X Prize For a 100-MPG Car 741
Heinen writes in about the X Prize Foundation, which spurred innovation by offering US $10 million for the first privately built spacecraft. The Foundation now plans to offer millions for the first practical car that increases mileage five-fold. The specs for the competition are out in draft form amd call for cars in two categories that are capable of 100 MPG in tests to be run in 2009. The categories are: 4-passenger/4-wheel; and 2-passenger/unspecified wheels. The cars must be manufacturable, not "science projects. The prize is expected to top $10 million. The X Prize Foundation says that so far it has received more than 1,000 inquiries from possible competitors.
Key concepts (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there a market for super efficient cars that look like tampons with wheels?
Changing percpetion (Score:5, Insightful)
To get good fuel economy probably needs a mindshift away from SUVs and Hummers towards smaller 1300cc or smaller cars.
The "look" of cars is pretty much fashion driven, dictated by the car manufacturers to promote consumption. This year it's round headlights, next year square; boxy Hummer look one year, curved Porche look the next; big grill, then small.
Car manufacturers keep advertising more power, size etc (10% more power than last year's model, 5% more space...). How is it that they never advertise reduced consumption (well they might, but only if it does not compromise power, size etc)..
People really need to see cars as transport. Perhaps then they will start to think in terms of efficiency etc.
Re:Better X-Prize (Score:4, Insightful)
sorry to troll, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Better X-Prize (Score:5, Insightful)
It should have been something like 1st = 10 mil, 2nd = 5 mil, 3rd = 2.5 mil, 4th = 1.5 mil, 5th = 1 mil. Yes, it costs twice as much, but it gets more than twice the benefit: instead of one company producing results, three or four, maybe five do.
Re:Changing percpetion (Score:2, Insightful)
1. light = unsafe unless made of expensive materials
2. fuel efficient = excessively low acceleration and/or low top speed
3. aerodynamic = low to the ground = drives don't see you
I'd trust my life to a tiny, low slung car if it had a rollcage.
Otherwise it's a death trap.
Crumple zones anyone?
Re:Changing percpetion (Score:5, Insightful)
People really need to start seeing clothes as something to prevent their reproductive apparatus from freezing. Perhaps then they will start to think in terms of the material and energy required.
In other words: good freaking luck. Cars have been more than transportation for as long as there have been cars. Before there were cars, people had carriages and teams of horses, the perceived quality of which was a sign of wealth, status, and taste. It's been like this probably since the dawn of humanity, with various things.
People will accept some sort of standardized, generic "people transporter" in lieu of a car, right after they all go to wearing standardized jumpsuits with built-in underwear, because hey, its only real function is to keep you warm, right? Who cares what it looks like. Ain't gonna happen.
Re:sorry to troll, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I would love to see electric/compressed air/next hot thing cars too but there are problems. They don't exist in the market yet. Example, I would like to have an electric car, but I live in an apartment: where will I charge it? I'm not going to hang out at a "gas station" for an hour while my car charges. Currently, it is very easy to refuel on gasoline and people know how and where to do it. Having to do it five times less seems like a deal to me no matter what may be on the horizon.
Also, I think a "Civic del Sol" type or Saturn type equivalent that got 100+mpg would sell very well. An Accord equivalent that got 70-80mpg would sell equally well.
Light != dangerous (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you need huge acceleration and top speed? You're using your car for transport, not racing. There's no need for a car that goes more than 70mph. There's no need for a car that burns rubber.
I use a very old technology 1300cc car (probably equivalent in power to a more modern 1000 cc engine car). It has sufficient guts for my purposes, even when carrying 4 people + a load.
Re:Changing percpetion (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm 6'5" and I don't fit in your "smaller 1300cc OR SMALLER" car, unless it is a motor cycle, which isn't really car, and is impractical for a family.
Re:Key concepts (Score:3, Insightful)
No matter what you do, the price of the car will be in the luxury range. And I kinda doubt people would want to pay for a compact the same it would cost to put a Ferrari into their garage.
Re:Key concepts (Score:3, Insightful)
Are those street-legal in the U.S.? My understanding was that they're not, at least not yet. It's possible that my fear is irrational, but if I had to pick between being in one of those, or a Chevy Suburban, when slamming the two together, I think I'd probably pick the Suburban. And in our risk-averse culture, safety does sell cars.
The real problem for subminis in the U.S. is interstate/highway driving: there's a much more limited market for vehicles that can't do high-speed interstate driving in the U.S. than in Europe, and I suspect that what there is could be saturated pretty quickly. A vehicle with a top speed of 70mph might be salable, if it can really handle at the upper end of the range comfortably, but something that's not designed to do more than 45-50mph is going to be a tough sell. (I don't know where the Smart cars fall into this, so I'm not singling them out, just speaking generally.)
But case in point: where I live, outside Washington, DC, it's only the 500k or so people who live in the District proper who would really be candidates for non-highway vehicles, the bulk of the car-commuting population live out in areas served by 65MPH arteries. Obviously during rush hour you're lucky to make 20-25 MPH, but only a fool would buy a car that wouldn't let them drive during off-peak hours when the prevailing speeds are up around 70-80. At 45-50 mph or less, you'd better be driving on the shoulder, because you're basically a hazard to navigation. (And I think legally you're required to maintain at least 45mph, and I suspect that if large numbers of slow-moving vehicles started getting driven around, that minimum would increase.)
I've always thought that the Smart cars were neat, conceptually (especially the diesel), but I'm not sure once you saturate the urban market whether the rest of America would be interested.
Re:Changing percpetion (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, I just happened to ride to work this morning on a "generic people transporter" (otherwise known as a subway) along with millions of others in the city. (Yes, millions [wikipedia.org]. ). The people on the subway were dressed fashionably, not in standardized jumpsuits. And for lunch today I had a tasty, enjoyable meal, not a pile of gray gloopy "human nutritional fuel".
Just because 90% of the population in your part of the world is addicted to a horribly wasteful of resources under the excuse of "personal freedom" doesn't mean it's justified or can't change.
Re:Light != dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless of what those pretty signs say on the side of the road, there are lots of places where the prevailing speeds are significantly higher than 70MPH.
And out in those big, flat states (you know, the ones that the pretentious Manhattanites like to call 'flyover states') there are lots of sections of highway where the posted limit is 75 and I suspect most traffic moves upwards of 80.
More generally, you're engaging in what I call the "burlap sack" argument. I could take the same line of thinking that you're going down, and apply it to clothing instead of cars, and come to the conclusion that everyone should stop putting on all these fancy geegaws and just dress in good old burlap sacks, because really, you're just buying a little warmth and weather-resistance. Spray some water repellent on that, and you're good to go.
Cars are as much about 'transportation' as clothes are about staying warm; sure, that's one reason why they exist, but once you've got that function checked off, that's when the real differentiation starts.
Electric is not necessarally a solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Changing percpetion (Score:5, Insightful)
What does this show? It shows that given the choice, people would probably take cars, but because more people want to do that than there is space on the road or parking spaces available, those without large amounts of surplus time and money are pushed onto mass transit.
Sure, there are individual exceptions to this. I'm sure there are a few people riding Metro in the morning who would still ride it, even if I-66 wasn't HOV-only and the Beltway wasn't a veritable parking lot. But they're in the minority; given the option of personal vehicles or mass transit, people overwhelmingly choose personal vehicles -- as evidenced by the utter failure of public transportation to flourish in the U.S. outside zones where driving a car is particularly obnoxious or expensive.
But to get back on point, this is all a bit academic: people who don't own or use cars, for whatever reason, obviously don't participate in the cars-as-expressions-of-something-besides-a-desire
Re:Changing percpetion (Score:2, Insightful)
I think people just need cheap electric cars, or very efficient hybrids. They can still keep their other ones. Lots of people own more than one car. However, there's one car they use the majority of the time, and if that car could get 100 MPG, the average mileage across all of their cars in a given period of time would still be incredibly high. When my Galaxie's done, I intend on driving it about a thousand miles a year, all between May and September. Big whoop, when I accumulate 36,000/yr. on my Contour. It's how I can have my cake and eat it too.
We'll fix that right after we get cold fusion. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not quite buying your simplification, though, either: how do you account for the 59% of car purchases made by women [womenof.com]? What's their issue, penis envy?
While it may be popular these days to try and pin all the country's (if not the entire world's) ills on a bunch of redneck, white, male, gun-toting, Hummer-driving, "flyover state"-ers, I don't think that reality backs that up. Your typical car buyer is female, and is looking for safety, performance (acceleration and handling, which in many people's minds is intertwined with safety), style, and somewhere significantly further down the list, environmental impact and fuel economy. While the guy driving a Hummer may make a nice target for ridicule, there aren't really enough of them to really matter compared to the legions of people driving mid-market cars which really don't have much in the way of a "penis factor" going for them.
Gas just doesn't cost enough for people to care more about mileage than about style. And to be honest, even if it went up by an order of magnitude, while you'd see cars become more efficient, I doubt that you'd really see people changing their fundamental views very much. We're not really talking about anything that's developed recently here; the same forces are at work today with cars, that led people a century or two ago to buy matched sets of horses to pull their coach. Two thousand years ago, there were probably Romans ogling each others' chariots -- when you have something that represents such a large investment (as personal transportation devices almost always are, regardless of the era), they almost automatically become status symbols.
If we ever get cars that on average get 100MPG, it'll be because the cost of fuel is $10 a gallon; even then, there will still be Hyundais and BMWs, econo-boxes and performance machines, minivans and maybe even a Hummer or two, because that's what people will want and have always wanted.
Given the choice between trying to change a deep-rooted social behavior and solving the technical problem of making a minivan/Hummer/whatever that gets 100MPG, I'd say the technical problem is far more feasible to solve.
The American Psyche (Score:3, Insightful)
I am stunned to learn the average American vehicle gets 21mpg, or 8.9 lt/100km.
Here people have decided that the supposed benefits of huge Galaxy-class land vessels are worth paying to refill every couple of days, because not only is there the long-standing male car culture here, but now women are using vehicles as a means of self-actualization, self-aggrandizement, self-empowerment, or whatever you want to call it.
We're perfectly willing to go for instant gratification rather than long-term sanity. Run up your credit cards, buy a Ford Annihilator, and have fun! It's the New American Way. Restraint is for pussies and foreigners.
Re:Light != dangerous (Score:3, Insightful)
There's no need for a car that goes more than 70mph.
Maybe there isn't a need to drive faster than 70mph, but an engine designed to max out around 70 will be a lot more stressed than one designed to max out at, say, 120mph. If the maximum power draw of your computer was 245 watts, would you buy a 250 watt power supply?
Re:What about SAFETY? (Score:4, Insightful)
Most SUVs, especially truck-based SUVs, are much less safe than normal passenger cars. A low center of gravity plus properly designed crumple zones to absorb energy will always fare better than a tall rigid design like an F150. Even better, smaller cars are more maneuverable, providing "active" safety (the ability to avoid an accident entirely) rather than "passive" safety (the ability to walk away from an accident). The only thing making SUVs "safer" than average passenger cars is that everybody bought into the BS that SUVs are "safer". It's become an arms race, and if you don't have a jacked up monster then you risk decapitation if a SUV hits you from the side.
Crowding has nothing to do with it. In fact, in a crowded situation a smaller care may be even safer because it gives you the ability to squeeze into smaller areas for avoidance that you wouldn't otherwise be able to.
That's exactly the point. Cars crumple to absorb energy that would otherwise transfer into your internal organs. Your best bet is to learn how to drive and avoid such situations in the first place. If you can't handle that, you really shouldn't have a license in the first place.
Re:Light != dangerous (Score:4, Insightful)
It is illegal to speed. That in and of itself isn't news to anyone...we've been getting speeding tickets for years.
There is something you need to consider, though. The highest speed limit I've ever heard of in the USA is 75mph. You know that car manufacturers know this. You also can safely assume that the speed limit isn't going to increase any time soon, due to a multitude of safety and environmental reasons. Why, then, do car manufacturers deem it necessary to make it so that every car they produce can AT LEAST hit 90mph, if not more?
For example...I've got what I would consider an econobox ('04 Hyundai Elantra hatchback with a manual transmission) - it's a cheap car that gets me from point A to point B with relatively good gas mileage. Why would I want to go fast in this car? How fast could I go if I did want to go fast?
The answer to the first question is because I love the feeling of going fast. It's a huge rush when I can accelerate quickly, and I can maintain a high speed.
For the second question? My little econobox can hit about 123mph.
There's no need for this to be the standard in cars distributed to the general public. If the car manufacturers want to make cars that go over 100mph, keep it to the realm of muscle cars that manage to get 15mpg. I'd much rather have an econobox that has a top speed of 80mph (just so I can accelerate around the people not actually driving the speed limit), gets 100mpg, and is relatively cheap to purchase and maintain. And if that becomes the standard from all manufacturers, as opposed to the beefy cars we have, then people will just have to deal with it, or pay the extra money for a car with some kick - which is completely fine by me.
Re:Changing percpetion (Score:2, Insightful)
>(otherwise known as a subway) along with millions of others in the city. (Yes, millions. )
>The people on the subway were dressed fashionably, not in standardized jumpsuits. And for
>lunch today I had a tasty, enjoyable meal, not a pile of gray gloopy "human nutritional fuel".
>Just because 90% of the population in your part of the world is addicted to a horribly wasteful of
>resources under the excuse of "personal freedom" doesn't mean it's justified or can't change.
I do not live in a densely populated area. My drive to the nearest public transportation pick-up is farther than the commute to work. The substance beneath the nearest city would be detrimental to a subway. Buses cost too much to run for the fare to be affordable for most people. Building an above ground train would require tearing down too many productive buildings for it to be economical sooner than next century. The largest part of the local community live too far out for an effective means of mass transportation. We have no choice at the moment BUT to drive.
Just because all you know is the city you've never left, does not mean you are absolutely right. However, I appreciate your passion for the little of the world you know, and your readiness to criticize places for not meeting your ideal.
Re:Metric (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not mandates that make fuel efficiency a big selling point, it's the taxation of gasoline.
And once the US government figures out that taxing gasoline would be a great way to pay for the war on terror
Re:Changing percpetion (Score:2, Insightful)
What does this show? It shows that given the choice, people would probably take cars, but because more people want to do that than there is space on the road or parking spaces available, those without large amounts of surplus time and money are pushed onto mass transit.
>>
That's like saying that given the choice, most people would chose not to work, and eat only their favorite foods rather than healthy stuff, and just throw off all the unpleasant responsibilities of life.
Some people can pull it off, but for most people it's not practical or sustainable to live like that, either as individuals and as members of society. So they choose not to. And if they try it, it only lasts until they're staring at an empty bank account, poor health, and dirty looks from people around them. And even if they temporarily regain enough resources to revert to the "life of sloth", they usually decide it's not worth it.
Gridlock, pollution, and a mess over in Iraq are the empty bank account, poor health, and dirty looks from the rest of the world.
People driving private automobiles for leisure isn't really a problem in itself. And where I live, a lot of people do own cars, which they drive only on weekends, for trips out to the countryside and such, because they enjoy it.
But to try to justify the vast majority of private automobile use in the U.S. -- the experience of driving stop-and-go, back and forth over the same route at the same time, every day, when you'd really rather be doing something else -- as "driving an auto for the sheer enjoyment of it because a car to me is more than mere transportation, it's the freedom of the road!" is nothing but delusional.
Re:VW have beten them to it already (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We'll fix that right after we get cold fusion. (Score:5, Insightful)
You would be surprized how easily the "unwashed masses" can be manipulated by the media and marketing. Most people my age ( genY'ers) want smaller cars that are cute and fuel efficient. For many years American car companies have pushed "Bigger=more status=better" and everyone bought it, but some manufacturers have realized that they need to cater to the new generation since we'll be the ones making money and therefore buying the cars.
For us they are pushing "Smaller+cuter=smarter=better" (and it must have an iPod plug somewhere!), at least that is the stereotype. But of course marketing is a two-way street. If any compeny invests enough into it, it will manage to change our perceptions. For example if Honda decided to sell us Pink Elephants on Wheels and spent a billion dollars in marketing, you can be sure that there will be a lot of people in this country how will just "have" to have a pink elephant on wheels.
Plus I think there is always a tendency of the new generation to reject the values and mores of their parents, not for any reason, just 'cause, so they can be different. That should help those in marketing who want to cater to genY'ers. (If our parents wanted big cars, then we will necessarily want small ones; if they wanted dull colors, we'll probably want more exotic, brighter colors and so on...). Today many people my age get their first job, go shopping for cars and a lot of them look at Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris, at Scion, Chevy Aveo's etc. None of my friends ever said that they wanted to go buy an SUV, a minivan, a big-ass truck or a Hummer.
Re:We'll fix that right after we get cold fusion. (Score:1, Insightful)
Hell, I'm going to outdo you all. I'm going to drive to work in a fucking sherman tank. If I can't crush what's in my way, I'll blast it. Fuck everyone else on the road. I'm going to keep *my* ass safe at all cost.
Or maybe an arms race isn't the way to go. Hmm.
How about diesel? (Score:5, Insightful)
Gasoline engines simply doesn't work that way. You end up with gas-guzzling five liter V8s.
Diesel does work that way. It'll double your gas mileage with no noticeable difference in the car.
Re:Changing percpetion (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of getting a working mass transit system requires a relatively dense population. I personally don't like living in a densely populated area... In fact I moved to a more rural area simply because I didn't like how crowded even Phoenix was starting to get. I still have to go into Phoenix about once every other week. I am able to work from home, and don't have to drive much as it is. However what I have said still holds true. Most people don't live in areas where public transport *CAN* work without being prohibitively expensive. In the Phoenix area, I have used buses before, and it worked okay, though it takes about an hour to get from an outer suburb into the central Phoenix area. That isn't so bad, as the spacing of buses are about an hour apart, if you just missed a bus, that's two hours of commute time each way, for what would otherwise be a 20-30 minute drive... Tax breaks for businesses with more than 75% of their employees on a 4x10, or 3x12 work week would probably do a lot more though.
Better cars are not the answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Cars are certainly the most flexible way to get around. But we should not have to use them for our daily commute through rush hour traffic or even for running most common errands or to go out and play or dine out.
The problem really is with the way we (esp. the US) design cities. Instead of spending money on public transit-oriented communities, it's much, much cheaper for the municipalities to just pave a stretch of concrete and let individual citizens pay for the cost, maintenance, and operation of personally-owned vehicles. On top of that, condo construction here is pretty lousy, whereas if single family home construction is lousy at least your immediate neighbors are farther away from the noise.
Unfortunately, we don't really have a simple way to measure how much energy people can save in cities with alternative transit as opposed to people who live in cities where they have to drive even to the nearest postal mailbox.
In the mean time, the exciting progress in the transportation field ought to be things like transit oriented design:
http://www.transitorienteddevelopment.org/ [transitori...opment.org]
http://www.carfree.com/ [carfree.com]
Progress in these areas of urban development will get us closer to constructing sustainable colonies in space than any improvement in individually run cars.
Re:Changing percpetion (Score:5, Insightful)
I beg to differ. I live in Australia, you would hardly call that a densely populated area, and while the natives complain somewhat about their transport system when compared to Europe, it is awesome. And they do have train stations and light train that does connect very remote cities because like they say here, its a bloody long way. To absolutely anywhere. I agree that not everybody wants to live in a big city, that happens to be the case here. So they build excellent and comprehensive train systems to connect everything. And they have clean gas-powered buses that travel the freeways too, that's how I commute to work. I don't know where you pull that prohibitively expensive claim but if these guys can do it with their dollar being eighty cents US, I adventure the hypothesis that it can in fact be done. It is, again, a matter of perception. Aussies believe they want this, so they go ahead and build it. People from the US believe they want cars, so they build automobile-centric infrastructure.
I do not say one is better than other (although I do like Oz better in that regard), I just say that in order to do things differently you have to see things differently. One thinks one wants a muscle car that looks like so-and-so because one has been told that. No, wait, hear me out. You have been told you want that car, because the companies that produce it invest millions of dollars in advertisement. There is marketing research devoted to finding a way of presenting us a product in a way we will find attractive so we ultimately buy it. If the whole industry shifted overnight to emphasizing fuel economy and advertised that, you wouldn't change your mind overnight with them. But eventually you would.
Just think it through. Why do you like, say, a 300ZX? Let's say its because its "cool", and "powerful" and "sleek" and "modern". But how did you come to attach those characteristics to that particular model? Because the industry strives to portray it in a particular way. You will read about it in magazines that those corporations sponsor through advertising. You will see rich and beautiful people paid to drive them. And they will be young and active and will display all sorts of characteristics that an everyday person associates to success and desirability. And they will use clever sound design, clever wording, whatever. The point of this rant is to say that society influences an individual's tastes. Some more than others, and one big way the general public knows something is desirable is because they way they are told it is. If car manufacturers decide to start pushing a new paradigm, if they chose well their target audience, they will make it happen. Not because they have powerful mind-control machines but because we are social animals and very easily hearded. Or I could just be full of hot air, your take =)
Re:Light != dangerous (Score:4, Insightful)
Despite what the government says, the speed limit on Mass Pike is NOT 65 MPH unless you want to get rear-ended. It is more like 85. The speed limit on rt 88 in upstate New York is indeed 65, but only because the local cops line this flat, straight, and empty highway nabbing anyone doing more then 5 over in an effort to fund their local station. The speed limit on the Kennedy in Chicago is well, it is always like 5 MPH regardless of what the government says. I hate that god damn slow moving parking lot.
My point is this. If you tried to sell me a car that can't break 65 or 75, I (and most other Americans who don't live in a city) wouldn't buy it. Most Americans regularly ignore the post speed limits that seem to all magically top at 65 regardless of the actual circumstances of the road. Thankfully, car companies make cars to satisfy real needs, unlike the government which doesn't need to change its attitude until there people are suddenly getting elected on the single issue of speed limits, which even for American voters is a pretty unlikely act of stupidity.
Re:The kind of car that can get 100 mpg (Score:2, Insightful)
X Prize gave a market, a first initial client of X Million Dollars, this allow a higher ROI on initial years to expands and sell more units.
Same thing goes for the automotive industry, if you belive half of what the movie "who killed the electric car" then you would agree that the current automotive industry has no interest in changing its ways. in a oligopoly if everyone does almost the same thing, no one is pressured to create a more customer appealing product. its cheaper to spend a few million in advertising to make sure sales than spending billions on something that might not sell. (plus extra millions to shift consumers mind)
Actually, GM and FORD are playing catch up because Honda and Toyota broken off the rank and pushed hybrids. And they sell well, given a homeland boost in japan. being a smaller country than the USA it need to be more fuel efficient since it has less bargaining power on economy of scale (and gun power for the purist of the cause).
Anyhow, Automotive X Prize will give the auportunity for smalled researchers to invest upto half of the X Prize to win it. because a 50% ROI is still a good deal even if you don't sell any car. so in essence, the X Prize will allow new competitor to pressure even further the BIG car makers. that would be a few more RIA and Huydai eating up their market share. I mean, still neglectable, but X Prize will span at least 8 commercially viable solution. Thus 5 potential cash cow in the next 50 year to eat up the market.
A) current car maker will try to beat the prize before hand (which is not that far off, they can probably pull it off by 2008) most of them have hybrid car this year, the version two should be vastly enhanced with a few last minutes buck and if they each on their own pay their own X Prize. because in the end its to keep their pie.
B) Some X Prize will win, some Rich Millionnair will grab sponsor as a VC. and within 5 years new brands appears. mind you emerging marketing are starting to have their own local brands, thus the technology to work it up. guess what, this segment of the pie should be fairly big. and a lot of people will be willing to pay for the plants and cash out on a prepaid R&D.
C) the car manufacturer buys the technology and keep it shut or release it slowly. (which should not happen since the war on efficiency has started, Honda made the act of war on during the supper bowl ads, gm is pushing the wave vs the accent and the yaris... the trend is good, but a bit late because we are starting to fell the effect of global warming)
hey i mean its a amazing spring right now, and its gonna snow and frezzing rain again next week. last year there was snow in india. people think for now that global warming means hot temperature, but in reality it means shift of weather pattern. will be sad the day that all of America will be under ice.
Re:Light != dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We'll fix that right after we get cold fusion. (Score:2, Insightful)
I would like to add, instead of getting 100MPG, the same effect can be achieved if people would just live closer to work. In the USA, the average commute is something like 30 minutes. If we cut that down to 5 minutes, that is similar to going from 20MPG to 100MPG. It drives me nuts how many people commute 30-60 minutes to work! At least 1/2 of my office here drives 45 minutes or more to work. The other half drives less than 5. For some reason, they don't mind spending another 1.5 hours of their day stuck in a car, burning fossil fuels......and they are the ones complaining about gas prices. Then, they have the gall to tell the people who live only 2 miles away, that they should walk or bike to work, and try to lower their gas usage. Arghhh.
I travel quite a bit, and must drive 20 miles+ to the nearest stores......yet in 4 months I have only put $75 in my gastank (and that is with my pathetic 18MPG). I just don't see how people can justify putting 20K miles on a car every year......that is the real problem. Because of this, I support a $7 / gallon gas tax. That money should be put towards research, and subsidizing fossil fuel replacements. Heck, maybe a tax penalty for those who commute more than 15 minutes to work.
Re:How about diesel? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about diesel? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wake up and smell the coffee - with particulate filters (that have been available for a couple of years now. And those dang French beat us Germans to them, too), particulate emissions drop below the threshold of detectability.
Re:We'll fix that right after we get cold fusion. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Key concepts (Score:3, Insightful)
Now make that car like the Geo Metro 2 door, base model everything and make it less than $9,999.99 and it will sell better than anything ever seen. The chevy Aveo already is an incredibly hot selling car simply because it get's 40Mpg and is very cheap to buy and own. the Americanized Smart car sold by Zap is incredibly overpriced compared to what they have in Canad and the rest of the world and it is outselling how fast they can convert them for "safety" reasons.
hit the price point and they will sell better than all the other hot selling cars out there.
Re:We'll fix that right after we get cold fusion. (Score:2, Insightful)
If I wanted to live 5 minutes from work I'd have to sell my house every time I changed jobs, which is not possible in the current DC area real estate market.
I don't know if this goes for everyone, but my reality is that I have to be prepared to have a one hour commute if I want to continue living in this major metro area.
My efforts to reduce energy consumption vis à vis commuting: I (try to) ride my bike to work once a week in good weather, and I telecommute one day a week.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We'll fix that right after we get cold fusion. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Light != dangerous (Score:3, Insightful)
If you come down off your soapbox for a minute and take a breath, you might be able to use the time to consider that, while cars have gotten safer, drivers certainly haven't. It's more likely that, because cars have gotten safer and more comfortable to drive, drivers have become more complacent and less safe. Most of the yayhoos I see driving around here scare the crap out of me now, let alone if they were commonly allowed to exceed 100 mph.
Re:We'll fix that right after we get cold fusion. (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize there is wear and tear on the car to take into account, but we're talking gas usage here. Plus you could say that carpooling would negate the added cost. But by my (basic) calculations, gas would have to cost more than $13.50 per gallon to make the cost of living difference worth it. And frankly, that half an hour each way to/from work gives me the perfect amount of time to wake up with a cup of coffee, or release some post-work stress and crank the volume.
Re:We'll fix that right after we get cold fusion. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because you're generation is still young and don't have families (you start caring a lot less for "cute" and a lot more for "safe" when you have children) or the financial grounding to be able to afford SUV's and gas-guzzlers en-masse yet. The former is most important right now, as no one wants their wife and kids to be the one family in the 20 car pile-up who is driving the small economy car (ever seen what a SUV does to a cute little Honda Civic in a crash?).
Re:Light != dangerous (Score:3, Insightful)
This situation, by the way, makes me sick. Police officers should not be saddled with the burden of collecting money for the state. They should be out doing real police work, the whole 'serve and protect' thing. I seriously doubt that any of them looked forward to sitting on the side of the road with a radar/laser gun when they applied for the job (Unless they were assholes). People in government have no problem passing hundreds of laws. It's like they feel that is their legacy. Something that lasts longer then their term in office. However, creating stupid laws, then having police officers, who people are supposed to look up to and respect, enforce the stupid laws, does nothing but strip the dignity of the position away from them and lowers them to something of an unjust tax collector. When people see police, they don't think "I'm glad he's here, I feel safer!", they think "OMG, how fast am I going? Is he going to give me a ticket?" It's so bad it doesn't matter if you *are* going the speed limit, you still think that. That's just *wrong*. It goes beyond law. I pity the officers that get stuck in that position. It doesn't help that some of them are assholes that love it. That makes it all the worse for all of them.
Re:Light != dangerous (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Light != dangerous (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides which, until fairly recently, there were highways in Montana on which there weren't any speed limits. I think the phrase used was "Reasonable and Prudent" (during the day, it's 70 or something at night). Now, the Federal government cracked down on them and they knuckled under when their funding got threatened, so now it's 75 or 80 during the day, but the point is that the car manufacturers didn't know that.
The electronic limiter should be set at the maximum speed at which a normal person can control the car, and above which (due to its aerodynamic characteristics, tires, etc.) it starts to become un-driveable. That's just common sense, and falls within the realm of not being negligent in manufacturing a product.
You're going down a terrible road when you start making manufacturers of various pieces of equipment responsible for ensuring that users don't do anything illegal with them. The responsibility for compliance with the law rests with the operator, and that's true whether they're driving a car, using a computer, or firing a handgun.
Re:Changing percpetion (Score:3, Insightful)
I chose the 2007 Honda Civic EX Coupe with manual transmission. (I currently drive a 1998 Civic LX.) I said to myself that the following matters: safety, reliability, environmental impact, looks; in this order. (Notice, that price was not there.)
To be honest I realized that I am a tree-hugger and the excellent fuel efficiency alone would have steered me to this model. And of course price matters.
I test drove a Lexus of similar dimensions, because I wanted to know whether there is any more to those luxary cars than "prestige". (Lexus IS 250) I found that the engine are hardly noticable in both models (Honda/Lexus) and that the road noise dominates, it is slightly more on the Honda Civic. The comfort features of the Lexus were nice, especially: digital AC setting (and adjustable for front/back) seat has push button 8-way adjustment (probably with memory) compared to 6-way manual adjustment, the cup holders, compartments are more classy and open close nicer in the Lexus, mirror compas (optional for the Civic though) etc. I just would not pay 10K+ for these features. I do not need the 2.4L engine and the reduced mileage, that is not needed for my luxury. (When I was a child my father drove a 26hp car!!)
And actually the driver's visibility is excellent (better) in the civic (The door frame is in the way in most cars, at least for me.)
I was surprised that the highway mileage numbers are 38 for the manual transmission and 40 for the automatic. The manual used to beat automatic hands down. (I love manual by the way, makes me feel I *drive*, this is kind of similar to command line versus gui, Linux versus Windows/Mac.) This gave me a pause and made me consider automatic for a bit. I talked this over with my Dad, who used to inspect car shops to ensure they follow the mandated procedures. He said that indeed the automatics are getting better and beat some humans, but not all. I hope I will get better than 40mpg. By the way, my '98 Civic gets 32-36mpg with AC on 90% of the time (Texas...).
I did not get a hybrid after reading up on the total environmental impact. I support the hybrid effort though and hope that it will improve much further.
I will still test drive a BMW or a Mercedes just for fun and to see how much in their price the prestige factor contributes. It is my theory that they just have to raise the price so that fewer people will be able to buy it: if >30% of the population could afford a model, then it cannot be a luxury...