Green vehicles of 2007

A good summary of the 12 best and worst green vehicles.
http://www.greenercars.com/bestof.html

In the best list it's all Asian makes. Most know who they are!
In the worst Mercedes has 4 places and Chrysler has 2, giving DC 50% of
the worst vehicles.

 

Hmmm - Prius is rated as the no. 2 green vehicle for 2007. Might want
to read this:
http://clubs.ccsu.edu/Recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=188

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

That's a nice analysis of the situation. I used to really enjoy driving
my 51 Studebaker, and I always felt pretty good about not adding to the
environmental disaster caused by all the crap that goes into modern
cars. Not only that, but my Studebaker got about 27 mpg on the highway,
which is a lot better than cars of a similar size and comfort level today.

 

Hmmm - Prius is rated as the no. 2 green vehicle for 2007. Might want
to read this:
http://clubs.ccsu.edu/Recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=188

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')[/QUOTE]
Interesting, but the Prius is not on my short list, nor is any hybrid.

 

Yes those 50s Studebakers got very good mileage for their time.
My '95 Concord, which is a far better car, does even better in spite of
it's 12 years and 85k miles, plus it's air pollution is far lower.

However you are right about many more recent vehicles; in the last few
years they have been gaining HP and bulk, but losing economy.

 

Interesting, but the Prius is not on my short list, nor is any hybrid.[/QUOTE]


I'll make a prediction for the next ten years. I am a used car buyer,
and I don't think I'll ever be a new car buyer. I think that today's
hybrid cars will end up on the junk heap in a few years with virtually
zero demand from the secondary market. Once the batteries start needing
to be replaced, people will run from these overcomplicated vehicles as
fast as possible.

 

Oh my, he sounds like a car salesman who is determined to discredit the
opposition, regardless what junk he's selling.
Actually he's a hybrid himself, of Bush, Moore and Gore.
Posted at a University site is very surprising, but they should practice
open speech.

What he says is out of date, half truths and a political cost comparison.
I'll just note a few things he said; first the pollution at Sudbury,
Canada. Yes it was very bad, but many years ago. Now the area is an
example of what can be done to clean things up, not bury the problem as
was done at the Love Canal in the USA.

Secondly if he doesn't like nickel he'd better stop buying stainless
steel items, including the exhaust on his Hummer if it's of modern
construction. Oh yes most batteries as well, particularly the
rechargeables.

As for his cost comparison, something politicians would try on those who
don't think.

 

Oh Robert Robert Robert! You should know by now that it's all about
feeling good. The realities have nothing to do with it.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

From the article:

"When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and
build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes
almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius’s arch nemesis.

"One last fun fact for you: it takes five years to offset the premium
price of a Prius. Meaning, you have to wait 60 months to save any money
over a non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses."

Please show me the math on that last sentence being wrong (don't forget
to factor in the cost of money over time, and factor in replacing the
batteries and their full replacement cost).

Time to get out the tap shoes.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Ironically, just this morning my wife told me that her mother was
thinking of buying something "more efficient", specifically a hybrid.
She's a feel-good type who likes to jump on whatever bandwagon is
fashionable at the moment. When my wife told her that you have to
change expensive batteries in a few years she said maybe not....

I wonder how dependable the regenerative braking systems will prove to be.

 

Over the next year of so the new design Diesels from Europe will be
appearing, in Mercedes, VWs and I expect even in Chryslers.
I feel they will smoke (x I mean be much better than < ) the hybrids.
New diesels are quite different that the traditional smokers.

Mercedes has their new Bluetech V6 diesel out now and it's performance
is amazing, but of course being a Mercedes it's very expensive.
VW is also coming out with this very efficient diesel.
http://www.vwvortex.com/artman/publish/volkswagen_news/article_1906.shtml

VW 1.4L diesel gets 72mpg:
http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/354/C8884/

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2006/12/14/031535.html

 

You guys are both so right. My Datsun gets 27 in town! I admit it's not as
comfortable as a Studebaker, and not nearly as stylish. It sure is a lot of
fun to drive, though. Its secret, of course, is that it weighs over a ton
less than the lightest thing you can get now. I also have a first-gen LH,
and no big car available today offers the same mix of power and mileage.
Newer cars simply have too much horspower to get comparable mileage.

The biggest problem with new cars is the stupid people that buy them.
Hordes of them just flock to anything that gets 12 mpg, then they sit around
saying GM and Ford and the oil companies are in a "conspiracy" to keep gas
mileage at 12 mpg.

Not that GM and Ford don't do their part. I notice GM has pulled the engine
out of the "volt" and replaced it with their dream of a hydrogen fuel cell.
I think they realized it made too much sense like it was, and a lot of
people were saying they'd buy something like that, so they upped the stupid
quotient by making the secondary fuel hydrogen.

 

That's one thing that should be very reliable, really. It's just using the
transmission to apply a little engine braking using the motor. That ought
to work fine, you'd think.

I had heard from some industry insiders that hybrids don't "make sense"
economically, even in Europe, where gas is $7 a gallon. Obviously, if the
Prius costs $20,000, it does make good sense. So I have to assume that the
Prius (and the other hybrids) are being sold as loss-leaders. Because
honestly, they would make sense if they were honestly priced.

Note well that hybrids aren't used in Europe and NO ONE is talking about it.
So there's something economic going on that won't have any sticking power.
They'll wind up on the dust bin of history.

A further point is that whatever they do across the pond, with their pricey
gas, reveals what the best efficiency solution is. Their fuel prices do a
good job of flushing that out.

 

That's cool. My brother had an Isuzu I-Mark years ago that got over 45
mpg, and it was from the early 80s. Makes me wonder where the diesels
have been all these years.

 

(My attribution should have been snipped here - the following words are
Robert's.)

If I'm reading you right, no. Regenerative braking is using the
electric motor as a generator, driven by the vehicle's wheels and
inertia, and pumping charge back into the batteries, the resitance of
doing so providing the proportional braking effect ordered by the
driver's foot pressure on the brake pedal. A little more involved than
some words and hand-waving.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

It's so comforting to know that discounting attempts to move toward a
safer mode of transportation for the environment is the easiest way to
make people feel good about driving a 15 mpg car that is eating the
planet alive.

It's just so inconvenient to push the market in hopes that the planet
will last long enough for our children to grow old. Better not try to
help because it isn't the "perfect" solution. Those batteries will seem
cheap when your house is under water.

Someone needs to be the first to try something new. I don't see the
automakers making much but a cursory effort and there ain't that many of
us out there that can build our own cars. We have to find some
solution. The problem is real and mother nature will make us pay one
way or another.

 

I don't drive a 15 mpg car. I drive a mainstream car that is way less
overall impact on the environment than what the greenies are touting.

You see - that's part of the Gore hysteria. What Gore said about that
in his movie about the oceans rising is absolute b.s.

You're working off of emotion and not fact. That is what is so scary
about this whole "global warming" movement. You people start using real
science instead of Al Gore and Cheryl Crow single-square toilet paper
b.s., and you might have some credibility. This crap about if I'm part
of the liberal elite and I plant enough trees or pay enough indulgences,
then I can do anything else I want and I can always point to the
indulgences I paid and my liberal eltite status as excusing anything
else I want to do. All I've heard so far is that if I pay enough money
to the right organization, and plant enough trees, and have the right
public political personna, I can do whatever the heck else I want and it
will be excused.

So far, the "solutions" I see are like if I break my arm, someone tells
me to put a tourniquet on my leg, and that makes them feel better when
in fact the "cure" will do more damage.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Bill Putney:

Stop letting other people think for you. Do some research of your own, you
may not have the background to fully understand the science but if you
read about the actual research (not magazine, newspapers, radio or TV) you
might be surprised at what you learn.

 

Convenient, safe, clean public transportation would do more for the
environment and traffic congestion than all the green vehicles combined.

 

I've done a little bit of research, and the whole greenhouse thing just
isn't very compelling. 90% of the world's ice is in Antarctica. (In
fact, 70% of the world's fresh water is in Antarctica in the form of
ice.) The mean annual temperature there is -71 F. How hot is it
supposed to get, anyway? If it all melts it would raise sea level by
280 feet, but it would have to get pretty hot first, about a hundred
degrees hotter.

Here's another tidbit you don't hear about a lot:

"Sea ice: Each winter, sea ice up to almost 10 feet thick forms outward
from the continent, making a belt 300 to 900 miles wide. Even in summer
the sea ice belt is 90 to 500 miles wide in most places. The area of sea
ice varies from 1.15 million square miles in summer to 7.7 million
square miles in late winter."

I remember hearing about icebergs of unprecedented size breaking off a
few years ago. Well, I remember the news being unprecedented because
nobody ever talked about icebergs there before, because it happens every
year and nobody really cares. They just started unprecedentedly talking
about it for some reason. The thing they didn't talk about it was that
it was sea ice. Antarctica is the world's largest desert with only 2
inches of precipitation a year on average. In other words, there are no
fresh water glaciers that break off like they do in Alaska and Patagonia
because there is no snow to feed glacial growth. The ice sheet just
sits there. The icebergs that break off are frozen sea water, and they
break off every year. Is Antarctica really losing freshwater ice? I
haven't heard about it. It is kind of ironic that the world's biggest
desert contains 90% of the fresh water, but there is nothing really
alarming going on there.

You want to get alarmed? Read about the dizzying array of toxic
chemicals that are invented and put into production every year. Or how
about the incredibly unwise practice of genetically modifying staple
crops. Or how about commercial fishing that has depleted most of the
fish in the ocean. And why are the bees dying? CO2 just doesn't make
it to my list of things to worry about. I'm more concerned about things
that are poisonous.