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America's Cars Are Suddenly Getting Faster and More Efficient (bloomberg.com)
Kyle Stock and David Ingold, writing for Bloomberg: Sometime in the next couple of months, the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon and its 808 horsepower will show up in dealership windows like some kind of tiny, red, tire-melting factory. Yes, 808 horsepower. There's no typo. Last year, U.S. drivers on the hunt for more than 600 horsepower had 18 models to choose from, including a Cadillac sedan that looks more swanky than angry. Meanwhile, even boring commuter sedans are posting power specifications that would have been unheard of during the Ford Administration. The horses in the auto industry are running free. We crunched four decades of data from the Environmental Protection Agency's emission tests and arrived at a simple conclusion: All of the cars these days are fast and furious -- even the trucks. If a 1976 driver were to somehow get his hands on a car from 2017, he'd be at grave risk of whiplash. Since those days, horsepower in the U.S. has almost doubled, with the median model climbing from 145 to 283 stallions. Not surprisingly, the entire U.S. fleet grew more game for a drag-race: The median time it took for a vehicle to go from 0 to 60 miles per hour was halved, from almost 14 seconds to seven.
I never understood this fascination with having stuff you can't use to its fullest extent.
It's like spending thousands of dollars on a water cooled over clocked triple GPU computer so you can check your email and play minesweeper.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Then the question is who gets to decide which choices are "bad" -- which is generally the government -- which is chosen by the people who would generally like to make there own choices...
Bad choices are those that hurt everyone for the gain of a few, and driving more fuel efficient vehicles is necessary for the long term success of the country in terms of keeping us out of expensive wars, having us destroy our own environment to pump more oil, reducing emissions and just to keep prices down to avoid gas becoming too expensive in a country where not being able to drive may lock you out of employment. When it comes to adding more HP to a car, and the public flocking to those horses rather than fuel efficient vehicles, then it may come time to make a law to stop it (or I'd advocate, make it expensive but not illegal). However, since even here in Texas those cars still represent the vast minority, maybe there's no need for someone to step in.
The reality is that even here, with the highest speed limits in the US, a 180hp coupe can go fast enough to get jail time on an 85mph road, people are buying these purely for vanity reasons. A few teenage boys and overgrown teenage boys, including one guy in my neighborhood with the license plate "808HP" care but most people tend to make smarter choices.
The reality is that even here, with the highest speed limits in the US, a 180hp coupe can go fast enough to get jail time on an 85mph road, people are buying these purely for vanity reasons.
It's not about max speed (unless they take it to the track), it's about acceleration.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."