a joy to drive - but didn't have the capacity I needed. The Mazda 6 wasn't quite as much fun to drive, but I still enjoyed it, and it had plenty of room. I almost ended up buying it, until I realized that it's fuel efficiency figures were identical to a 3.5L Charger which I had seen listed at a bankruptcy sale for a much lower price. At no point in the process did I consider what other people would think of my car, or what "they" say I should buy. I simply chose the vehicle in my price range which best suited my needs and desires.
Like you, I support the "green movement" when it makes sense. Using CFL's instead of incandescents, buying efficient appliances, using mass transit when practical ... I'm all for it. On the other hand, I'm not going to create problems for myself just so I can feel like I'm "doing something for the environment". If you expect people to use "green" technology, you have to make it suit their needs - otherwise you're just wasting resources on products that most people won't have any interest in.
There is a significant population of people who just want economical commuter cars. I don't care if it takes a while to accelerate from 0-60; I don't care if the top speed is 80 mph. I don't want power windows and power doorlocks; hell, I don't even need power steering. AC is for pussies and people far too concerned about their hair getting mussed up in the wind. I'm a bit over the edge compared to a lot of other commuters, but there are lots of us who want an econobox built with good quality.
The real reason the market of people like me isn't served well? Because all of those now-standard "extras" result in profit for the manufacturer and the dealer. You simply can't get a small car without any bells and whistles anymore. And since all the automakers play this game, you simply don't have the choice of getting a truly stripped-down model. You can't even buy a 2010 Honda Civic without an automated tire pressure monitoring system. WTF? Really? And not even that, but they say you shouldn't rely on it and the tire pressure needs to be checked regularly with a manual gauge? WTF would I want to pay for that useless "service"?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I'm not criticizing your choice here, it seems reasonable. But I'm wondering about your reasoning on one thing: how was the engine on the Rio underpowered? What exactly do you *need* that power for? It's convenient, to be sure, to be able to accelerate quickly going uphill, or to be able to get to highway cruising speed super quickly. But is it really necessary?
:)
I drive a '94 Honda DX (102 HP engine when new, now probably putting out a bit less, about 2200 lbs curb weight). I can accelerate just fine, uphill even. The 2010 Kia Rio is about the same -- 110 HP (10% more powerful) but 2400 lbs (around 10% heavier)... what do you need the extra muscle for? Because it feels good?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
You simply can't get a small car without any bells and whistles anymore.
"The 2010 Kia Rio Base trim lives up to its name. It provides a seriously spartan experience at a rock-bottom price. While its styling and engine are shared with other, up-market Rios, the Base is conspicuously lacking even the most basic amenities in a quest to offer the best price possible.
The Rio Base is available only as a four-door sedan and rides on small, 14-inch wheels with narrow tires. Power steering isn't even offered as an option, and the only available transmission is a five-speed manual. The driving experience is quite basic, with minimal sound deadening and a noticeable lack of grip from the puny tires.
The interior of the Rio Base continues the bare-bones theme with manual windows, locks, and mirrors and no air conditioning, even as an option. A basic AM/FM CD stereo is at least standard and offers an auxiliary input jack."
http://www.cargurus.com/Cars/Overview-t37068-2010-Rio-Base.html
You know, as much as I enjoy being able to destroy someones arguments with a simple cut-and-paste, I'd REALLY be much happier if people would just start checking their own assumptions before making these claims.
Unless, of course, you consider a 110hp engine and a basic CD player to be "bells and whistles". In which case, you're right - you can't buy a 1980's style shitbox any more, unless you're buying used. You also can't buy a brand new Commodore 64.
Honestly, yes, the feeling is a huge part of it. I spend a LOT of time on the road. Spending 6 hours nonstop in a car you enjoy driving is a lot different than spending the same amount of time in one you don't. It's that whole "5 minutes with a pretty girl or 5 seconds on a hot stove" thing.
There are other considerations, too - being able to carry a lot of stuff without bogging down, being able to pass quickly and efficiently on single-lane highways, etc. But yeah, just being able to enjoy driving is the main selling point. Perhaps if I spent less time on the road, I wouldn't worry about it so much, but as it is ....
Econobox, shitbox -- same thing. And yes, I would like to buy a 75 HP shitbox... but the only one around seems to be the Smart Fortwo... which unfortunately requires premium fuel (and only gets around 35 mpg anyway).
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
You could always build your own. Get a lawnmower engine, a lawn-chair, some cardboard and a roll of ductape, and you're good to go :)
True enough, but coal is hardly the only source of electricity. Natural gas, water, windmill, solar, and nuclear are also on the grid, and of those, only natural gas puts out CO2.