Trump Administration Plans To Freeze Obama-Era Fuel Standards (theverge.com) 306
The Trump administration plans to freeze Obama-era fuel-efficiency standards starting in 2021, according to a report from The Washington Post. The report says the Trump administration "would go even further by restricting a state's ability to set its own fuel standards, which would be a strike against California and its strict state-specific emissions rules," reports The Verge. From the report: The proposal has been reportedly drafted by the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, and the plan right now is to freeze standards for cars and light trucks at levels set for the year 2021 and keep them their for five years. The Obama administration's rules, which involved a partnership with California and car makers, set standards at 50 miles per gallon for cars and light trucks by 2025. Obama also, through the Clean Air Act, granted California a waiver to set its own, higher standards. That way, if automobile manufacturers wanted to maintain a presence in the lucrative California market, they'd have to abide by the new rules. The Trump administration now says a separate law overrules that arrangement, The Washington Post reports.
Big surprise.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ford just mostly pulled out of the North American car market, leaving the US/Canada with a bunch of tippy little trucklets and bigger trucks. I hope gas does a 2008 and shoots up to $5/gal soon -- if it won't push people to buy more reasonable cars, maybe it will at least help sales of electric cars out of their current niche.
Also, thank God for the Japanese makers who still sell reasonably-sized, nice-to-drive actual cars in the US market.
Because trucklets have different fuel standards (Score:4, Interesting)
> Ford just mostly pulled out of the North American car market, leaving the US/Canada with a bunch of tippy little trucklets and bigger trucks.
You know why? Cars have stricter fuel-efficiency standards than light trucks. That makes sense. However it creates the perverse incentive that in order to meet fuel efficiency standards, manufacturers need to make bigger, heavier, less-efficient vehicles - trucks.
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They are entirely separate, like different compani (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the full rule (1500 pages) for 2012-2016 if you'd like to read it, but I'll summarize a bit for you.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfi... [nhtsa.gov]
> fleet-wide averages, without as much exception for "trucks."
There are two (or more) completely separate fleets. Cars, light trucks, medium trucks (and busses), heavy trucks, motorcycles. There is no "exception", the two groups are computed entirely separately, based on entirely different MPG standards and different average lifetime miles.
For CAFE purposes, each company is essentially split into two companies - a truck company and a car company. (Also motorcycles and large trucks are computed entirely separate, as if they were different companies). You can read the full details in the EPA rules above.
So first the company does its cars. The first step on calculating the car standard is to find the average size (footprint) of the company's cars. I'll directly quote the EPA rule on this rather than trying to explain it in my own words:
--
EPAâ(TM)s final standards, like the standards NHTSA
promulgated in March 2009 for MY 2011, are expressed as mathematical functions depending on vehicle footprint. Footprint is one measure of vehicle size, and is
determined by multiplying the vehicleâ(TM)s wheelbase by the vehicleâ(TM)s average track width.
--
After finding the footprint, you look at the table (section 3, I think) that gives the formula for your range. Inputting the average footprint, the formula tells what the average fuel economy needs to be, in GALLONS PER MILE.
It's gallons per mile because a vehicle that gets 1MPG burns twice as much gas as one that gets 2MPG, but a vehicle that gets 99MPG is almost the same as one that gets 100MPG.
Subtract your company's ACTUAL average GPM for cars from the standard to get the amount of credit or debit. If the company is more efficient than required, it can either save those credits for next year, or sell the credits to another car company. Similarly, if this year's sales aren't efficient enough, the company can either use credits it earned in an earlier year, or buy credits from a more efficient company. (Credit brokers are allowed, but cannot actually own the credits, only bank them).
Once your done with the cars, you go through the same procedure, separately, for your motorcycles, then again completely separately for light trucks, etc.
I mentioned that a company that doesn't meet its target can buy credits from a company that the target. What Mack beats their heavy truck target, while BMW needs to buy credits for their cars? Mack has truck credits to sell, BMW wants to buy car credits. The public doesn't care whether a gallon of gas is burned in a motorcycle or a bus, they only care how much as is burned, so before trading companies can apply a formula to convert light truck credits to car credits, or car credits to medium truck credits or whatever. (It's not one-for-one, different kinds of credits are "worth" different amounts). Note that it may be Volvo's truck credits offsetting Ferrari's car debit. The Corporate in CAFE doesn't matter once you start trading different kinds of credits.
Just as GMC can convert truck credits to (fewer) car credits in order to sell them to Ferrari, GMC can also convert truck credits to car credits for Buick. GMC and Buick happen to be the same company, but GMC could just as easily trade those credits to a different company, maybe Ford or Volkswagen.
Again, the full details are in the actual rule linked above, but the summary is that car, light truck, medium truck, and heavy truck are computed completely separate, like separate companies. There is no averaging between cars and trucks.
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Electricity and batteries are not the solution, unless there are radical developments in batteries. Hydrogen fuel cells are a far better option in the long run, but much less profitable for the current petrochemical market. We should be conserving the oil for plastics and not using it in the form or fuel.
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Re:Big surprise.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hydrogen is merely the last gas of the fossil fuel industry's attempt to prevent the imminent irrelevance for cars.
Most hydrogen is produced form fossil fuels, so it isn't green.
Developing the infrastructure for refilling hydrogen fuelled cars is going to be very expensive, while most of the infrastructure for BEVs already exists (in the form of electrical grids).
Hydrogen fuelled cars need a small battery anyway, because regenerative braking back to hydrogen fuel isn't effective.
The only reason hydrogen fuel cell vehicles exist is because of a mandate from the Japanese government. Even then, only one company has actually produced one in volume (and, in the USA, only sells it in part of California).
Re:Big surprise.... (Score:4, Informative)
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Very inefficiently, yes.
Then there is the complexity of compressing it and recovering the heat produced by compression, etc..
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Definitely. We need to think about maintaining our strategic reserve of fake boobs. I mean, I can live without fossil fuels...
Re: Big surprise.... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's none of your business what car I buy. Who the hell are you to decide how I spend my hard earned money? If I feel like buying a gas guzzling tank getting 5 gallons to the mile it's nothing to do with you. Mind your problems and I'll mind mine.
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Re: Big surprise.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Let other countries march in. If they want to spend their blood and treasure in the mess that's the present-day Middle East, better them than us.
As far as Afghanistan, it was better off as a Soviet puppet state than as a fundamentalist hellhole created with US training and Saudi money. We'd have been better off if we'd have let the Soviets win in the 80s.
Re: Big surprise.... (Score:3)
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What you gonna do about it?
We start with better education, so that others not only understand their effect on society but have a conscience and don't try to harm others. Your behavior harms others, not just for the effects you produce, but that some other person may be encouraged by your actions. Surely you want your and your friends' and family's children to live in a better world, right? We have to do what we can to lessen any negative impact, really any steps help, it doesn't have to be dramatic.
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Ford just mostly pulled out of the North American car market, leaving the US/Canada with a bunch of tippy little trucklets and bigger trucks. I hope gas does a 2008 and shoots up to $5/gal soon -- if it won't push people to buy more reasonable cars, maybe it will at least help sales of electric cars out of their current niche.
Also, thank God for the Japanese makers who still sell reasonably-sized, nice-to-drive actual cars in the US market.
I disagree about Japanese cars being nice to drive. They now design the vehicles so you can't really see your trunk when you're backing up, so you had better have a rear view camera. And the windshield is set up such that you had better be under 5'8 if you want to be able to look right and see out the windshield past the rear view mirror. Their designs these days are absolutely horrendous when it comes to usability, though their aesthetics are generally nice.
Re:maybe it will at least help sales of electric c (Score:5, Informative)
Good thing is that the lithium, once mined, is recyclable. And most people drive under 50 miles a day. Which means that, with more charging stations coming online, newer electric "commuter" cars could have smaller batteries. Enough for a range of ~100 miles, not 300-400.
Also, dead is dead. How many kids have died in horrible ways in US-funded and often US-lead wars over oil? US still uses napalm. Which really does stick to kids and burn like hell.
This is classic whataboutism.
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That's what the major car companies kept trying to shovel down consumers' throats, and nobody bought them. It has nothing to do with charging station availability. With such a short range, you don't really have much choice but to charge yo
Re:maybe it will at least help sales of electric c (Score:5, Informative)
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No, you can't. Not safely, anyway. By law, you have to de-rate circuits by 20% for continuous use like EV charging. So your 50A circuit provides 40A, which is only 9.6 kWh per hour.
The problem with your approach is that it doesn't scale. At 9.6 kWh per hour, in theory, you would need about four hours of charge per vehicle for that hundred-
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No, you can't. Not safely, anyway. By law, you have to de-rate circuits by 20% for continuous use like EV charging. So your 50A circuit provides 40A, which is only 9.6 kWh per hour.
Incorrect, Electrician by trade. On a dedicated circuit(120v or 220v) I can use every amp available continuous, only on appliances with high starting inrush do you provide a higher breaker size and you also have to raise the wire gauge to match breaker size. On a circuit without a dedicated load, do you have to de-rate what you install, and that is because high draw appliances(vacuums) can be plugged in while other stuff is also plugged in. also for expansion at a later point.
A device like a Tesla is consid
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Re:maybe it will at least help sales of electric c (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:maybe it will at least help sales of electric c (Score:5, Funny)
Infernal combustion cars
I assume that was an autocorrect mistake, but I absolutely love it. Some kind of mix between a crotchety old-timer who doesn't want to give up his horse buggy and a mindless hipster twitter jokey who thinks all fossil fuels are pure evil.
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Hence the "sweet spot" for non-city commuter cars is about 500 miles.
? I've lived in very rural areas most of my life and never had a ICE car that could do more than 325 miles on a tank while living there. I never noticed a problem.
My last truck, an F150, could do 500 if I let it suck fumes. But that was because it had a 26 gallon tank. When gas broke $4 a gallon, filling that damn thing hurt bad. I did break $100 a couple of times.
I'm in a suburban environment now, but would have loved having a 200 mile or better BEV when I lived in the country. My electric was via a natura
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My car does about 350km on a tank of LPG. It's not a lot and within the range of some EVs. There are two differences though:
1. As my car was modified to run on LPG, it retains the gasoline tank, so, I can switch to gasoline if the LPG runs out and there are no fuel stations nearby.
2. It takes a couple of minutes to refill the LPG tank all the way to the top. If I spend something like 10 minutes in a gas station, both fuel tanks would be full when I left (assuming no lines).
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With such a short range, you don't really have much choice but to charge your car every night when you get home
To be clear are you saying that people don't charge their car every night at home? Because that would be a significant difference to observations to date of electric car owners.
Tesla's charge times (except when the supercharger is full and you have to wait behind four or five cars just to start charging, like you do in most of the Bay Area) are actually pretty much in the sweet spot
Not even remotely. The sweet spot it 8-15minutes. The vast majority of road users don't sit down at a restaurant even on long road trips which is also why the vast majority of service stations partner with fast food or deli style restaurants rather than actual meals. Those places which do also offer meals see a very small sale of tho
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People could, longer term, change their habits
What's the use case? Overpriced, poor quality food with limited selection for a long sit down meal in favour of getting to your destination faster and having a nice enjoyable meal?
Getting people to change their habits is just another impediment which is exactly why consortium like Ultra-e are pushing the sub 15min fillup in the first place.
So are Tesla mind you. V3 superchargers are going to start at 350kW when they come out. Until then Porche and ABB have beaten Tesla to market. But the real question is, w
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Except you don't charge every day with a Tesla. If you have home charging capabilities, you probably only charge when on trips, and you pretty much have to eat out then anyway, so that hour isn't lost. And even if you don't have home charging capabilities and thus have to rely on the supercharger for everything, you're still likely to charge only a couple of times per week at most. The "every day" bit was based on having only a third of a Tesla's range.
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If you have home charging capabilities, you probably only charge when on trips, and you pretty much have to eat out then anyway,
Is there something about an EV that prevents you from packing a lunch? A child can manage that.
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Good thing is that the lithium, once mined, is recyclable.
Is anyone actually doing this yet? Last I heard, when batteries were destroyed, the electrolyte was destroyed as well. Only the metal parts were recovered and recycled.
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The US, and its NATO allies, do NOT use napalm.
They got something better...not be used on civilians, of course....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Re:maybe it will at least help sales of electric c (Score:5, Informative)
1. Lithium is not a "rare earth".
2. Lithium is not a conflict mineral.
3. Lithium is extracted from salt flats or brine. Neither process uses either children or slaves.
Re:maybe it will at least help sales of electric c (Score:4, Funny)
Neither process uses either children or slaves.
So you're saying there are 'untapped inefficiencies' that could be addressed?
Re:maybe it will at least help sales of electric c (Score:5, Funny)
Not with that attitude!
Re:maybe it will at least help sales of electric c (Score:5, Informative)
"Lithium is extracted from salt flats or brine. Neither process uses either children or slaves"
Lithium is also extracted from lepidolite, which is in fact extracted in many countries with slave labor (which is incidentally children looking for lithium-borate gems within those lepidolite bodies.)
Re:maybe it will at least help sales of electric c (Score:5, Informative)
Lithium can be extracted from lepidolite, but not much actually is.
Over 40% of the world's lithium supply [wikipedia.org] comes from Australia, primarily spodumene mines like these [lithiummine.com]. Chile and Argentina produce another 45% from brine evaporation [lithiummine.com], as is most of China's output [lithium.today] which supplies around 7%. The rest comes from the USA, Canada, Brazil, Portugal, and 2% from petalite and spodumene mines in Zimbabwe [lithium.today].
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No, in actual rural areas, that 5,000 sq. ft. "McMansion", as you called it, costs about $180,000. That's only $908 per month.
And nobody in rural areas spends $5,000 per month on a car. Some folks don't even spend $5,000 on a car, period. Also, gas prices are a buck a gallon lower than in California, so even if you drive half again farther, you break
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If you mean the silly 100-mile-range toys that we often see coming from the major automakers, then yes, I would agree.
If you include Tesla, then I would disagree. Very few people drive 300 miles in a day unless they're making a long trip somewhere, and when they do, they have to stop for food anyway. The main problem with Tesla's electric cars is that the ones that are readily available cost a fortune, and
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Waivers and Eexecutive Actions (Score:4, Insightful)
When you govern by issuing waivers to the law instead of actually using compromise and diplomacy to pass laws, then at some point you have to expect a new Presidential Administration might be elected and revoke those waivers and reverse previous executive actions.
Re:Waivers and Eexecutive Actions (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Waivers and Eexecutive Actions (Score:5, Insightful)
The vast majority (> 95%) of actual peer-reviewed research supports the theory that human activities cause global warming. The differences between the research are how much effect there will be, and how quickly it will happen.
Also, the oil industry is polluting in other ways (water with hydrocarbon contamination, anyone?). And a sizable fraction of gasoline used goes on the ground, into the groundwater, or evaporates into the air. The less oil and gas we avoidably use, the better it is for us all, regardless of global warming theories.
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The less oil and gas we avoidably use, the better it is for us all, regardless of global warming theories.
It's not better for party supply houses who have to pay more for helium.
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And have you ever seen a clown cry because no balloons? Heartbreaking...
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regardless of global warming theories.
I like this. It's the "what if we make a better world for nothing" approach. I live in a cold part of the world. I would love it if this place got warmer. But even if I were some arsehole who didn't care about others I would still support reduction in energy use and adoption of clean technology.
Why?
I'm sick of the smell and garbage. Cities smell of diesel and petrol fumes. The scooters tearing down the path leave a cloud in their wake. Garbage bins are overflowing with disposed of bottles of drinking water
Re: Waivers and Eexecutive Actions (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, if you are a scientist with credentials, getting funding to study how global warming doesn't exist is really easy. Just like it used to be really easy to get funding to study how smoking doesn't cause cancer. There's a lot of money to be made proving that carbon pollution isn't a problem. Would that it were so.
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Re: Waivers and Eexecutive Actions (Score:5, Informative)
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Pure raw hard 50% +1 democracy is all fun n games until you find yourself on the 50% -1 side. We call this tyranny of the majority and having seen this in action in real life I am quite glad our founders were smarter than you.
So you're saying that tyranny of the minority is better? Why not go all the way and have the 1% ruling the 99%? Oh right, that seems to be America.
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There mpg standards are a regulation, not an executive order. And there actually are laws that prevent new administrations from simply changing regulations because of different political beliefs. There is a process, etc. There are also rules on acceptable reasons to change a regulation. In fact, some of the Trump Administration earlier regulation changes
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Sorry, but not quite correct. The CAFE standards were first enacted by Congress in 1975 in order to save fuel, basically because oil cost so much at the time. Then they were amended in the clean air act of 1990 to also try and reduce particulate matter in the air, setting up two tiers of standards, designed to be phased in over time. At that point the President was allowed to grant States waivers to the federal standards.
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], "In 2009, President Obama announced a new national fuel economy and emi
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None of what you said contradicts, and instead supports me in that:
A) These are regulations by the EPA, not an executive order signed by Obama.
B) Changing regulations cannot be done just because the chief executive wants to. While Congress can pass any new (constitutional) law it wants, they put limits on how new regulations can be formed (which makes a lot of sense given presidents change every 4-8 years, and Congress passes laws slower than that.)
Instead, you argue that the regulation shouldn't have take
We left sane government behind (Score:5, Insightful)
[...]strike against California[...] (Score:4, Informative)
More like a strike against Chevron(*), which controls he reformulation of gasoline in California to prevent importation of gasoline refined in other states, and artificially raise the price.
State specific environmental regulations should be held to he same bar as state specific laws... subject to the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution: Federal regulations override state.
(*) From those wonderful folks who brought you MTBE
Re:[...]strike against California[...] (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:[...]strike against California[...] (Score:5, Insightful)
Because we can't have a smaller government if it's the wrong small government.
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There are no standards that say you must have a certain amount of emissions or higher, or that put a cap on MPG. The federal standards say your cars must be at least of a certain emissions quality but does not prohibit them from being even better. If there really were 50 standards then automakers could decide what's the most profitable for them; ignore small states, or have a Texas edition versus California edition, or just make one type that matches all. In reality there are really only two standards, th
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The Commerce Clause has been bastardized to mean almost anything, so a slight additional bastardization to lower gas prices seems like a pretty good idea.
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I don't see anything wrong with states having higher standards than the feds. It does not nullify or override the federal requirements. Cars meeting the higher standards would automatically meet the federal standards.
Some say that this means the automakers have to make two types of cars, but that's ludicrous, make one type that works in California and the other states that adopted the same rules, and that car will work in all the states. Or, the automakers could just decide not to sell in California, prob
Koch suckers (Score:2, Informative)
You know, it's not a bad thing (Score:2)
I'll probably retrofit my car to burn wood gas. /s
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com... [lowtechmagazine.com]
I wonder how a car computer would deal with it?
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Expect to disassemble your intake and heads weekly. Find a soak that takes off crusty carbon and creosote.
Still considering, if I had a spare gutted pre-smog chassis.
Engine would have to be carbureted. Injection car computer couldn't deal with no control of mix. Perhaps a computer controlled carb (1980 era), rewired and replumbed somehow to control wood gas with the mix solenoid. Keeping the O2 sensor working will be a challenge. I'd make those quick change and learn to clean them.
Obviously, in CA, h
King of Babylon (Score:2)
Real link (Score:2)
Here's a link to the real newsstory [washingtonpost.com] as referenced by the blogpost in the summary links to.
Dear US auto industry... (Score:2)
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Re: Choo Choo!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:suck my DAMN balls (Score:4, Funny)
Those are also mostly carbon.
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Have you ever stopped to think about the *quality* of the jobs he pledged to "bring back"? If any jobs are "brought back", it'll be bottom-of-the-barrel, meaningless, back-breaking work that won't serve America's long-term future or viability at all.
Let me know when his Congress can pass a balancing or surplus budget and minimum wage is livable again. You guys like the 1950s, right? You could buy a home, have children, and own a home on minimum wage in the '50s through till the 80s, when double-income becam
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She cut off the air to other candidates as part of the setup to make her the winner. Turning that around in 4 years will be a challenge. Likely the Ds will pivot left, giving 2020 to the Rs on a platter.
The Ds will be paying for her campaign for decades, especially once the trails start. It will worse for them than Nixon was for the Rs.
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Re:Corporate rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Corporate rights (Score:5, Insightful)
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That is the pattern, happened to Clinton and Obama.
Yeah gridlock voters! Good work.
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I always learned that states rights was an outdated racist concept that we killed off in the Civil War.
Having 50 standards was wrong when having one standard made much more sense.
The state level bureaucrats got substandard educations from State U instead of the elite Ivy League and as such were unqualified to govern effectively. Now suddenly states rights is progressive and having 50 different standards designed by morons is a good thing? Am I the only one experiencing cognitive dissonance here?
Confusion is natural for those who neglect to form arguments for or against a course of action based on actual articulable merit and instead hide behind voodoo magic, worthless ideology and dogma.
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Funny how quickly things change. Also, for more than half a century, claiming that the Russians were interfering in our government was the rankest form of witch hunt, McCarthyism, and a terrible miscarriage of those so accused. Then, mysteriously, starting on the morning of Nov 9, 2016, there were Russians behind every tree and manipulating the electorate and the candidates like puppets, with responsibility for everything wrong with the world. And Vlad Putin, which we once heralded as a progressive leader
Re:Wait a minute (Score:2)
I always learned that states rights was an outdated racist concept
You have a truly unique ability to lern utterly the wrong thing every time. Oddly the wrong thing always seems to be the one that aligns with your "worldview".
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Re:You mean we won't drive electric cars on the mo (Score:5, Informative)
50mpg is not a realistic number for fuel consumption on anything you'd be willing to buy.
The Chevy Volt and the Toyota Prius both do better than 50mpg, and plenty of people are willing to buy them. They are both based on years-old technology, so there's no reason (outside of laziness and a race-to-the-bottom mentality) that carmakers can't do even better going forward.
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Plus there is a stack of awesome V8s all over the used market. 75% of the motors in useless mall utility vehicles, so the good cars will be going for the foreseeable future. Lots of cheap parts for miles and miles.
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And if you want a car with nore power behind it, you can always get a Tesla Model S P100D (102 MPGe) that will blow the doors off almost anything else on the road.
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How about the reason that many of their customers want to buy something besides a volt or a prius style vehicle?
But sure, let's force all restaurants to close and all grocery stores to only sell vegetables and low-fat meats because the feds have decided that's what's best for people to eat and who cares about what people's own preferences are!
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How about the reason that many of their customers want to buy something besides a volt or a prius style vehicle?
There's no reason fuel-efficient vehicles can't be produced in any style. You want a 50+mpg Hummer, go ahead! There's nothing preventing anyone from manufacturing one; hybrid and electric technology works even for larger and less-aerodynamic vehicles.
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I get 47mpg on my stock standard 10 year old gasoline car. No hybrid drive train, no high efficiency diesel.
*I said 48mpg in a reply above, but that was a rounding error.
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FWIW, I own both a 2012 Chevy Volt and a Ford F150 (I work from home so we rarely drive the F150 except for hauling things)
We've owned our volt for about 4-5 years now. We're currently sitting at something like 108MPG. We mostly drive it around town but haven't made any real effort to get the MPG up. We also live in Minnesota where the cold winters drop the battery range to something like 25 miles.
The volt is an absolutely fantastic vehicle. The only real downside is that visibility is really limited an
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50mpg is not a realistic number for fuel consumption on anything you'd be willing to buy
My 10 year old piece of shit gets 48mpg and it's not a hybrid or diesel. I still have no problem doing 180km/h down the autobahn so it's plenty powerful enough. Maybe you rightwingnutjobs just need to get your head out of your arses.
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Yeah, the NY Times and the Washington Post have been the left-wing papers in those towns for a long time, while the NY Post and the Washington Times are the more right-wing papers.
Or are you measuring them against your own imaginary standard of your own super left-wing views, instead of against other newspapers?