demagogue on 26/5/2007 at 17:11
Haha ... There is an (
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/26/business/26small.html?th&emc=th) article in the New York Times today saying that there is a huge surge in Americans buying smaller, fuel-efficient cars. Sounds like good news. But, the punchline goes:
Quote:
hundreds of thousands of consumers aren't giving up anything to downsize. Instead, they are simply adding pint-size transportation to their driveways, parked alongside their S.U.V. or pickup.
In households that own a small car, the family fleet is close to an average of three vehicles. ... These growing fleets suggest an approach to conservation that is more addition than subtraction.
“Small cars are like a fashion statement,” said Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing.
Leave it to American logic to figure out 2 + 1 = 1. :rolleyes:
AR Master on 26/5/2007 at 18:50
.
Gorgonseye on 27/5/2007 at 01:51
Quote Posted by demagogue
Leave it to American logic to figure out 2 + 1 = 1. :rolleyes:
Shit, is that why I've been doing so bad in math class?:(
Pyrian on 28/5/2007 at 04:28
Quote Posted by demagogue
Leave it to American logic to figure out 2 + 1 = 1. :rolleyes:
We do generally try to solve problems by throwing more money at them. I suppose they're using less gas that way in terms of driving, but I'm not sure that cancels out the production energy. It might in the long run, because the cars should last longer if each one is getting used less. But then, the sorts of people who have more cars than sense don't usually drive them for more than a few years. And yet, those will get passed on as used cars. So... Yeah, it probably does actually work out in terms of less gas used in the long run. Sort of.
Me, I want Personal Rail Transport.
Aerothorn on 28/5/2007 at 04:58
Yeah, it's actually been shown that, as bad as it may sound, people with SUVs should drive those SUVs into the ground, because the amount of energy required to manufacture the car is so vast that it far outweighs any energy you'd save ditching it for a new Prius.
Obviously, it's best not to get them in the first place, but for the countless millions of Americans who own them, they should keep driving them.
I feel dirty now.
aguywhoplaysthief on 28/5/2007 at 05:22
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
Yeah, it's actually been shown that, as bad as it may sound, people with SUVs should drive those SUVs into the ground, because the amount of energy required to manufacture the car is so vast that it far outweighs any energy you'd save ditching it for a new Prius.
Do you remember where you heard/read that?
mxleader on 28/5/2007 at 05:38
I'm so glad I ride a bicycle to work. It doesn't cost me much money per month to fill up the tank. The crappy thing about gas prices going up is that now people have less money to spend on bicycles at my shop. Instead of ditching the car, people just spend more on gas. So there is less money in the budget for things like bicycles, which would save money on gas. Of course the cost of the bicycle goes up because of the cost of shipping them to the shop goes up. So now people have even less money to spend on a cheaper mode of transportation. Some of the people I work with think that the rising cost of gas will bring more people in to buy bicycles, but I disagree. We Americans are not likely to give up the auto for a bicycle, bus or train. Mostly because the bus is seen, in many cities, as transportation for the less fortunate, i.e. the lower class. Trains are a great idea, and work well in some countries, but the train industry has shot itself in the foot for so many decades that nobody really likes them much anymore. In the past railroad companies repeatedly screwed the public, thus creating great distrust by the public. The automobile and the highway gave people the freedom to move about the country whenever they want, so the demand forever rises. The driving population goes up, so the gas prices will follow. Even though high gas prices generally suck we really can't tell the petroleum companies to charge less for a dwindling supply.
On another note: Everybody keeps talking about global warming. I heard about a study that some U.S. scientist is doing about global cooling, which might actually be worse. Something about increased cloud cover leading to less evaporation of water. Thus creating droughts in areas. Apparently they did a study about it and when 9/11 happened, and they shut down all the airports, the reduced cloud cover actually increased evaporation. So it would seem that high altitude flights create more cloud cover from those neat little contrails. Any thoughts on that?
P.S.
Don't drive the SUV's into the ground. Take them to the metal recycler, then go buy a used bicycle.
demagogue on 28/5/2007 at 05:56
The reminds me of one of the more unpleasant things about Japan (where I lived for a little while) -- a country that likes to pride itself on how green it is in spite of their penchant for cementing entire mountainsides and appetite for 90,000 Thai trees a day in disposable chopsticks.
Insurance (shaken) is so expensive there, and it increases with the age of a car, so that after 2 or 3 or 4 years it's usually cheaper to scrap the car and buy a new one than to keep the old one. It suddenly occurred to me how incredibly wasteful that is when I saw a scrap heap full of perfectly good recent-model cars, each one of which I'm sure was replaced with a new car ... all that extra manufacturing for no good reason.
A hint as to the real reason were the countless construction projects for no purpose, highways that go nowhere (one road I drove on finally ended after 40 minutes of trees at one tennis court), apartments/ buildings that won't be occupied, and my mandatory taxi rides paid for by taxpayers that have no intention of ever paying attention. The government basically just wants to keep these businesses busy and paid. It's done so bluntly it's almost laughable.
Vigil on 28/5/2007 at 06:23
I'd assume (hope) the majority of Japan's cast-off cars are exported around the pacific rather than being scrapped - I know New Zealand gets a large volume of secondhand japanese imports.
mopgoblin on 28/5/2007 at 07:26
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
Yeah, it's actually been shown that, as bad as it may sound, people with SUVs should drive those SUVs into the ground, because the amount of energy required to manufacture the car is so vast that it far outweighs any energy you'd save ditching it for a new Prius.
Where you said "the amount of energy required to manufacture the car", I assume you're referring to any replacement car? The costs of manufacturing the SUV are already gone, and for the most part can't be recovered (although some components might be reusable, I guess), so they're no longer relevant when looking for the least wasteful option.
