Comments on: Mileage Standards: Not the Way to Energy Independence

By: David S

David S — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 03:03:09 +0000

@19. SGT Ted:

That’s fine. Me and a lot of other folks will be happy to buy some 100mpg vehicles to offset your 3mpg truck.

Peace.

By: johnmorrissey

johnmorrissey — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:54:53 +0000

to sgt Ted:They know where you live.Joe Biden told us it was “patriotic to pay more taxes”(Geichner and Daschle didn t get the memo).Soon it will be “unpatriotic” to drive any car except those that “Big Brother” approves for you.

By: SGT Ted

SGT Ted — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:17:43 +0000

What if I dont want a small car?

By: David S

David S — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 05:53:10 +0000

@16. G Alston:

My 1983 Mazda GLC by my measurement averaged 38 mpg. For what I used the car to do (commuting to work in CA) it was adequate. We know how to build fuel efficient cars.

My 1994 Honda Civic is in the same category for size and mpg. I disagree with you about the range of uses it is fit for. Unless you are hauling a trailer or have a larger-than-average family, it is adequate for most uses.

Be unlucky enough to find a small icy spot that is OK at 50 mph and perfectly straight approach and no wind and now thanks to the truck you’re in serious danger of putting it in a ditch, possibly even killing yourself.

Driving too fast for the conditions is always dangerous, but a roll-over – and fatality – is more likely in the SUV type of vehicle. Driver education might need some improvement…

By the way, any of you ever driven a Prius in a 25 knot crosswind on an icy road in the middle of the countryside? I have. It doesn’t get the great mpg. And it wants to wander a bit on the road. After 100 miles you feel like you’ve been 10 rounds with Muhammed Ali. Like the Mazda it’s great for the intended use — commuting to Whole Foods in places like CA — but it’s nowhere within shouting distance of a good choice outside that environment.

I’ve driven my little Civic in blizzards and through ice storms and high winds through all kinds of terrain. It still gets great mpg. If you are planning on driving on ice at 50mph without appropriate tires, please stay off public highways. You are obviously exaggerating your difficulties, because as we all know you would not go 1 round with Ali, much less 10.

I will grant that there are occasions where more ground clearance would be nice – certainly the Prius is not for everyone – but there is no reason to shelve efficiency improvements.

You also ignore that most of these low-efficiency vehicles are being used for the same tasks as your Mazda. Commuting on the coasts.

Peace.

By: johnmorrissey

johnmorrissey — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 02:34:23 +0000

to cedarford:Sorry if I have not made my position clear. My point was not that increasing auto mileage would not help save fuel, but that producing cars which had high mpg does not necessariiy save fuel when the entire mix of cars, SUVs etc that people actually drive is taken into account.A car that gets 40 mpg is not necessarily going to save fuel for a family if the car is so small it only carries two comfortably,and most of the familys trips are with say four or more people.They then either have to drive two cars everywhere or have a second car, perhaps a much larger SUV getting e g, 15 mpg.If the second cars size is a handicap forcing so that they choose an inefficient large car for most of their mileage, then a larger second car carrying ,e g, four comfortably and five at a pinch ,but getting say 22 mpg will actually result in the family using less fuel annually.The mix of vehicles is important as are the families needs.Just raising CAFE is not necessariy a good solution,and actually results in much higher costs and lower fuel mpg than would a system that lets the free market decide.

By: G Alston

G Alston — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:54:52 +0000

My 1983 Mazda GLC by my measurement averaged 38 mpg. For what I used the car to do (commuting to work in CA) it was adequate. We know how to build fuel efficient cars.

One problem seems to be one of price vs intended use. If it costs you $20k in today’s money to buy the Maxda or you can get a more comfy vehicle with half the mpg for the same price, the higher mpg may not buy much. If you live in Topeka and need to look at certain things you may have to drive to KC to do it. This is pretty standard in much of the country.

The 38 mpg Mazda that is OK in CA is driving down a 2 lane hwy in Iowa in winter. Ice here and there. Truck comes at you and you have a crosswind. You’re doing 50 mph, safe enough for the road condition. Truck passes, air pressure etc changes and bingo, your light little Mazda is now getting blown about like a rag doll. Be unlucky enough to find a small icy spot that is OK at 50 mph and perfectly straight approach and no wind and now thanks to the truck you’re in serious danger of putting it in a ditch, possibly even killing yourself.

Nobody would choose this on purpose. In places like IA or KS people buy heavier vehicles that stay on the road and because they’re heavier they don’t get 38 mpg. They get less.

The 50 mpg target would mandate light vehicles. Reasonable for commuting in urban environments. Worthless for the rest of the country (i.e. most of it a.k.a. flyover states.)

As I said it’s price oriented. If I can get great mpg or I can have a car with worse mpg that stays on the road where I live and they cost the same, high mpg loses every time.

By the way, any of you ever driven a Prius in a 25 knot crosswind on an icy road in the middle of the countryside? I have. It doesn’t get the great mpg. And it wants to wander a bit on the road. After 100 miles you feel like you’ve been 10 rounds with Muhammed Ali. Like the Mazda it’s great for the intended use — commuting to Whole Foods in places like CA — but it’s nowhere within shouting distance of a good choice outside that environment.

What this tells me is that high mpg advocates live in places like the coasts where weather isn’t extreme and they’re too “geographically challenged” to understand it and too confident in their intellectual superiority to care.

By: cedarford

cedarford — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:16:31 +0000

johnmorrissey – Your CAFE stats are wrong, your claim that more efficient cars and trucks do not significantly affect fuel usage is both profoundly ignorant and a manifestation that you are so deep into fringe ideology that you reject obvious facts.

Matthew M – By the way, human CO2 emissions are irrelevant to the climate and the supply of fossil fuel is essentially limitless (especially if we allow for the equivalent of $75/barrel and use nuclear power.)

1. You don’t know if man-caused CO2 emissions are irrelevant to the climate. You are making such a statement as an expression of your personal theology – not as someone examining the evidence objectively – which scientists and leaders involved in the question of AGW have different opinions and judgements on.

A. Evidence strongly points to AGW, and in their judgment it is a catastrophic problem.
B. Evidence shows a strong rise in CO2 directly attributable to mankinds activities and population explosion…which their models show a slight to moderate effect on climate.
C. Evidence is not conclusive one way or the other. It is too early to know…
D. Evidence shows a very slight role of man-made CO2 on climate, given other variables…but we should begin implimenting strategies to reduce both population and CO2 generating activities to equilibrium values.

2. the supply of fossil fuel is essentially limitless.

Sorry, but that is just a stupid assertion. The supply of anything on Earth is by definition, finite. In the case of scarce, valuable non-renewable resources like fossil fuels, rare minerals being depleted faster than reserves have been found despite quadrupling of prices – we can put a date on when supply becomes so limited that price rises high enough (or warfare replaces market forces) so that demand has to be driven down to meet dwindling supply.

By: johnmorrissey

johnmorrissey — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:14:27 +0000

After 30 yrs of CAFE stds , the avg fuel efficiency in the US has grown from 20.5 mpg to20.6.Because no one wants to drive the small, light cars that the manufg have to make to meet the cafe std.So the little car stays in the garage unless absolutely necessary, and the other car gets bigger and heavier because it is needed to get all the kids in the car pool,the camping trips,the trip to the lakes.So all this effort($100 billion R&D in 2008) spent on building lighter cars does not effect the amt of fuel used at all.
Which was the original objective, and now appears to be forgotten.
You can mandate higher cafe levels and the poor devils trying to run an auto company have to comply, and if you force the auto companies to sell them at huge losses, you can eventually induce people to buy them, but to get them to drive them whenever possible, you can t do. Yet.The proclamation is coming from our Masters.

By: Pat J

Pat J — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:43:45 +0000

What a ludicrous article. If fuel efficiency standards had gradually increased during the last 8 years the price of gasoline wouldn’t have mattered. We still would have saved millions of barrels in oil and helped reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

This is from the same crowd who thought Obama’s only energy plan was to make sure tires were properly inflated. Ignoring the common sense of keeping that tires inflated, saves gas mileage and saves money in the process.

By: Wire Dog

Wire Dog — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:28:54 +0000

More drilling, more pipelines, more refineries, more nuclear power plants equals a safer more secure nation, more jobs, a stronger economy and energy independence.