US To Require That New Cars Get 42 MPG By 2016 1186
Hugh Pickens writes "New cars and trucks will have to get 30 percent better mileage starting in 2016 under an Obama administration move to curb emissions tied to smog and global warming. While the 30 percent increase would be an average for both cars and light trucks, the percentage increase in cars would be much greater, rising from the current 27.5 mpg standard to 42 mpg. Environmentalists praised the move. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, called it 'one of the most significant efforts undertaken by any president, ever, to end our addiction to oil and seriously slash our global warming emissions.' Obama's plan also would effectively end litigation between states and automakers that had opposed state-specific rules, arguing that having to meet several state standards would be much more expensive for them than just one federal rule. The Detroit News reported that automakers were on board with the new rule and had worked with the administration on creating a timeline for the transition." There's a case to be made that raising the CAFE won't save oil or reduce greenhouse gases.
Automakers (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course automakers are "on board"! They're now pawns of the government, just like the banks. Do you think they could really go against anything the administration wants?
Basically now Obama can do whatever he wants. He's playing all the hands himself.
Re:Automakers (Score:4, Interesting)
> They're now pawns of the government, just like the banks.
No way man! Their CEOs will fight back to keep the company viable! Oh wait... to quote Pete Hoekstra:
Some numbers and more analysis are on Planet Gore [nationalreview.com].
Re:Automakers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Automakers (Score:5, Insightful)
I say, it's about time, really. 42 mpg sounds rather high - but only because we haven't even TRIED. Remember the oil embargo of the '70's? Congress mandated some radical new goals for fuel mileage way back then, to help break our dependence on foreign oil. They even set the national speed limit at 55mph to save fuel. All sorts of drastic measures were taken.
Joe Sixpack and Detroit, in their infinite wisdom (selfishness) decided to create new "cars" built on truck frames, which would be exempt from fuel mileage requirements.
Ingenuity, huh? Well, that ingenuity has finally come back to bite Joe and Detroit in the ass. Today, we finally start seriously saving fuel, or else.
I like it.
(note - I'm not a demoncrat, I'm not an Obama cultist, I'm not even some tree hugging activist. It just makes sense to stop WASTING everything we can, just because we can.)
Re:Automakers (Score:4, Insightful)
As a European (British, but I consider it a region of Europe), I find it strange that 42mpg seems so draconian.
For the last decade at least, the UK and the rest of Europe has had diesel cars the size of an Accord / Aura / Fusion which could average 42mpg (50mpg Imp.) in mixed driving - at least it was never a problem for me - urban driving reduces the mileage of course.
My Octavia (basically a Jetta liftback with a cheaper badge) averages 45-50mpg (55-60 Imp.) on my 30-mile runs to work; and there's enough room for a 6-footer to be comfortable (more head- and leg-room than a Freelander or a RAV4).
My wife's Renault Clio averages 60mpg (72mpg Imp.) when I drive it, and the driving position doesn't feel cramped.
These are not hybrids, by the way. Even the Freelander and RAV4 can achieve 35mpg with a diesel engine.
Since we're paying the equivalent of $8/gallon for fuel over here, cars like this make a lot of sense.
Re:Automakers (Score:4, Insightful)
Ingenuity, huh? Well, that ingenuity has finally come back to bite Joe and Detroit in the ass. Today, we finally start seriously saving fuel, or else.
Or else what? There's no laws, rules, or even social norms to discourage me from driving a 10 liter 3 ton pickup truck everywhere I go, in point of fact, we own a 5.9 liter 1/2 ton truck that could be used as our daily driver if we wanted, we choose to leave it parked unless needed, but my wife likes to drive it when the weather is foul because it makes her feel safer.
The real waste in our two driver household is actually the third vehicle - we probably emitted more carbon footprint in the purchase of our "lightweight" around town car than we will save in fuel consumption difference over its lifetime. I didn't do a carbon analysis, but dollar-wise, assuming the (purchased at 1 year old) $13K commuter lasts 8 years and resells for $1K, that's $1500 per year in capital costs, plus about $500/yr in additional insurance / maintenance, so we'd have to save 800 gallons a year (at $2.50/gallon) to make the choice truly economical. Say the truck gets 12mpg and the car gets 36 (to be really generous, our car gets more like 27 around town)... we'd need to transfer about 14,400 miles per year from the truck to the car to "break even" on fuel consumption dollars. Considering that the car has only been driven about 12,000 miles a year, it's not really saving us money. What it is doing is giving us a small, easy to park "right sized" vehicle to serve our around town driving. It looks more economical than going everywhere in the truck, but it isn't.
We have legitimate reasons for using the truck, about 10 times a year. Renting might be slightly more economical, but it completely destroys the convenience and power of owning your own vehicle, ready at a moment's notice. There's also the convenience of the redundant backup, the "third" vehicle is 19 years old - well maintained, but about once a year it needs some repairs and it's nice to be able to park it and do the repairs at leisure rather than having the pressure of "needing" the vehicle. The truck is 10 years old, so it's going to start falling into that periodic repair category soon too.
Legislating increased fuel economy in new vehicles isn't biting anyone in the ass. It's about time, just like in the late '60s / early '70s, our engine technology is producing more power than is really useful for getting from A to B. It's about time to turn that technology away from making overpowered vehicles into making them more efficient, just like they did with the initial CAFE standards. The free market clearly values "fun" over efficiency, and why not? Life is short. It won't seriously hurt anyone's happiness for CAFE to rise by 30%, electronic engine management systems can pull off that and more, but not without additional incentives outside the free market.
Re:Automakers (Score:5, Insightful)
What you really mean is, "I am one of those arrogant pricks written about in "The Ugly American", and I have a RIGHT to be wasteful. Because I am an American, I have the right to burn thousands of gallons of fuel every year for no better purpose than to poison the planet."
Wake up and smell the coffee. Life is changing. Adapt, or go the way of the neanderthal. Your ancestors who lived through the depression would be ashamed of you.
Collusion (Score:5, Funny)
That's called "collusion", when the government isn't involved.
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Only if the goal is to set prices, not to improve quality. Is it collusion when computer manufacturers meet to make hardware standards, or software companies to standardize APIs and protocols?
Re:Collusion (Score:4, Insightful)
There's nothing to do with interoperability here.
And the goal here isn't to improve quality, it's to lower it. People don't want these cars. They only way they can get away with making them is if they're the only cars people can buy.
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Collusion (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Funny)
I will get round to changing that part sometime. It was meant as a quick workaround to get us through unit testing.
Regards,
God.
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Informative)
If you look up crash tests of the Smart ForTwo on youtube you might be surprised: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz-s1sIoLhU [youtube.com]
The Smart ForTwo's main advertising point (apart from it's small size and fuel efficiency) is the visible "Tridion" frame around the passenger compartment, showing that you're going to be safe.
Now look up your BMW (I can't, as you didn't give the model).
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Collusion (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not an asshole instinct, it's a mating instinct.
Women control the womb-space, which means they set the terms of behavior that will be rewarded with mating opportunities. Western women presently pass out such rewards based in large part upon status -- or more precisely: upon status displays. Big ridiculous cars are an approved status display, which means they increase their owners' mating opportunities, which means people buy them.
Re:Collusion (Score:4, Funny)
Probably for the same reason you see chihuahuas in purses.
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
And the goal here isn't to improve quality, it's to lower it.
Yes damnit! I want my car to be seriously fuel inefficient. Imagine, I'll be spending less on gas, and I'll be polluting less too! HOW DARE THEY!!!!!!
Is it only me, or is party politcal tribalism a possible new DSM classification?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine, I'll be spending less on gas, and I'll be polluting less too! HOW DARE THEY!!!!!!
Why is it that everyone thinks that the most fuel efficient is also the least polluting? There are basically three ways to tune a car.
1. For the most power
2. For the best fuel efficiency
3. For the lowest emissions
If 1 is done correctly, the emissions shouldn't be much worse than in the case of 2, just different. That is unless you are running a pair of big ass carburetors on top of a tunnel ram.
In the case of 2, you get the most mileage out of the fuel, however it's harder on the engine and doesn't burn the
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
You're speaking of combustion engine tuning. There are many ways to improve all 3 of more power and more efficiency and less emissions. We have a ton of low hanging fruit we're ignoring. Here are 3 of them:
Dump the "slushbox" (the conventional automatic transmission with torque converter). There are so many ways to get the efficiency of the manual with the convenience of the automatic that it's criminal that we aren't doing it. Next, manufacturers choose gear ratios that are good for jack rabbit starts and passing while going uphill and using the air conditioning, but which are terrible for fuel economy. High gear isn't nearly high enough.
Another big one is weight reduction. We use steel because it's cheap, not because it's all that great. We can replace many steel parts with lighter ones that are just as strong or stronger. We could also revamp the safety regulations to keep things just as safe without having to weigh down the car with super strong B pillars and such. Why is it we can ride motorcycles, which are far more dangerous, but we can't bring a car from Mexico to the US because it isn't "safe" enough? We dumped the 5 mph bumper of the 1970s. We need to trim the regulations again.
Then there's aerodynamics. Most vehicles are miserable on that point. Observe that the front grill openings of a typical car are much wider than necessary, extending well beyond the radiator. Why? Because people think it looks better that way. They've thought so for at least 50 years, and the limp noodles in marketing haven't bothered with any reeducation on that point. This purely cosmetic feature unnecessarily scoops a lot of air into the engine compartment, which acts a bit like a drag chute. It takes lots of energy to make air swirl violently around the engine compartment. That air has to go somewhere and it does. Most of it goes under the car, which has the worst aerodynamics of the whole body. But nobody pays attention to the underside of a car, and smoothing that out would cost a little more money, so it isn't done. But shrinking the grill openings would cost nothing. That's right, we waste gas over trivial appearances.
Anyway, I disagree with this sort of ham handed management of fuel economy. Push the gas tax through the roof, and we customers will roast manufacturers who don't give us good fuel economy. We ought to bump the gas tax in the US up by 10 cents per gallon every month until we've added at least $1, then index it to inflation so it doesn't erode away like it has. No need for government fuel economy mandates. Make fuel economy worth having, and let the market figure out the details.
"slushboxes" are generally better than manuals now (Score:5, Insightful)
because the majority cannot get more efficiency from a manual than what a computer controlled automatic can. I don't know why your bellyaching about something that already has happened. It takes some stupid hyper miler tricks to get many manuals past the best of the automatics. Really, what century are you in? The trick for the last decade in improving highway mileage has been very tall gearing in the last one or two gears of the transmission. The key is that new autos will downshift to pass and resume the tall gear as soon as possible. Throw in cylinder deactivation and you can improve many big vehicles.
Safety regulations, well your out of the loop again. The Feds are implementing even stiffer roll over requirements so that roofs will not collapse if someone has a roll over. Just how are you going to relax safety standards in a nanny state? Comparing car safety to motorcycles is like comparing apples to dogs.
We bring cars made in Mexico here everyday, they are sold under the GM and Chrysler name. Now have you seen crash test of home grown cars from Mexico or China? If your asking us why we don't allow them go ask Europe why they rejected them!
Re:Let the market figure out the details. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the market doesn't care about externalities [wikipedia.org]. There are multiple externalities involved with using gasoline, even if you choose not to believe in global climate change, and the auto industry isn't going to care about any of them until it is far too late. By attaching a price to the commodity in the form of taxes it forces the market to respond to the total cost including the externalities (assuming we come up with a reasonably close approximation for the tax,) not just the immediate cost.
Re:Collusion (Score:4, Informative)
I just find this notion that CO2 is a pollutant quite absurd.
I assure you, that is a problem just a little honest self-education will fix. You could start here: Fourth Assessment Report [www.ipcc.ch]. It is difficult to find any other area of science where so much authoritative information has been so conveniently assembled. You can read just the executive summary or conveniently delve into the specifics of any area you choose. Really, on this issue ignorance is unforgivable. As is reliance on non-credible sources of pseudo-scientific disinformation.
Because it's not so much as science as it is indoctrination by statist regimes usurping power and control.
Or you can wallow in ignorance, self-delusion based on your particular ideological predilcctions. That's a choice you alone can make. Look, I'm no enemy of freedom or proponent of over-governance, far from it, but the Science here really does speak for itself.
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
I just visited that website and reviewed all PDFs in their Glossary. Not once does it explicitly define CO2 as a pollutant.
No, it wouldn't. Technically, I'm not sure I would either.
The issue with CO2 is not pollution per se, it's one of imbalance. We do not generally define exhaled breath as "pollution", nor would we call CO2 from the decay of biomass such.
Where CO2 from fossil fuels becomes an issue is carbon sink depletion. Carbon that was previously sequestered from the atmosphere for millenia as oil or coal is released predominantly be human activities. This throws the existing system out of whack. We don't know by how much - most estimates are pretty pessimistic, though even the optimistic ones aren't exactly reassuring.
The CO2 coming out a vehicles tailpipe doesn't matter. The hydrocarbons going into the fuel tank do. If they're fossil fuel derived, burning them adds to the problem; otherwise, it's carbon-neutral. So, to give a hypothetical example, a heat engine that uses hydrocarbon fuel does not cause any problem if the carbon involved comes from inside the carbon cycle; think a bio-diesel IC engine.
Re:Collusion (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet, I don't think in this politically charged atmosphere we are going to find anything but politically patronized studies.
How about basic physics?
Visible solar energy - sunlight - comes down through the atmosphere, strikes and warms the surface of the earth, and then is released as infrared thermal radiation. The atmosphere is like a transparent window to visible light, but it is a partially-dark window in the infrared. The solar energy comes down and warms the earth, but the heat is partially blocked and has trouble escaping to cool the earth back down. The "greenhouse effect".
The normal greenhouse effect is already about 50 degrees F. Before pollution, before cars, before the industrial revolution, before anything, the normal earth greenhouse effect and the normal CO2 levels and other atmospheric greenhouse gases already keeping the earth about 50 degrees F warmer than it would be without the greenhouse effect. The non-greenhouse-effect state of the planet would be sub-freezing-point almost from pole to pole.
Venus is a bit closer to the sun and it gets a fair percentage stronger sunlight than the earth, but that's not why Venus is so hot. The surface of Venus is hot enough to melt soft metal, because the planet has a thick atmosphere of mostly CO2. The atmosphere is a completely black closed window to infrared light.
The thicker the greenhouse blanket is, the more heat it traps. It is trivial provable directly testable fact that CO2 and methane and other greenhouse gases factually *do* let sunlight come in and then act to block infrared heat from escaping. The thicker the blanket, the warmer you get under that blanket.
As far as I am aware, no one disputes the fact that earth's CO2 levels were about 260ppm before the industrial revolution.
As far as I am aware, no one disputes the fact that earth's CO2 levels have now risen to over 380ppm.
As far as I am aware, no one disputes the fact that we are currently emitting about 27 GIGAtons of CO2 per year. (Note: All volcanoes combined release somewhere in the ballpark of 200 megatons of CO2 per year.)
As far as I am aware, no one disputes the fact that the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is due almost exclusively to man made causes, primarily the burning of fossil fuels.
As far as I am aware, no one disputes that methane levels (an even more powerful greenhouse gas) have also shot up due to man-made causes.
As far as I am aware, no one disputes that Chlorofluorocarbons and other artificial compounds are of exclusively man-made origins, and that they have a vastly more powerful greenhouse effect than CO2.
The simple physics that certain atmospheric gases *do* let in warming sunlight energy and then block the escape of heat, the simple physics that a thicker blanket of those gases traps more heat, and the undisputed fact that humans have increased the levels of those gases in the atmosphere and even introduced new more powerful ones, that leads to the absolute result that yes, the effect real, it is a warming effect, and that human activities are causing this effect.
The size of the effect is a complex issue. There are other effects operating in parallel with this effect, making things even more complex. Predicting the future impact this will have on the global climate is extremely difficult and extremely complex. Predicting the secondary impacts this effect will have on the planet and upon us is insanely difficult. Deciding what, if anything, we should do about it is an economic and political question, not a scientific issue.
However what is simple is that this effect is real. It exists. It is an indisputable scientific fact.
There can be rational discussion of the size of the effect, there absolutely is substantial uncertainty in trying to predicting the future growth of the effect and trying to model what impact it will have on the overall climate, there absolutely is substantial uncertainty in the secondary impacts it will cause, there absolutely is substa
Re:Collusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Electric motors make a lot of sense with trains, but not for hauling cargo on the road.
It's the long hauling of cargo on roads, itself, that doesn't make sense.
Re:Automakers (Score:5, Insightful)
Clarkson is for entertainment. He's not to be cited as an authority on anything besides what Clarkson's opinion is.
Mostly just for cars (Score:4, Interesting)
It appears SUVs will continue to have pretty horrible gas mileage.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Then you would be impressed with Toyota's Hilux [toyota.co.uk]. (PDF).
32 highway, 23 city, 28 combined. Not sure what the '3/4 ton' refers to but, it can both tow and carry that. 1500 lbs = 680. kg, all of which it can handle without a problem.
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:4, Informative)
Ah the Hilux. Utterly ubiquitous in my home country of Australia. Seriously, they outnumber every other light utility vehicle on the road put together.
And as Top Gear showed us, virtually indestructible ;)
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:4, Informative)
Did you really mean 3 or 4 tons rather than three quarters of a ton?
No. "3/4-ton pickup" used to signify a pickup that could haul 1500 lbs without too much strain. Same goes for half-ton and full-ton... 1000lbs and 2000lbs, respectively. I say "used to", though, because trucks can typically haul much more than that, though they still use those same phrases as an easy way to compare the capacity of different trucks.
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's how I fish:
(1) Grab fishing rod and tackle box.
(2) Dig up a few worms from the garden
(3) Walk to a nearby lake, 15-30 minute walk depending on where I go.
(4) Fish.
(5) Walk home.
If you need to burn 300 gallons of gas to go fishing, you're doing something seriously wrong.
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:5, Informative)
Easy. Here in Canada we use Diesel at -40 (C or F, they're the same at that point), with no problems. It's a matter of additives, block heaters, and glow plugs. But as that's standard for most automobiles here (gas or diesel), it's pretty much moot point.
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:5, Informative)
-10f is about -23c. Sounds pretty typical winter in Finland, and we are managing just fine with diesel. Well, people up in north started having some problems with diesel-cars when temperature dropped to about -35c (that's.... -31f) few years ago.
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly? I'm slightly over 6 ft and drive a standard Toyota Camry. With the drivers seat in the furthest back position, I find the leg room adequate? Admittedly I'm not American but I'm pretty sure the Camry is sold in the US market and I doubt the size is any different?
I'm not doubting you, but I'm just a bit confused since I always thought American cars were huge (bigger than anything you can buy in my country).
Of course, if you are ~substantially~ over 6 ft, and not just slightly over, like me, then yeah, I can understand the problem ;)
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm 6'5" with most of my height in my back. My brother at 6'2" has the same leg length. My chiro thinks I'm 6'7" because of the length of my back. I don't get this leg length thing.
In almost *every* vehicle I've driven, I crank the seat almost as far forward as it will go, then tip the seat back until my head doesn't hit the roof. If I stretch out my legs at the same time, my shoulders end up in the back seat, and I can barely reach the wheel. People who complain about leg room have never suffered insufficient head room. On an aircraft with my knees jammed into the seat in front of me, if I tip my head back, it's a 90 degree bend before my head rests on the seat top. I'm nose to the air vents.
Long ago on trans Atlantic flights I learned to rip the seat cushion off the aluminum air frame (usually velcro) if I wanted to sleep for a couple of hours. Talk about hard and cold, but it beats sleeping in the chin on sternum position.
One time sitting in the aisle seat I managed to corkscrew myself sideways far enough to sleep with my ear on the headrest. The flight attendant rammed the beer cart of Lilliputian portions into my kneecap as hard as she could three times before I managed to regain consciousness, determine the source of the red flashes (oh, that's my pain system), and complete the origami move to remove my knee from the battering path. I've never slept well on a plane since.
Trucks, SUVs, whatever, they all lack headroom. Thirty years ago I had an Austin America where I could sit up straight. This is because the top of the seat cushion was about 4" off the floor boards. Loved it. If they add comfort, I'm screwed, no matter how much hulking metal they mold around it.
These days I'm getting 8.8 liters/100km (27 U.S. MPG according to Google calc.) in a 1991 Toyota pickup with a heavy, indestructible, yet somewhat underpowered engine (50% city, 50% highway, by minutes operated). If you goose it a bit on the flat, it'll happily do 140kph up an 8 percent grade in the BC interior (two occupants, no load). However, if you fall below 110kph, you're unlikely to recover without taking 3rd gear into jet engine territory. The engine is plenty adequate if you plan ahead, not so adequate for whims and impulses.
The real problem here is people purchasing enough engine displacement to carry a Bigfoot camper while towing a 30 foot boat across the Rockies, and then using it half the time to drive down the street to fetch a six pack.
There's no way to idle a huge displacement engine efficiently. I've long suspected that the trick of turning off two cylinders only gets you half the benefit of not having those two extra cylinders in the first place.
The other thing is that I'm moderately heavy on the gas pedal, light on the brake pedal. (I've read that peak fuel conversion efficiency typically corresponds 2/3rds of max. engine output.) Light on the brake pedal requires more traffic anticipation than the average person can muster while talking on a cell phone. I can usually detect these people pretty quickly. They're the ones riding up my ass while I coast up to a red light (or one that is about to become red long before I get there), make an abrupt lane change to pass me, then come to an abrupt halt when the light actually turns red.
MPG figures are pretty much useless if they aren't evaluated in terms of the actual driver and typical trip conditions (e.g. three mile round trip of road range while talking on a cell phone to fetch a six pack).
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:5, Funny)
The new Slashcode includes a feature that randomly changes punctuation marks on clicking Submit.
OK, maybe not, but with all the other weird things happening around here lately, can you really rule it out?
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:5, Funny)
Before you say "well drive a car", well if I could find a car for someone my size I would easily drive a car. I cannot find a car that fits someone of my height and girth, thus I HAVE to drive an SUV.
Or you could also, like, exercise a bit from time to time and eat healthier.
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:5, Informative)
Or you could actually try different cars instead of going directly for the SUV. I'm 6'5'' and 275 pounds. My lower legs are long so they tend to get in trouble with the steering wheel. I can't drive a corvette because my knee gets stuck between the door and the steering wheel. A Hummer is also out of the question there's no room. I've also tried driving an Escalade with hilarious result. However, i fit fine in a smart car(1) or my parents' toyota yaris verso(2).
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Fortwo [wikipedia.org]
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Vitz [wikipedia.org]
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:5, Interesting)
A friend of mine who is 6'8" and well over 300 pounds has no trouble in my 3 door Audi S3. That's a hatchback.
Sure, he has to adjust the seat a lot, but he fits no problems, passenger or driver.
Re:Mostly just for cars (Score:5, Insightful)
i have a chill... (Score:5, Funny)
42 you say?
Equilibrium dynamics (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a case to be made that raising the CAFE won't save oil or reduce greenhouse gases.
The link is really light on the math. In most systems that obey similar behavior, demand does increase, but the increase in demand does not completely erase the benefit of the increase in efficiency. In this case it can't completely erase the benefit, because if it did the end result would be a net increase in the price - and that was the original basis for the argument, that the drop in price would spur consumption. So the increase in demand has to fall short of that point.
So in the end, demand will be somewhere higher than it is now, and the price somewhat lower, all else being equal. Where on the supply/demand curve things ultimately lie will depend on the relative elasticity of supply vs. elasticity of demand.
Re:Equilibrium dynamics (Score:5, Insightful)
Why always so far into the future? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do administrations always set timetables beyond their terms? Remember Bush's "man on Mars"?
Re:Why always so far into the future? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Why do administrations always set timetables beyond their terms?"
Is this a trick question?
By setting timetables beyond their terms they get the brownie points for passing some retarded law, but they know they won't be around for the shit-storm of public backlash when the law actually goes into practice.
Consider Kyoto, for example, which allowed the governments who ratified it to make a lot of fuss about how wonderfully 'green' they were, even though there was little to no possibility of most of them ever meeting the quota requirements which would be imposed many years later; by that time they'd probably be fat and happy on the lecture circuit while other politicos would be responsible for destroying their economy for no good reason to meet those quotas or the bad press if they failed to do so.
Saving the planet one Hummer at a time. (Score:5, Informative)
<sarcasm>
I think it was established as a well known fact that driving a Hummer is many times more environmentally friendly than a little Prius. If Obama was truly interested in saving the planet he would mandate that every commuter drives a Hummer and we scrap these pointless high MPG cars.
</sarcasm>
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, what that study showed is that if you get 200,000 miles out of a Prius and a Hummer, they'll have similar energy costs. How likely is a Prius to run more than 200,000 miles? It has a teensy tiny little high-performance (for what it is) engine in it. Granted, only Diesel Hummers are likely to make more than 200k, and they are in the minority. Either way, if you're buying a new car to save the planet you're a dipshit :D
Re:Saving the planet one Hummer at a time. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Actually, what that study showed is that if you get 200,000 miles out of a Prius and a Hummer, they'll have similar energy costs."
Huh? Considering that the Prius gets over twice the mileage of a Hummer, I find that hard to believe. Having said that I certainly wouldn't trade my used car for a Prius-doesn't make enconomic sense.
And the Prius will certainly use LESS energy. Most of the energy associated with vehicles comes from driving.
"Either way, if you're buying a new car to save the planet you're a dipshit :D"
True. About as useful as calling a large house in the suburbs "green". :)
Re:Saving the planet one Hummer at a time. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, what the study showed was that if you wrote a report with complete bullshit absurdities you could convince some people that a gigantic vehicle that gets 14 MPG average would have better or equivalent energy consumption to a small vehicle that gets 46 MPG.
Some people tried to analyse what little information was available about the report and found absurdities such as the Hummer H3 rated at 207,000 miles in its lifetime and the Prius at only 109,000 miles [pacinst.org]. While still others ran known models that are used to measure life cycle energy consumption and even when using the absurdities from the Dust to Dust report they still could not produce the ridiculous energy consumption numbers [rmi.org] from the report.
The fact is that more than 80% of an automobiles life cycle energy is consumed in the operation of the vehicle. [carplus.org.uk] That bit of information makes it virtually impossible for a vehicle that consumes more than 3x the operating energy of a smaller car to some how use less or the same amount of energy as the small car over their life cycles.
As far as new versus old, just as its a no brainer that a small fuel efficient car will consume less total energy than a monster SUV its also obvious that buying a new car will not magically reduce total energy consumption. However, since we know autos have a life cycle there will be a need for many new vehicles so it may not be a bad idea to use some of our no brainer knowledge to have a positive impact on our energy consumption.
Re:Saving the planet one Hummer at a time. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, what that study showed is that if you get 200,000 miles out of a Prius and a Hummer, they'll have similar energy costs.
Wrong. [pacinst.org] The study made a number of flawed assumptions, as highlighted in the link, such as that the lifetime mileage of a Prius is 109,000 miles, while the Hummer H3 gets 207,000 and the H1 379,000 miles. So yes, if your Prius craps out in 1/3 the time of the H1, you're going to get a worse overall energy cost. On the other hand, Vancouver cab companies have already clocked over 200,000 miles on Priuses without even replacing the batteries, so they don't seem particularly fragile. And there's no particular evidence that any brand of Hummer is going to last that long either. So yes, if you start with biased assumptions, you will find the Prius has similar energy costs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This of course doesn't really apply to cars. Most energy use occurs due to driving the car, not its manufacture.
It may not apply to large energy sucking appliances either....
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Good luck! (Score:3, Interesting)
Vehicles have simply gotten too heavy of late for this to be feasible without a big change in the way vehicles are powered... if we could join the efficiency of modern engines with the weight of vehicles from the early to mid 1980's, we would could meet this goal using existing technology.
This will be the death knell for trucks and SUVs based upon them... the laws of physics mean there just not going to reach these goals cheaply (or perhaps at all), and they will die for all non-necessary purposes.
Good riddance... maybe I'll be able to see traffic lights again without being buried amongst an oversized mob of excessively tall vehicles, or blinded by headlights that are at the same elevation at the roof of my car.
I will miss multi-cylinder engines, though... every manufacturer is focusing on smaller engines now, implying the death knell for the V8. Americans seems to think that a V8 has to have at least 4 liters capacity... why not just decrease the engine volume? Sure, it's got more internal friction, but the sound and smoothness more than make up for that.
It's an uncertain time for car enthusiasts.
Re:Good luck! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good luck! (Score:4, Insightful)
Excellent point!
Now you and the other 0.1% of people that actually use their industrial vehicles for their intended purpose can feel free to keep buying them.
In the meantime, freedom isn't free, and if grandma wants an H2 to go grocery shopping, it should cost her proportionally more to do so.
Welcome to 'modern' capitalism.
I for one have no problems with the federal or state governments regulating our markets to educate the populace of the true costs of consumption. People, as a whole, are irrational idiots, and need to be hit upside with a financial brick every once in a while.
Re:Good luck! (Score:5, Insightful)
2016? (Score:5, Insightful)
My car gets 42mpg average right now. That's the EPA estimate and is actually what I seem to be getting in the real world.
Honda Civic Hybrid. I love it. But frankly I'd like them to be WELL up into 100 seven years from now.
reduce the weight! (Score:3, Informative)
On the otherhand a early 1980's civic got 41mpg city and mid 50's highway, but it weighed roughly 1000lbs less.
I am curious how the fuel economy would be if we put a modern powertrain into an older much lighter body.
why not just tax gas? (Score:5, Insightful)
If we want people to use less gas, why not just raise the darn price?
There are times and places for government regulation, but requiring a minimum fuel efficiency? If the goal is to reduce greenhouse gases, then fuel efficiency is just a half-assed proxy for fuel consumption.
42 mpg x 20 mile commute each day is a lot more fuel consumptive than 20 mpg x occasional grocery trip.
And what qualifies as a "car" and what as a "light truck" and "SUV," all of which have their separate regulations? What a mess.
People respond to their pocketbooks. In this case, it's easy to align people's incentives with the goals we want to achieve: Make gas expensive.
Re:why not just tax gas? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why not just tax gas? (Score:4, Insightful)
If we want people to use less gas, why not just raise the darn price?
Or possibly because some of us think punitive taxes are an inappropriate use of government power, and only serve to distort the market?
Despite being a hardcore fiscal conservative, I have no problem with taxing something that has a real, direct, tangible, accountable cost to cover. What I do have a problem with is setting up taxes to cover the "environmental damage" of doing things, such as releasing a ton of CO2. Exactly what is that cost? Is Mother Nature going to send me a bill at the end of the month? Not only that, but is the government going to use those tax revenues to somehow pay that cost so that there's no net impact of me polluting? It's all a sham pyramid scheme.
I'm actually all for raising the gas tax to actually cover the cost needed to keep the highway system in excellent repair. Our infrastructure is going to hell and our politicians don't have the balls to do what needs to be done. The problem is that politicians as a group are a lying, sleazy bag of weasels, and the minute they see tax dollars coming in for roads, they'll try to either call everything a road or start cleverly siphoning off part of the cash.
Gas tax (Score:4, Insightful)
Milage standards haven't worked before and they will continue to fail. Forcing car companies to make vehicles that people don't want to buy isn't going to do anybody any good.
Pretty much every economist knows that the way to achieve the stated goals is to dramatically increase gasoline taxes. After that, the market will work its magic. People will buy more efficient cars, or seek alternative transportation. When looking at where to live, the cost of commuting will play a bigger role in families' decisions. And we get to make a little dent in the whopping federal deficit.
Of course no politician will even hint at endorsing what is clearly the economically rational thing to do. So instead, we'll spend money on subsidizing bio-fuels and other not-all-that-bright ideas.
Re:Gas tax (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That God-damned representative government! People doing what they want, instead of what's best for them! I tell you, if I was in charge, we wouldn't have any of this inefficient "voting" or "town hall meetings" or any of that crap.
I'm not proposing an alternative to democracy. There really isn't anything better. I'm merely pointing out that there are cases (and this is one of them) where democracies fail. Another failing that we are seeing is that representative democracies prefer public debt above either increased taxes or cuts in subsidies.
The fact that substantially higher gas taxes isn't a politicly viable solution in American democracy doesn't take away from my claim that it is the most economically rational one.
And just becau
Re:Gas tax (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, and all those people who can't afford to buy new cars or who don't have access to alternate transportation will just have to suck it up and choose between gas and food or rent/mortgage payments.
Yeah, and all those people who can't afford to move will just have to suck it up and choose between gas and food or rent/mortgage payments. And who'll buy all those properties now too expensive for people live in? (And after selling your house at a loss, if you can sell, you'll be in a wonderful position to compete for houses closer in - houses whose prices are now rising because of demand.)
It sucks to be a real person instead of a mathematical abstraction I guess.
I find it much more likely that politicians and their advisers are much smarter than you are and understand that real world economics aren't abstractions and that what seems 'rational' in the extremely oversimplified and over abstracted world you live in is in fact a recipe for significant economic disruption in the real world.
Revenue-neutral tax shift (Score:5, Insightful)
You make a good case for making the gas tax revenue-neutral. If the average person uses 400 gallons of gas per year and the tax is $1.00 per gallon, then with a revenue-neutral gas tax, the government would mail everyone a $100 check every 3 months. If you're poor, that $100 could go a long way paying for groceries.
Hopefully, it is modified (Score:3, Insightful)
Hopefully, the dems will grow a pair and do what is right.
About damned time. (Score:4, Insightful)
It'd be interesting to see what the average and top mileage cars have been getting over the past 20-30 years or so. Up until 1990, I had a car with a small displacement 6-cylinder (instead of a 4-cyl, cuz I wanted air conditioning), manual 5-speed transmission, and cruise control that routinely got me above 40 mpg on the highway. If the weather cooperated and I wasn't driving into a headwind the entire way, more often than not I was able to make a trip from S. Ohio home to Chicago on a single tank of gas. Then, for some reason, it was almost impossible to find a car that got better than the low 30s. Once SUVs became popular, availability of high mileage cars dropped even further. If one were to plot mileage over the years, I'd bet that we'll finally be getting back to what should have been commonplace in the mid/late '90s. Fifteen years or more of progress totally wasted. Pity. And the managers of American auto makers wonder why their companies are in the toilet.
Don't bother (Score:4, Informative)
There's a case to be made that raising the CAFE won't save oil or reduce greenhouse gases.
So true. If my car got 8 million miles per gallon, I'd totally drive 8 million times as much.
Until we have a Republican president... (Score:3, Insightful)
Obama better get himself reelected then. Because, you can bet if he loses to the Republicans the deadline for compliance to the 42 mpg average will be pushed back to the year 2167 lickity split.
And I don't mean that to sound partisan, because I hate both major political parties. But in my opinion, history has shown that the Republicans are definitely in bed with the oil companies. The Democrats might be too, but they keep it on the DL.
End Comment is wrong. (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a case to be made that raising the CAFE won't save oil or reduce greenhouse gases.
Which references the following passage:
Why? Because improvements in fuel economy effectively make fuel less expensive, and when costs fall, demand tends to rise. As driving has grown cheaper in recent decades, people have done more of it - choosing to drive to work instead of taking the bus, for example, or buying a second car, or moving to a house with a longer commute, or sending the kids to college with cars of their own. Between 1983 and 2001, data from the Energy Information Administration show, the annual amount of driving by the average American household rose from 16,800 vehicle-miles to more than 23,000.
This is known as a variant of Jevon's Paradox.
Jevons is ONLY correct if the supply of energy resource is A: available and B: steady or increasing in availability. This is true because with steady or increasing availability, price remains stable or decreases. However, if the availability is not steady and/or decreasing, then conservation is the only possible route for economic growth, as one must reduce one's consumption *below* the depletion curve in order for "extra" resource to be put into expanded production.
This also eventually fails. Energetic resources (oil, coal, gas, uranium, the gallium in solar cells, etc.) eventually give out, and are never uniformly distributed. What happens is you run up against asymmetries and granularities. The asymmetries result in cartels, and testing the granularities results in Very Bad Things like revolutions.
So, basically, the article is essentially correct, if we were living in the 1990s. But we are not. We are either at or very near peak oil production, and from here (or the very near future) it is a constant down slope in energy availability. Unfortunately Solar/Wind/Nuclear etc. is not ramping up fast enough and is ill suited to many basic applications and materials (such as carbon fibre, plastics, and fertiliser) and it seems very likely that we will get "caught out" in the mid 20teens, making the 2020s a rather dire time.
According to the ,a href="http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/Oil_Peaking_NETL.pdf">Hirsh Report it takes 20 years of expensive conversion efforts to shift society to a new energy paradigm. 10 years is a bare minimum and likely to be difficult. We're still talking about trying to save the Happy Motoring Culture, which is another way of saying, we're caught with our pants down.
Make plans or have them made for you.
And remember, Mother Nature's plans do not include your survival, much less comfort.
RS
The Law of Unintended Consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds like a great idea, but I fear it. You know why? Because something always happens that nobody properly predicts.
Here's an example. Remember station wagons? Not the things they have now, but those great big monstrosities that used to carry something like eight people or a garage band + equipment. You don't see those around any more. Why? Because they raised the fuel standards and there was no way that station wagons could reach that. Bye bye, big loader.
But just because they disappeared, it does not mean the need for large cars disappeared. Enter the minivan-- which has lighter standards, but still stringent. And most earlier examples of minivans were crap for anything but moving people. (Current models sometimes switch pretty well, but may not have engine capacity.) So then what? Enter the SUV. It falls under the "truck" standards, so it doesn't need to meet as stringent requirements. It seats more than four people, which is important for some people, and it can do things like move furniture. It also doesn't drive like a beached whale.
A lot of the posters at Slashdot don't seem to have considered the family angle. Carseats are freaking HUGE and it's sometimes hard to fit them in a sedan. And of course, you can't do more than two since the front seat is off-limits. So no friends. (Remember field trips where the parents used to drive? Yeah, they can't do that any more either. But that's another rant.) Once again, minivan or SUV. And quite honestly, after being in a hit-and-run accident, I wanted five-star safety rating AND a slightly higher profile. So our vehicle is what's called a crossover-- six seats, so when we have a couple of kids we'll still be able to put some adults in. And incidentally, it gets 24-26 miles to the gallon IN city.
The upshot is that yeah, this sounds great. I'm all for better mileage and I shop for it. BUT there's something else that's going to happen that we haven't predicted. It could be safety issues; it could be price. I don't know. But I'm always afraid of well-intentioned things like this coming back to bite us in the butt.
Re:Well played, Mr. President (Score:5, Insightful)
As a fellow inhabitant of the planet, I wish you had bought a Golf TDI, which has practically the same dimensions and performance, gets superior mileage in average driving, and which doesn't have all those batteries in it. They also have better visibility.
Re:Well played, Mr. President (Score:5, Insightful)
I see your Golf TDI and raise you a Bluemotion Polo [wikipedia.org].
Re:Well played, Mr. President (Score:5, Interesting)
As a past owner of both makes, I'll pick Toyota's quality and reliability over that of Volkswagen every time, thanks.
My last Toyota saw me through more than twice as many miles as the Volkswagen it replaced; and then went off to college for four more years with my son. Both were bought new, by me, so no possibility of neglect by previous owners or such.
The Prius isn't my first choice either. But I'll certianly not by a car again whose VIN doesn't start with a 'J'.
Re:Well played, Mr. President (Score:5, Informative)
I bought a Civic Hybrid (we need a back seat for the baby's car seat). It gets pretty good mileage - 37 city, 42 highway, in my experience (not quite what the EPA estimates were, at 40 city, 45 highway, but who expects that?).
Unfortunately, Washington State will not let me register the car (which I purchased in Utah last month before I moved) as a Hybrid. Why? Because, according to the representative I spoke with on the phone, they only consider cars that get 50 mpg city to be hybrids, regardless of whether said car is actually a hybrid.
According to the Toyota website, not even the Prius qualifies under that requirement (getting 48 city, 51 highway), but Washington's DMV lists the Prius and the Honda Insight as eligible hybrids. (Note that the Honda Insight doesn't meet that requirement either, getting 40 city, 43 highway.)
I look forward to when most cars on the road get better gas mileage than me, too; but in the meantime, I would appreciate it if states got their act together.
Re:States rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the states created the federal government to handle particular tasks.
The goal of our federalist system is not efficiency, it is freedom. A country where the government's primary goal is to ensure the efficiency of its subjects is certainly NOT one where I'd like to live.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:States rights (Score:4, Insightful)
As for the substance of your comment, just because some states did bad stuff means we should scrap the principles on which America was founded? Where are we going to be when the Feds control everything and do bad stuff? With 50 different styles, at least some are going to be better, but with a homogeneous government, the chance that it is bad everywhere is much greater. Oh wait
Re:Wish in one hand, crap in the other... (Score:5, Informative)
The 2006 Honda Civic [kbb.com] almost reaches this level. It has the top rating in every IIHS crash test. The manufacturer is routinely rated at or near the top of the industry in reliability. The Civic's price is comparable to a typical American car. The 2009 Civic Hybrid [kbb.com] already tops these standards under recently tightened milage measurements. There is no reason a 42mpg car has to be unsafe, unreliable, or overly expensive.
Re:Wish in one hand, crap in the other... (Score:5, Informative)
It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Smaller, lighter cars are fine in a crash with other smaller, lighter cars. But in the US the average vehicle is so heavy that the minority of people in the small cars would get squished like a pancake. Plus US drivers seem to spend proportionately more time going at higher (highway) speeds (commutes in most other countries generally involve less highway).
In Europe and Japan and other places where smaller cars are the norm, I don't think they are perceived as unsafe at all. Particularly when they are generally used for city driving at speeds = 60 km/h anyway, you simply aren't likely to have any massively high energy impacts. As the parent said, they are also a lot more agile on the road and stop a lot quicker so can avoid accidents in more cases.
A lot of families I know have two cars. A city car (e.g. a Mazda 121 or other ultra-small vehicle), and a normal sedan. The city car gets used every day. The larger car is used for the weekend roadtrip (since it's undeniable that large vehicles are nicer for long trips, and larger engines are better for highway cruising ... and not that bad efficiency-wise if you put the cruise control on 110 km/h and leave it there).
Re:Wish in one hand, crap in the other... (Score:4, Funny)
I drive a small car... I hear the whole 'squished like a pancake' thing all the time, but despite hearing it and seeing lots of even major car accidents on the Los Angeles freeways, I see a lot of people take hits in small cars and not only survive, but their cars are still working well enough to drive them away from the scene.
maybe that's because the average commute speeds in LA are so low (5-11 mph average in the sepulveda pass). :P
Re:Illegal Hummers coming? (Score:4, Funny)
Are you nuts? That would require a 100 gallon gas tank!
Re:Amusing story (Score:5, Informative)
US gallon = 3.78 liters
UK gallon = 4.54 litres
Therefore it would be 50 mpg in UK... good luck with that!
twnety year old civic gets 57mpg (Score:5, Interesting)
http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/17/autos/honda_civic_hf/index.htm [cnn.com]
I understand that safety is now a major concern and safety drags down mileage. But the numbers are not far fetched.
from the article
"The CRX HF got an Environmental Protection Agency-estimated 57 mpg gallon in highway driving. Today, the most fuel-efficient non-hybrid Civic you can buy gets an EPA-estimated 34 mpg on the highway. Even today's Honda Civic Hybrid can't match it, achieving EPA-estimated highway mileage of just 45 mpg. The Toyota Prius, today's fuel mileage champ, gets 46 mpg on the highway."
Re:twnety year old civic gets 57mpg (Score:5, Informative)
Re:twnety year old civic gets 57mpg (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC they compared driving with the AC on to driving with the windows open.
Driving at in-town speeds, the AC affected MPG to a greater degree than having the windows open, but at out-of-town speeds the AC was more efficient. This makes sense to me, as the energy required by the AC is constant, whereas the additional drag due to the open windows would increase with speed.
Re:Amusing story (Score:4, Funny)
On a moped, if you pedal and it's downhill. With a following wind.
Typical subcompacts are around 8l/100km.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'd like to see a law prohibiting the use of gasoline powered cars by 2016.
Oh brilliant. Throw away an entire working infrastructure with a fuel that makes a great deal of sense. That's not to mention the chaos you'd cause with the economy (a hundred million people or more being forced to buy a new car or stop driving, combined with the retooling of the fueling infrastructure and turning the petrochemical refining industry on its head)
It takes time to meet the engineering and regulatory hurdles needed to bring a new model to market. What you buy today has probably been in devel
Re:Mod for existing vehicles (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cool. Diesels at last. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Plastic Cars? (Score:5, Insightful)
That, my friend, is the whole point... It may cost a lot of money to fix or replace a car that has been so crushed, but ultimately cars are expendable, people are not.
Re:Plastic Cars? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the crumple zones saved both of them: they dissipated the kinetic energy of the whole impact. This guy was able to walk away from the accident BECAUSE the other guy was driving a car with crumple zones. This is also the reason why the car was demolished instead of simply taking a hit.
If the other guy had been driving a steel car too, he wouldn't be posting on /. today.
Re:Plastic Cars? (Score:5, Insightful)
You sir are a moron. Those crumble zones saved not only his life but yours as well. A frontal collision at that speed can easily be lethal. The reason you are alive to make your post is that the other car had crumble zones that absorb some of the energy in the impact thereby making it softer for both of you. You should probably have offered him half the cost of a new car because by sacrificing his vehicle both of you coudl walk away from the accident.
If you doubt my word try the following. Drop one egg onto a pillow and put another egg into a metal strongbox that you drop on the floor. I give you one guess which egg is more likely to crack.
Re:First post!!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
For the first, depends on which emissions. For CO2, it beats gasoline hands down, but it loses in terms of NOx emissions.
As for the latter, that's not completely relevant. Gasoline and diesel come from the same barrel of oil. The main part of the refining process is separating the mix of hydrocarbons that make up crude.
Though to answer the question, 1 barrel (42 US gallons) of oil yields about 19 gallons of gasoline, 10 gallons of diesel, and another 13 gallons of other stuff, such as fuel oil, petroleum feedstocks (for plastic and chemical production), propane, coke (the fuel, not the drink), asphalt, lube oil, and other things.