smoothcrimnal6;1851941; said:
Won't work.. then the price of Prius will sky rocket because of a shortage.. lol
The Law of Supply & Demand doesnt work!!
- Thread starter jcardona1
- Start date
Won't work.. then the price of Prius will sky rocket because of a shortage.. lol
JD7.62;1851855; said:
And then you have the VP of one of the biggest oil companies in the world as our VP, coincidence?
hybrid cars are over rated IMO. too much of a price premium for little extra benefit. if you pay attention to the current EPA mpg estimates, theyve gone down from last year. i can get almost 40mpg with my '03 civic. no sense in paying $5k for 5~10 mpg more.smoothcrimnal6;1851941;1851941 said:
hybrids are all hype for the yuppies
>:(;1851884; said:Water_baby, two words: Air car.
Kidding, but in all honesty, I believe it can work. The main problem with things like this is getting the public to accept them. Not everyone has the money for a new car. I sure don't, and as much as I care about reducing our dependency on oil, I wouldn't buy a new car jsut because it ran on air if it was only going to put me in debt. Plus, there are those who don't understand the change, or those who are just resistant because they don't want change or don't care. This issue is far more complicated than just fuel.
I agree that there is a large number of individuals who simply wouldn't be able to afford a new "green" car even if they wanted to. BUT if the government stood up and called all those manufactures out on the carpet, they could mandate that all new productions follow strict protocol, and offer incentives to the public who had older vehicles, such as trade-in's on them. The trade in strategy would need to be fair, and not based on things like the KBB, but rather more practical things such as the car you were trading in for the car you were receiving - i.e, if someone turned in a civic and wanted to get a new "green" SUV, there might be a little price differential that the consumer would need to cover. But if it were a "fair" trade, of a sedan for a sedan for example, I think it should be free. Then those retrieved vehicles could be recycled, and used to create the newer lines, which in all reality would really be re-supplying the manufacturers, so they would have no real room to complain.
The government just needs to grow a pair and mandate this stuff because you know that the manufacturers are not going to just offer it up. I think that is a main reason why GM is headed in the direction they are going, rapidly establishing new lines. They have been around the longest, so leave it to the experts. I think they see what is coming and would rather stand on the podium prepared when the ball drops, rather than be caught with their pants down and no plan, like the others might.
When it comes to "Air-Cars", LOL if you want me to get really geeky on you, try this one on for size - -
Our oceans supply over 70% of the usable oxygen within our ecosystem, of which we rely on. If we were to engineer vehicles which ran off of oxygen, that would mean (theoretically), a significant upset in the available resources for humans and animals to consume. Considering that the ocean is our main supplier of oxygen, we would in turn have to SERIOUSLY regulate fisheries, and boost international forces to govern already standing laws and treaties. Why? Because our Ocean's ecosystems are faltering. There is a balance to everything, and that balance has been tipped unfavorably. Sharks for example are the apex predators, which rid the oceans of weakness and disease, picking off those not up to par, not to mention they keep in check the numbers of more rapidly reproducing animals, not only fish, but also mammals like seals and sea lions which feed primarily on fish and crustaceans. This keeps a balance of predator and prey. Micro-planktonic animals feed on algae, and in turn produce oxygen through their digestion of such. A huge variety of fish feed on these planktonic animals, and it is up to the larger predators to ensure their numbers do not get out of hand - - and in turn, to the apex predators, to make sure the larger predators do not diminish populations (which down the line would result in unchecked oxygen-sucking harmful algal blooms).
But right now, our apex predators are in serious trouble from finning, illegal poaching, long-line fishing and by-catch, which if not corrected will prove to be disastrous on the entire balance of the oceans, as there is no animal which can fill the positions sharks hold, and have held since the beginning of their days. Without strict and aggressive governmental interference on such issues, and real enforcement, we would not be able to rely on that source much longer either, because if we do not address issues like this quickly, we are in for a lot of hurt, and will have no "easy" button available.
I think we should take oil from Iraq. And I think it's Quwait or some place over there that gives the US military several thousand gallons of oil each day or something like that in payment. Which is hardly enough to do anything... Actually for all those people bashing Bush he didn't do as good a job as he could've done, but look at what he picked up when he took office in '01. He was stuck with Clinton's piece of crap of an administration and he fixed it up as best he could, but he has made a lot of mistakes down the road, such as freeing Iraq from the dictator who was keeping the maniacs over there in control (i.e. we didn't have a lot of problems until Saddam was killed). Oh yeah, in the Anwr province in Alaska they took some officials on a tour of it in an airplane. It was just a barren wasteland and it took several hundred miles until they saw anything living. Wildlife refuge my a**. and ethanol is what's screwing up the food prices. Everyone is growing corn for ethanol and that makes the price of feed corn for cows, pigs, etc. go up, thus the price of production goes up. And along with high oil prices to run the machinery required to make the food, that boosts the costs way up. so we're screwed no matter which way we look.
jcardona1;1851980; said:
TOTALLY aggree.
My '92 Civic Hatchback VX.. Stock.. got me 50 MPG Freeway. No joke.
Mixed it was about 40 mpg. And they want over 20 grand for these hybrids? What am I saving? Nothing. Give me a 92 civic VX any day.
I forget what car it's comparing it to, but somewhere I heard the hummer is more economically friendly than some other car because even though there's a higher upfront cost on the hummer, it would pay for itself in a couple years through better gas mileage. I'll have to look up what car they were comparing to.
It seems that we have found a hot topic that everyone agrees on (sort of...).
Fuel prices are too high and it is driving prices of everything else up. The oil companies are making far too much money off of us. Something has to change. I doubt anyone would argue with these statements.
However, how we solve the problem is not so universal.
Any solution that does not include reducing oil consumption is a short-term fix at best. I'm really quite surprised to hear so many MFK'ers advocating opening up wilderness areas for oil drilling. Politics aside, I would think keepers of exotic animals would be in favor of setting aside habitat for wildlife.
Great topic!
Fuel prices are too high and it is driving prices of everything else up. The oil companies are making far too much money off of us. Something has to change. I doubt anyone would argue with these statements.
However, how we solve the problem is not so universal.
Any solution that does not include reducing oil consumption is a short-term fix at best. I'm really quite surprised to hear so many MFK'ers advocating opening up wilderness areas for oil drilling. Politics aside, I would think keepers of exotic animals would be in favor of setting aside habitat for wildlife.
Great topic!
