NEWS: The 100-Mile Per Gallon Car Is Here. Sort Of.

This thread has gone off on a funny tangent.

To recap: I think that commuter vehicles are unnecessarily large and as a result generate way more GHG's than necessary. I think that most of our personal transportation needs could be met by much smaller, much lighter and much more efficient vehicles, which would result much less GHG emission. I have provided the original link to the VW 1 litre concept car as proof that kind of tiny, ultra-efficient vehicles I was talking about can actually be built.

239mpg

You pooh-poohed the VW on the basis of safety and cost. I say the safety trade-off is acceptable when you consider the consequences of not drastically reducing GHG emissions (ie ever-increasing numbers of catastrophic climatic events).

As for the cost, that vehicle is a CONCEPT car; by definition not meant for mass production.

Obviously, a less-expesive production car (minus the titanium alloy and carbon fibre) could be designed around it. It mighty not get 239mpg, but it's bound to be several times more fuel efficient than the average commuter vehicle today. If economies of scale kick in these kinds of cars could one day be the least expensive thing on the road.

As for the other two vehicles I provided links to--whatever, man. The ultra-efficient vehicle industry has to start somewhere. If you can't see the possibilities, then you're suffering from a failure of imagination.

And I don't know why you're bashing my contention that larger vehicles are more dangerous to the occupants of smaller vehicles. That's obvious. You don't have to "cherry pick" data to support it.

Here's link about SUV's for instance. You won't believe a word of it, but it will make you good and mad so I'd like you to read it--especially the last bit about "if you can't beat'em, join'em."

SUV Myths

Dude, I already know all that about SUVs and agree with that link - it hardly makes me mad as I've been covering most of those exact points in my classes for years.

What irritates me is your ignorance and constant misrepresentation and misunderstanding. As that's apparently not going to change I see little point in continuing to humor your posts.

Focusing most attention and funding on moon-shot research at the expense of (and scoffing at) more effective but mundane real-world solutions is not helping to fix the problem, and in some cases hurts the cause by diverting money that would be much more effectively spent actually fixing the problem now. A prime example of this is the Bush administration focusing on hydrogen fuel-cell cars - which are decades away from commercial viability - at the expense of doing damn near anything else which carries a political cost like meaningfully increasing CAFE standards, creating dedicated mass transit funding, ending billions in subsidies to Big Oil, or pushing energy conservation.

You may live in a fantasy world where a $200,000 9hp VW econopod will sell well, or a $60,000 hybrid trike but the rest of us don't.

Incidentally, I have owned a reverse trike similar to the one mentioned i one of your links. I also drove and analyzed the GM EV1 at the Saturn plant in Spring Hill TN. and spoke with engineers on that project... so don't assume anything, OK? It just makes you look like more of an ass than you already do.

Ok, ok, right. Sorry, I forgot you don't like SUV's any more than I do. At least we agree on that.

We also agree that the proposals you made regarding raising CAFE standards, subsidizing mass transit, ending Big Oil subsides etc. were all perfectly reasonable things to do.

We also agree that dumping money into hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars is pointless, when those funds could be better spent on more realistic and immediate solutions.

What I don't get is why you're so gosh darn intractable on the small, utlra-efficient car idea. Or my completely unoriginal idea to tax fossil fuels at a higher rate to reduce consumption and encourage innovation in the alternative fuel industry.

You keep saying I don't know what I'm talking about, that I contradict myself, that I pull things out of my ass, that I make gross generalizations and unsupported assertions, but you haven't really addressed any of my points with anything other than ridicule and scorn. You're being kind of a dick.

Cheers!

I have addressed what few points you've made. I'm being a dick because you're being dense and persistently irritating. I am not anti small car in any way shape or form, having owned and thoroughly enjoyed several examples of the smallest, most fuel efficient cars made in the last 20 years - cars like the Sprint Turbo and the CRX HF as well as an example of early motorcycle-powered tiny 2 seat reverse trikes like the FireAero (google it if you dare).

I like that VW concept car. I think it's neat and an amazing accomplishment. It's also virtually irrelevant in the real world for several reasons (cost being #1) , just like hydrogen fuel cell cars have been and likely will be for the next few decades or longer (cost and lack of infrastructure).

When you blithely advocate an exponential (10x, 20x, whatever) fuel tax and blow off all the disastrous consequences such action will have for the general populace, you lose credibility. Similar results come from presenting hypothetical vehicles that have not been built (and may well never get built, let alone sold in any quantity) as a major solution. Casually saying you think a 500% increase in vehicle mileage is do-able also qualifies as ridiculous as reveals your total lack of knowlege and/or grasp of reality.

That's a classic! I love it!

But I think you should have said "obtuse" instead of dense. I'm way more obtuse than dense.

Couldnt care less. Those monies come out of someone else's pocket. Keep my mileage up and overhead down. I drive A LOT. '07 Prius, 48,000 miles and counting since 11/28/2007.

But, lol...*I* am a part of nature and the environment as well. People litter. People have an environmental footprint, as all animals do. Since the Prius unfairly alters the balance of nature.....

.....I am littering just as fast as I can....MWAHAHAHAHA