Today there are two kinds of car companies:
“.. those that mass produce fuel-efficient cars and those that will. The American auto industry can no longer afford to be one of those that will.”
And, still one kind of “green” politician;
Mark Phelan reports in Friday’s Detroit Free Press that Obama drives a 340-HP V-8 Hemi Chrysler 300C – the most powerful engine option for that vehicle, and one of the most powerful family sedans on the market. The “C” gets a combined city/highway 21 mpg.
More people are driving SUVs then mini vans and a few aorund here where i live have hybrids
There are only 2 types of car companies….those that provive competatively/reasonably priced reliable transportation which meets customer needs and defunct ones.
Political zealots and axe grinders of all stripes have tried to mold auto industry output into their utopian ideals for years but only one thing sells…customer satisfaction.
When I find an electric vehicle that delivers enough HP to haul my trailer and equipment or do the hauling for property chores and is reliable at -40 on a long snowy rural backroad…I may show interest if it can compete with the 3K$ 1/2 ton workhorse that is redily available at auctions and want ads.
BTWL The do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do syndrome seems to be quite linear with the green band wagon polis.
Econo-box transport for the soiled masses and prestige Detroit gas suckers for the anoited GW elite.
The 300C is relatively fuel efficient considering it’s size and power. It is certainly more fuel efficient than some older and less powerful cars that I’ve owned.
However, who needs 340+ HP? Car makers should stop belly aching because they can get better fuel economy by limiting the size and power of their offerings, without resorting to any new technology. Meanwhile, the people who “need” these kind of cars can do the environment and their wallets a favour and go get their dicks stretched.
I am still driving the speed limit of 100kmh in the rightmost lane on the GTA 400 series roads to squeeze the maximum mileage out of my vehicle during my daily commute. Here’s me, a knuckle-dragging redneck conservative being passed by every greenie liberal latte-mobile on the road. I should have studied sociology instead of mathematics and engineering I suppose; then I could be oblivious to the nonlinear drag curve.
Just because a car CAN make 340 hp, doesn’t mean you always have to use it. You can DRIVE like you’ve got 150 hp, and THAT is what uses fuel.
Like they used to say in racing, cubic inches doesn’t burn fuel, horsepower does.
Speaking of future car technology and the environment, why are the tree-huggers not fuming mad about the new hydrogen fuel cell car honda plans to debut in 2008? From what I’ve read, the exhaust from this environment destroyer is 100% water vapour. And as every good scientist knows, water vapour is a more effective greenhouse gas than CO2. So why, when man made global warming is such a concern, are car companies pushing a new fuel on us that will produce even stronger greenhouse gases?
tom:
“Like they used to say in racing, cubic inches doesn’t burn fuel, horsepower does.”
Up to a point. A smaller engine has smaller frictional losses and tends to weigh less.
3w.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2006_Chrysler_300.shtml
A 4 mpg difference between the smallest and largest engines, excluding AWD and the SRT-8. If you include the SRT-8 then it’s a 7 mpg difference.
“When I find an electric vehicle that ….is reliable at -40 on a long snowy rural backroad”
My small hybrid car has been the best vehicle I have ever had in the three northern ontario winters it has been through. Ted Turner, by the way, has electric land rovers which are used for doing the heavy work on his massive ranches.
“And as every good scientist knows, water vapour is a more effective greenhouse gas than CO2.”
Water vapor is a feedback factor, whereas CO2 is a forcing factor. That means that more CO2 in the atmosphere (forcing) leads to more heat which leads to more water vapor (feedback) in the atmosphere. There is also a 100% difference between taking oil from beneath the surface and combusting it which leads to more CO2 on the surface and in the atmosphere and taking water (which would be going through its natural cycle of evaporating anyways) turning it into hydrogen and then using that hydrogen as fuel with the end product of water which will then go through its natural cycle of evaporation and falling as rain again. The hydrogen example does not lead to more ghg’s as the water would have been taking part in its natural cycle anyways.
Hypocritical as he is to preach one lifestyle and live another, Obama is right. Like it or not, car companies that don’t start making fuel efficient vehicles are dead ducks. It’s the market that will drive the shift to Electric Vehicles, as gas prices continue to rise, battery technology improves and the benefits of driving them become widely known.
The shift will come in the cities first, where your average urban warrior in his SUV is driving less than 100km a day.
The first wave will be commuter vehicles.
I got a little greenhouse, can I buy someones CO2 for my greenhouse so I get more tomatoes? Seems to me greenhouse gases cause things to grow, which is a good thing, so WTF is all this bad CO2 crap about.
Y2Kyoto Haiku
We have greenhouse gas
Al Gore speaks on relentless
Blow it out your a$$
Borat Dion Haiku
have izzy money
must stop grin ‘ouse gizzes now
no dat is not fair
Peter Mansbridge Haiku
Critics say , pay for profit
Lactacting mothers refuse
changes to welfare cheques.
Judy Rebick Haiku
I will not shave legs
that hold up the wool socks and
black old Birkenstocks
David Suzuki Haiku
Large busses cross paths
with climate deniers and
nudist naturalists.
Alan: It depends on the type of plant that you have (e.g. a C3 or a C4).
In regards to CO2, the bad is what comes with the increased CO2.
Obama said one thing but may have suggested a secret message by choice of his Gas Monster ride.
=======
Meeting with reporters after his speech, Obama acknowledged that his plan would cost the auto industry billions of dollars.
But, he added, *at some point you have to recognize the path you’re on isn’t working. The sooner we start, the better off we’re going to be.*
Despite the frosty reception that his fuel-efficiency plan got from carmakers, Obama wasn’t without supporters in the crowd.
==============
Mayor Kilpatrick said he was not about to endorse a candidate at this time.
Read: Kilpatrick didn*t get Obama*s secret message and Obama is dead in the waters of Motor City. = TG
“However, who needs 340+ HP?”
Marxist and fascist societies are “needs” based
Needs based reasoning is not in line with liberal democratic ideals.
Who “needs” all those religions? Who “needs” all that free speech…..who “needs” all the choices free will and civil rights give you?
I’m sure there ar many things in your personal posession which you really don’t “need” to sustain life…if we allow the state to devolve our rights/personal choice to what they determine is the lowest level of existance we may as well throw away 1000 years of liberal democratic idealism which pulled us out of the wretched mire of feudalism….slaves only need enough to survive on in the anthill society…and no more…and never give a slave choices.
There is no cause or concern which canjustify removing my personal choices to that od “needs” based regulation…to do so would be to break faith with the generations before me who died and spilled blood to secure my freedom to make personal choices of free will.
“Like it or not, car companies that don’t start making fuel efficient vehicles are dead ducks.”
I remember the K-Car. Do you?
“My small hybrid car has been the best vehicle I have ever had in the three northern ontario winters it has been through.”
I call BS on that one. I smell wee bit of bovine scatology at play in that zinger….the life test data from prototype electric car customers states these cars had a failure rate of over 80% when the heater and dive were engaged for extended periods over 2 hrs in these conditions…sorry I have access to OEM QA and accelerated life tests on most of these models….that sort of reliability is a myth.
As for your fears over reciprocal water feedback, id this were an apocolyptic factor in climate change the earth would have been a cinder a dozen times over during times of vulcanism.
Park the pseudo-scince lessins with the reliable electric car in the phantom zone. LOL 🙂
What color is Obama’s car?
Is it black?
“I remember the K-Car. Do you?”
Yes I do. I also see remember Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas. The reason why one was a failure and the others successes is that the K car was rubbish.
“sorry I have access to OEM QA and accelerated life tests on most of these models….that sort of reliability is a myth.”
Consumers Reports data on used cars:
“These models, listed alphabetically, have performed well in Consumer Reports road tests and have had several years of better-than-average reliability according to our survey respondents.”
Included: Honda Civic Hybrid and Toyota Prius.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/used-cars/used-cars-best-and-worst-406/index.htm
Wayward son: sorry I see you have a “hybrid” and I was focusing my ire at full electric auto tech.
You may very well have a reliable econo box there…but can you repair it in your back yard with NAPA parts or are you hooked into $400 a visit maintenance sessions at the dealers..after warranty what? Do you think it will still be running in 18 years like my 230,000 mile F250 1/2 ton?…I figure for the original cost, this vehicle owes me nothing and every thing after it’s 10th birthday was a free ride….replaced the rubber, brakes and exhaust..some preventaive stuff like replacing back seals and cover gaskets and a timing chain…I do oil changes and tunes for under 100 bucks and put a freeflow manifold and carter 650cfm 2 stage 4bbl carb on it to get a stable 20MPG and I have never had a major repair or been stuck from a breakdown in the outback ( where this truck is used primarily).
Perhaps Ted Turner can afford half million dollar toys to scoot around his warm california ranches but in the rural areas of the Canadian snow belt those things are a joke for reliability…if they were affordably reliable they’d be used…but they aren’t
Full electic auto tech is 8-12 years out from producing reliability equal to the gas powered vehicles that rule the Canadian back roads.
I was driving behind a Reliant today. A real POS, but still on the road.
If Detroit hadn’t given up on developing smaller, fuel efficient vehicles (and decent passenger cars for that matter – why did Ford let the Taurus die?) maybe they wouldn’t be getting their butts handed to them by Toyota, Honda, etc. They effectively surrendered that portion of the market and relied on truck and SUV sales to keep them profitable. Now even that share of the market is jeopardized.
I don’t know where you got your data from WLMR, but it doesn’t jibe with what I’ve read. Over 800 GM EV-1s were manufactured with nearly flawless reliability. The Gen1 EV-1s had some problems with their lead-acid batteries in cold weather, but the 1999 Gen2 EV1s had no such problems with their newer NiMH batteries. Developments in Lithium Ion batteries today promise even better performance.
Mind you, the definition of cold weather in California is probably a little different than in Alberta. No question that ability to hold a charge in very cold temps (and heat the interior of the vehicle) are technical problems that would have to be resolved for Canadian use.
Another thing about electric vehicles is that you don’t have to worry about timing belts, cover gaskets, back seals, exhaust and so on. They don’t have that stuff. There’s hardly any wear on the brakes. What you need are good, rugged batteries and a place to charge them.
“However, who needs 340+ HP?”
Who needs pecker checker lberias?
Haven’t personally owned a car for 25 years- I call them ‘wheels for wetbacks’
Canadian Back Roads!
And crumbling highways and pot holed streets!
The solution may be alternative fuels but it sure as hell is not miniature cars!
When they make a hybrid that will do what an F250 Super Duty Diesel will do we’ll start talking about replacing the old beast with the new. Until then ….
BTW – hearing that Obama drives a Hemi powered 300s make my heart warm!
The K-car rescued Chrysler. It was hardly a failure.
One of the factors never mentioned in all this chatter about fuel efficiency is the disposable income limiter.
I use my 14 mpg ’86 Dodge Ram as a daily driver.
Now, it makes all kind of sense from a strict fuel economy standpoint to upgrade to a more efficient truck.
So long as the new truck is free.
When you factor in payments, borrowing costs, depreciation, insurance, there is no truck on the planet that can save me enough in fuel to pay for itself – even when repairs and maintenance are included. Or espeically when repairs and maintenance are included. Repair parts for an 86 model are a fraction of the price for a newer ones and far easier to install.
So, therefore it is not more “economical” for me to purchase something new and fuel efficient. Just as it isn’t economical for lower income families to plunk down 30K on a new generation vehicle to replace anything that’s reliable and paid for, unless they drive a tremendous number of miles per month.
That this is consistently ignored is evidence that the people making the arguments haven’t much experience in scraping together cash to make a car payment every month.
‘I don’t know where you got your data from WLMR, but it doesn’t jibe with what I’ve read. Over 800 GM EV-1s were manufactured with nearly flawless reliability.”
In a stressed or unstresed environment?
I read accelerated life test reports from manufactures as a matter of course in my job….you can bet they are not redily available to the public or other manufacturers.
My data comes from compaies who gave proto designs to people to test in all conditions and the electrics failed in winter diving environments…not all but an average of 80% failure rate ain’t good by even GM standards 😉
“accelerated life test” data comes from “stressed” conditions (ie continuous heavy use, hostile environments, simulated customer abuse etc.)the idea is to “age” the vehicle in an excellerated fashon…put 10 years or expected lifespan use on it in a short peopod of time in lab simulations…these come from primarily public safety labs like UL or SAE or other labs for hire who take on product testing.
As I said full electrics did not do well in environments that cycle between wet and cold to freezing then wet…obviously there are moisture prone issues with componenet failure in the current tech.
I drive a ’98 Taurus that I will continue to drive until it drops, or becomes too expensive to keep repairing. Hopefully when that happens I will be able to replace it with an EV.
WLMR,
I think most of the GM EV-1s were leased in California – not exactly a stressed environment…
I’d be interested in knowing more about the accelerated life test reports you mention. Which vehicles were tested?
Kate: I believe I alluded indirectly to your point earlier…as I said, my 18 year old f250 owes me nothing and even with a 20mpg average it is still cheaper to ensure, maintain and drive than some 50K dodge ram or some 38K$ passenger buggy…or whatever inflated auto alternative is available now.
And as you say there are a hell of a lot of people who rely on a vehicle like my old work truck for their main and only vehicle….cheap maintenence and ensurance ofset fuel costs…like the green elites idea to demand expensive appliance, furnace and housing upgrades these are economically prohibitive to many people..particularly fixed income people or single parents.
Greens think like champaign socialists.
WLMR, you must be from the Me, Me, Me Generation.
lberia: How odd that Soviet leaders, including your namesake, were not with the programme:
http://www.svvs.org/1950_ZIS_110_Saloon.shtml
“…They were used only by government officials or professionals in high positions within the Soviet Union.
ZIS company was originally called ‘AMO Works’ manufacturing mainly trucks. The manufacture of trucks still continues. The works were renovated and renamed Zavod Imieni Stalina in 1928 during the first Five Year Plan. In 1956 the works were again renamed as Zavod Imieni Likhacveva [Khrushchev’s “secret speach”?] after a former director of the plant and a pioneer in Russian car development. The origins of the model 110 were during the ZIS period when earlier cars had engines believed inspired by the Buick straight eight. The Model 110 came about as a result of a present given to Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili ‘Stalin’ by Franklin Delano Roosewelt of USA of a Packard Super Eight. This resulted in machines and dies being supplied to ZIS for production of an adaptation of the Packard Series 180.
The ZIS 110 had an eight cylinder sidevalve engine of 6005cc developing 137bhp at 3,600 rpm, all going through a three speed synchromech gearbox. Maximum speed was about 90 mph, indicated at 140kph. Fuel consumption about 10 miles per gallon or indicated 23 L/100km…”
Mark
Ottawa
“speech”
http://www.uwm.edu/Course/448-343/index12.html
As for dear old lberia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrenty_Beria
I sure hope you don’t look like him, to be “lookist”.
Or share certain proclivities that even hhimmler (your other proud pseudonym) did not:
“Until recently dismissed as propaganda by political enemies both inside and outside the former Soviet Union, the allegations that Beria raped women, and that he personally tortured and killed many of his political victims are gaining historical credence.
Charges of sexual assault and sexual sadism against Beria were first made in the speech by a Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Nikolay Shatalin, at the Plenary Meeting of the committee on July 10, 1953, two weeks after Beria’s arrest. Shatalin said that Beria had had sexual relations with numerous women and that he had contracted syphilis as a result of his sex with prostitutes. Shatalin referred to a list (supposedly kept by Beria’s bodyguard) of over 25 women with whom Beria had sex. Over time, however, the charges became more dramatic. Khrushchev in his posthumously published memoirs wrote: “We were given a list of more than 100 names of women. They were dragged to Beria by his people. And he had the same trick for them all: all who got to his house for the first time, Beria would invite for a dinner and would propose to drink for the health of Stalin. And in wine, he would mix in some sleeping pills…”
By the 1980s, the sexual assault stories about Beria included the rape of teenage girls. The author Anton Antonov-Ovseenko, who wrote a biography of Beria, mentions in an interview a specific and clearly perverted sexual game Beria is said to have forced upon young girls before picking one of them to be raped. This alleged practice got the name “Beria’s Flower Game.”[2]”
What a well-rounded chap you are.
Mark
Ottawa
“WLMR, you must be from the Me, Me, Me Generation.”
Actually I’m an individual with individual freedoms and libery to make individual choices. I consider the civil society of the liberal democratic system to be made up of a collective of individuals…the core element of a democracy is the individual…when his rights and freedoms are safe/respected the collective’s is safe.
Yeah I don’t travel in the heard or march in parades under banners, or run hyterically in a mob frezied with the latest fear and I’m psychologically secure and emotionally mature that I don’t need group identy politics…all the mob and group-think mean to me is a threat to individual liberty if they are allowed to perpetrate their little group dogmas/tyrannies on the individual.
I have rational self respect and a sense of individual sovereignty…I suppose that may seem like a “Me-me-me attitude” to someone steeped in statist collectivism or self abusive socialist alturism…but like it or not those are my core principles ( and those of liberal constitutional democracy) which I am prepared to defend with my life if need be.
As for all your little brown shirt twinkies indoctrinated with the socially engineered sel-loathing of leftist statism and Green Leninism, I think the band Rage Against the Machine said it best when they penned this line in reference to socially engineered conformity:
“FXXX You I won’t do what you want me to”
I do what my free will tells me to
in the real world, on real highways, with real snow, ice, salt, deer, old ladys, old men, I need 300 hp to avoid all the hazards and assholes
Then I guess you’re not a very good driver, kingstonlad.
Belisaris said: “I’d be interested in knowing more about the accelerated life test reports you mention. Which vehicles were tested?”
Professional ethics preclude me from naming specific makers…suffice to say these reports come from prototype testing which designers have sent to private testing las for both simulated and practical system ALT testing.
This stuff is not in production this is development stage for future designs which may or may not be released dependent on many factors.
3 R’s I reduce,reuse, and recycle
Drive old crap that someone else got rid of, and repair it using used parts. Saving the planet almost weekly. heh
actually, I am a professional driver, accident free, over 2 million km’s under my belt….if not for my powerful engine, I would not be here to defend myself from your idiocy….out here in the rest of the world(u know, where all the stuff comes to feed the cities), we need horsepower….from the loggers to the farmers, euro-weenie wanna-be minis and escorts just do not cut it…stick to your propane bus and electric streetcar…if you want to eat or build a house, you need raw horsepower to get the job done
“Then I guess you’re not a very good driver, kingstonlad.”
yeeesss we noticed much of what you post is a “guess”.
Just recently I bought a second vehicle for my family. I think Kyoto is a joke, and moonbats is the punchline, but we avoided the regular gas route. By buying a bike with a battery powered motor (bionx.com) I have a great commuting vehicle for at least half the year.
Economy, trumps false morality every time.
As commuters go electric it might actually help out the 300 hp crowd by saving them a little money. Nothing like a little competition to drive down gas prices.
I invite anyone who owns a hybrid or electric to bring it to MB next winter!
You will then learn what it means to be stranded!
It would be interesting to figure out how much extra mileage is driven these days because so many families have to have two income earners to support the excessive level of taxation our socialist leaders have imposed on us. For some reason, while growing up during the dark ages, my father earned enough to support the family and my mother did not have to venture out into the work a day world.
WLMR,
**Belisaris said: *I’d be interested in knowing more about the accelerated life test reports you mention. Which vehicles were tested?**
The Fix Or Repair Daily brand of Escape Hybrid went through those tests with flying colours.
The Hybrid has far more systems prone to failure over the equivalent of 11 years hard duty in the slush and snow of NYC streets than any pure EV has.
Not one of the 18 yellow cabs failed.
Gas savings for yellow cab = $275,000.
Next question? = TG
OH,
Old pick ups are great. My *69 GM 292 standard with heavy flywheel and Posi-trac was a low end torqqy marvel.
Yet, when the *Sorry, No Gas Today* sign appears on the local gas pumps …. Old reliable pick ups just don*t go anywhere. = TG
Don*t get mad… just friendly discussion.
lberia, that’s gonna leave a mark.
cal2 at 5:12. Great stuff, those haikus! Can you do one for my favourite moonbat, Missy May?
wlm at 5:19. An American economist I read a few decades ago, I think it was Boulding, was widely quoted: “Only slaves have needs. Free men have desires.”
Elizabeth May may
Run in Dions dis array
Green and Red makes Brown