Why Americans REALLY hate the green movement :}

[MattSullivan]

[outwarddoodles]

I heard those cars aren't even that efficient.

[Xiroteus]

Deathmobile.

[MattSullivan]

Yeah. Imagine an SUV rammin into that thing. Death city.

[Xiroteus]

They would not be able to find it, now if everyone had small cars, that is different, there is no way most people would be able to use these for their family life, too small.

[Konietzko]

The upside is that, when you go somewhere, you could put that inside your back pocket and carrying it inside with you.

No more parking place hunting.

[MoonKit]

Yeah, I saw that in the Sunday paper too. The stuck on anger part was really funny. Its true too.

[RedEye]

As long as we Americans buy and drive apartments on wheels called SUV's and Mini-Vans, these itty bitty cars are going to be rolling coffins.

There are people who legitimately need big cars, but they are not the people who usually buy these SUV's. Mostly, these boats are status markings or compensation; not transportation. What's even worse is the fact that these vehicles are usually single occupant cars...not what they were developed for, but what they are used for.

Gas will even things out. As the prices rise, these road palaces will become less affordable to own and keep...unless they're diesel. Diesel is very much overlooked here in the U.S. Pity, that; they're much more efficient and you can get more Diesel out of a barrel of crude than you can Gasoline.

In Europe, one thing the people don't have are Automobile Cities; where the car is the only transport, and urban sprawl makes even going to the store a fifteen minute drive. There, towns and cities are more foot friendly and there are a web of interconnected transport services that make cars optional as transport. There are more scooters and mopeds, too; and they are safer to use over there. Drivers watch for them. Here, a scooter/moped/cyclist/motorcyclist is either invisible or the drivers just don't care. If you were important, you'd own a car, not a bike.

We'll get there. It won't be fun, but we'll get there.

[Konietzko]

As long as we Americans buy and drive apartments on wheels called SUV's and Mini-Vans, these itty bitty cars are going to be rolling coffins.

There are people who legitimately need big cars, but they are not the people who usually buy these SUV's. Mostly, these boats are status markings or compensation; not transportation. What's even worse is the fact that these vehicles are usually single occupant cars...not what they were developed for, but what they are used for.

Gas will even things out. As the prices rise, these road palaces will become less affordable to own and keep...unless they're diesel. Diesel is very much overlooked here in the U.S. Pity, that; they're much more efficient and you can get more Diesel out of a barrel of crude than you can Gasoline.

In Europe, one thing the people don't have are Automobile Cities; where the car is the only transport, and urban sprawl makes even going to the store a fifteen minute drive. There, towns and cities are more foot friendly and there are a web of interconnected transport services that make cars optional as transport. There are more scooters and mopeds, too; and they are safer to use over there. Drivers watch for them. Here, a scooter/moped/cyclist/motorcyclist is either invisible or the drivers just don't care. If you were important, you'd own a car, not a bike.

We'll get there. It won't be fun, but we'll get there.

I'll tell you my biggest worry about those small cars. And it has nothing to do with if other people are driving SUVs and minivans. It has to do with the people who drive the big, diesel, tractor trailer rigs that haul the things that drive our national economy to where they need to go. You buy clothing, it gets to the store in a tractor trailer. Your food you buy from the store is delivered by a tractor trailer. There is no logical way to haul goods in any acceptable amounts using anything smaller than a tractor trailer. So, in short, tractor trailers probably won't be going anywhere for a long, long time yet. Now....that being said...here's my issue.

I've driven in a tractor trailer before. I've operated it, been trained to drive one, and I'll tell you, right out of the gate...it's difficult enough to see those same "apartments on wheels" that you mentioned while driving a tractor trailer. And it gets progressively more difficult to notice other vehicles as they become progressively smaller. Looking over the front end of a tractor trailer, your angle of view will literally make it so the first inch of asphalt that you lay your eyes on is already eight feet in front of the nose of the rig. I'm just not comfortable with the idea of driving something that can as easily go 100% unseen on the highway by truck drivers as something like these "eco vehicles" would be. As I'm sure you can figure out...less chance of being seen by said truck driver increases your chances of being hit by said truck driver. This is already, often, a lethal proposition. I think these things are just going to multiply the number of trucker on leisure driver accidents, based solely on the fact that they're going to be harder to notice for truck drivers.

On a side note, that's also why most motor bikers prefer loud pipes on their motorcycles. Because they're more difficult to notice, having a smaller profile on the road, and the rumble of the pipes will usually get a driver's attention and they'll at least be looking for a bike. As far as I know, these things wouldn't even have that possibility, as electric driven motors don't exactly rumble.

[MattSullivan]

Size is really the reason electric vehicles haven't taken off in America. Everyone expects science to come up with a battery that can easily propel some gigantic American boatmobile. The simple fact is we'd be better off driving these little things...it's just..they really do seem super lame and fruity.

[Spiritbw]

What's sad is there is an alternative to those tractor trailer rigs; Trains. That's how things move about in other places where there are larger and more developed train lines then load them on smaller 1 to 3 tonne trucks to thier final destination. It's just in North America(US and Canada both) we've got the roads better developed than we do the trains so it just makes it easlier to put the roadworthy version of trains on them. Especially true when you get out west where things are much further and farther between.

Still, gas keeps going up and we're going to ahve to make that change anyhow. It's just not going to be worth it to keep going as we are. Between Edmonton and calgary they are looking at upgrading the line to being able to take highspeed trains as a cheap and competitive alternative to the small flights of airlines. As the price creeps ever skyward the plans for the extent of these highspeed lines creep further and further out in a larger and larger network.

On the desiel, might be a good alternative for other reasons. As they proved on Mythbusters, an unmodified deisel engine works just fine on strained, used, cooking oil. Yes, i'd like a baconator, large fries and a soft drink. my car will have four gallons formt he frier

[Konietzko]

What's sad is there is an alternative to those tractor trailer rigs; Trains. That's how things move about in other places where there are larger and more developed train lines then load them on smaller 1 to 3 tonne trucks to thier final destination. It's just in North America(US and Canada both) we've got the roads better developed than we do the trains so it just makes it easlier to put the roadworthy version of trains on them. Especially true when you get out west where things are much further and farther between.

Still, gas keeps going up and we're going to ahve to make that change anyhow. It's just not going to be worth it to keep going as we are. Between Edmonton and calgary they are looking at upgrading the line to being able to take highspeed trains as a cheap and competitive alternative to the small flights of airlines. As the price creeps ever skyward the plans for the extent of these highspeed lines creep further and further out in a larger and larger network.

On the desiel, might be a good alternative for other reasons. As they proved on Mythbusters, an unmodified deisel engine works just fine on strained, used, cooking oil. Yes, i'd like a baconator, large fries and a soft drink. my car will have four gallons formt he frier

Yeah, trains. But, then you have to ask...with what money do we rebuild our railroad infrastructure? And where do we put the new tracks? Most of the environmentalist groups are gonna have a friggin' cow as soon as a railway company opens their mouth and says "Well, we're gonna need to cut through these vast swatches of woodlands to bring through equipment so we can lay down new tracks." And then they'll lobby, and the politicians will kow tow to special interest groups just like they all do, be they republican, democrat or independent. And once the goods reach the train stations, what do you use to haul the goods to the stores? Big stores, like Wal-Mart, Meijer, Target, K-Mart, JC Penny, Sears, etc and most major supermarket chains require merchandise deliveries consisting of two to three full truck trailers a day in order to keep up with demand. That's during the slow times. During holiday season, the retail chains usually end up upping the ante to three to four trailers a day. And this isn't merchandise that they're just hoarding away, it's actually selling. In warehouses, like the ones that ship out orders and such, you're looking at probably closer to 20-30 truck deliveries a day, just for them to keep their heads above water enough to be able to turn a profit while not laying off half their workforce.

I notice you're saying to use a 1-3 ton truck, but that's not going to cut it for the sheer volume of merchandise that these companies actually move on a daily basis. I never actually realized how little is actually moved by one trailer until I worked in a warehouse, and got laid off for there not being enough work when we were still receiving about 12 trucks a day. And while a diesel engine might run on strained, used cooking oil, you have to also realize this.

Your average tractor trailer has two...count them...two...300+ gallon fuel tanks. And will usually go through their fuel reserve in about one to two trips, or less. Figure on there being more than 2 million trucks on the road, and you're looking at a requirement of more than 12 million gallons of used cooking oil, diesel fuel, whatever you want to run it on. A day.

Even McDonald's doesn't run through that much cooking oil. I'm not trying to be offensive or anything, but I'm not playing devil's advocate here either. Knowing what I know about how retail, shipping, reciving, and warehousing works, I can logically argue that using trains coupled with 3 ton trucks is not a plausible substitute for over the road tractor trailers.

[RedEye]

There's also the simple fact that trains don't run everywhere. Not even close to everywhere. Not even in the same county with everywhere.
Tractor trailers are the most efficient way to move things where the trains don't go.
In Australia, I've heard they have things called "Land Trains"...a tractor pulling five or six trailers. That's in the Outback, not in the cities, though. Here, in some states, it's legal to pull two trailers that way; but it's still dangerous for the other drivers (and the tractor driver as well).

Frankly, I don't know what we're going to do, other than the high price of Gasoline is going to make some people change jobs because they just can't afford a hundred mile a day commute (each way).
This may actually make the economy start to really fall as people lose jobs (or quit) because there is no way to buy the gas to get to work.

A lot of businesses who built in cheap agricultural land that was fifty miles away from town are going to find workers hard to get at $5.00 a gallon for the gas to get to the job, and no local employee base to draw from.

Methinks things are going to get interesting...sooner, rather than later.

[Terastas]

Size is really the reason electric vehicles haven't taken off in America. Everyone expects science to come up with a battery that can easily propel some gigantic American boatmobile. The simple fact is we'd be better off driving these little things...it's just..they really do seem super lame and fruity.

So did those weird Scion car/truck/thingies when they first came out, but eventually they took off, didn't they?

What'll eventually happen is the rising price of gas will take a lot of those monstrosities off the road, and while a lot of people will insist that eco-cars are "gay," enough people will try them and love them for other reasons (trust me, I don't love my 97 Escort because it's pretty) for them to become not so uncommon on the roadways. The next to make the transition will be the "must haves" and the trend chasers. Then once those people all have eco-cars, they'll start to look less fruity and lame (except for the ones with pink flowers painted on them) and the gigantic American boatmobiles will develop their own negative stigma, which of course is when all the idiots that used to compete over who had the biggest car will turn them in to compete over who has the most green and/or modern car.

It's pretty much inevitable. The SUV is already very much a symbol of American excess. We're right now at the transition stage: the SUV is already an abomination, but the eco-car is still gay. It'll pass over completely eventually.

[RedEye]

I just wish that the people who design either city-hybrids or electric cars could make them look a little less...odd. They don't go fast enough for all that streamlining to be effective, and all you're left with is an odd-looking car.
I think the French thing was designed the way came out was a sort of identifier; as in "I'm an efficient car from XXXX." Driving something that looks like an insect's head isn't condusive to owner pride. In fact, most of these cars won't exceed 45 mph in daily use, and 45 mph is the bottom speed where streamlining makes a difference. Below that speed, you could be driving a cube for all the drag that's involved.

And still, their size is going to make them dangerous to be in, even if the roll cage/safety capsule protects the driver and passengers from injury. The things are still going to get hit and broken a lot faster than larger cars, which will make their insurance higher.

At least make them LOOK like cars and not kiddie rides.

[Midnight]

In Australia, I've heard they have things called "Land Trains"...a tractor pulling five or six trailers. That's in the Outback, not in the cities, though.

"Road trains", I've heard them called. From memory, road trains automatically have right of way on whichever road they're driving on... they don't stop in a hurry!

I still don't quite see why it's the fault of the green movement that the oil's running out, though...

[Terastas]

I still don't quite see why it's the fault of the green movement that the oil's running out, though...

It isn't. Hell, the green movement is largely a response to the oil shortage.

It's because the anti-green movement is largely unfounded and supported only by pompous narcissists that still pine for the days when owning a big fat monstrosity you don't need was a status symbol. Blaming it all on the green movement is basically just hatred for their convenience.

RedEye's got a point about the design though. I'm sure part of the idea was to make the cars as lightweight as possible, and like I said above, eventually that "modern" design will be a selling point, but for now all it does is make them look less safe to drive.

And trust me, they WILL be unsafe to drive. And I don't mean because of those weird designs; I'm talking just about the risk presented by all those big fat narcissists still parading around in their big fat SUVs. My dad can testify to that tenfold: his idea of a green vehicle is a motorcycle, and he'll tell you that there are plenty of SUV drivers who will intentionally ride your bumper, swerve in front of you, bully their way into your lane on the highway, anything they can to make your life hell if you're on a motorcycle short of killing you. Like I just said, there's a lot of hostility towards the green movement, so you can bet eco-drivers will get the same treatment.

[Konietzko]

There's also the simple fact that trains don't run everywhere. Not even close to everywhere. Not even in the same county with everywhere.
Tractor trailers are the most efficient way to move things where the trains don't go.
In Australia, I've heard they have things called "Land Trains"...a tractor pulling five or six trailers. That's in the Outback, not in the cities, though. Here, in some states, it's legal to pull two trailers that way; but it's still dangerous for the other drivers (and the tractor driver as well).

Frankly, I don't know what we're going to do, other than the high price of Gasoline is going to make some people change jobs because they just can't afford a hundred mile a day commute (each way).
This may actually make the economy start to really fall as people lose jobs (or quit) because there is no way to buy the gas to get to work.

A lot of businesses who built in cheap agricultural land that was fifty miles away from town are going to find workers hard to get at $5.00 a gallon for the gas to get to the job, and no local employee base to draw from.

Methinks things are going to get interesting...sooner, rather than later.

This is absolutely true. The simple fact of the whole situation is there is no quick fix to any of it. The economy is a very, very volatile creature, even in the best of situations, and it really doesn't take much to send it into a tail spin. I can tell you that moving to electric vehicles won't do anything to save it, at least not in the short term. Even something that drastic would probably take at least two decades to solve our problem, and here's why.

Simplest answer ever- Jobs would be lost...en masse. Take into account everyone in the United States who works in gas stations, or anything attached to gas stations. If people aren't buying gas, there's no money coming in. Gas stations would close, and those jobs would be lost. Not just clerks and managers, either. We're talking the truckers who haul the tankers of gasoline to the stations and the people who work in the corporate offices as well. In turn, a lot of our other companies who profit from selling snack foods...Mars, Pepsi, Coca-cola, etc, would lose a vast portion of their business, causing them to turn a lower profit. Companies making less profit = fewer new jobs, and many jobs being terminated to make up the difference, because let's be honest, a company will make a profit regardless, even if they have to cut jobs to do it.

Now how about the people who work for the big automotive builders here in the states? I know, they're already in dire straights as it is...rip their product off of the road, and watch all of the rest of them lose their jobs as well, from the white collars in the offices to the blue collars on the factory floors. Would they rebound? Probably, but it'd be a couple of years. Auto mechanics? Those guys who fix your cars when they break down? Most of the older mechanics would be done. They'd be forced to either come up with the money for retraining on how to fix these electric vehicles, or that's it. And the oil companies. Are they buttholes in the offices? Yeah, maybe. But not all of them. And not all of the people who work for the oil companies call the shots either. Shut ;em down, and all of the people who work for them are out of jobs.

Nightmare scenario, a chain reaction happens where we have even more jobless people than we have now, thus fewer dollars to put out in the rest of the market...thus lesser need for employees in other businesses, who in turn lose their jobs, and then we compound the situation with more unemployed people until the US is at an absolute standstill from a financial standpoint, and we're no longer in a recession, but a second Great Depression with people standing in 12 block long soup lines just to survive.

Anyway, as far as the small cars vs. big cars argument... I drive a small SUV...a Chevy Tracker. It's not a narcissistic thing. Trust me, I'd much rather have a smaller car. But....standing at a freakishly tall six foot four and almost all of that being leggage, I carefully chose my vehicle for optimum "knees-not-in-the-ears" leg room, and "head-not-smashing-into-the-steel-of-the-door-frame-upon-entering-and-exiting" head room. Believe me...these things are fairly common for me when entering/exiting/riding in most people's vehicles. I promise you, in alot of these eco friendly and other small, straight gasoline cars, even with the passenger seat all the way back, my knees are pressed against the dashboard. If we ever had a collision, I'd probably shatter my knee caps.

[Kzinistzerg]

I do understand the whole green movement. My family hasn't the money to buy electric vehicles and the cars we do have are actually, yes, actually, for hauling cargo. My father runs the local moving-books-between-libraries service and he NEEDS the cargo space we have in our wagon.

Then again, we drive motorcycles when we can; I have a 2005 Kawasaki Ninja 250, which gets 70 miles to the gallon. our little run-around motorcycle get 80, 85 if you're careful with it. Of course, the roads are more dangerous, plus they're a good-weather very-little cargo vehicle, but... Still, we do what we can. The third bike we have gets only 40 mpg, 50 if you're careful with it, but it's red. Which allows it to exist, plus the fact that NO SUV driver can keep up with it-- I think it tops out at 130 mph but really, on that bike it's easy to grab a handful of throttle and find yourself passing ((most)) cars like they're standing still on the highway.

[Terastas]

First of all, I want to thank Konietzko for finally proving that not all newbies are n00bs.

That aside, I want to remind everyone that the transition from gasoline to electric doesn't have to be instantaneous. In fact, even if we bring eco-cars to the U.S. now, it probably will still be a few decades before the last gasoline vehicle comes off the road.

Let me address the issues out of order by starting with the automotive industries themselves by asking this: What's to stop Ford, Chevey etc. from engineering their own eco-vehicles (ideally one that doesn't look like 56 circus clowns could come out of it)? Corporations should be looking at the green movement, not as a threat to business, but as a marketing base which their Japanese and European competitors are already readily pandering to.

Will they make their eco-cars in the U.S.? I think so. If Mattel's Chinese lead fiasco should have taught America's businessmen anything, it's that there are benefits to manufacturing locally.

Will they stop making gasoline cars? Eventually, but not entirely all at once. The auto manufacturers will make gasoline vehicles as long as there are still people who will buy them. The next generation probably won't buy gasoline vehicles, but the current generation will. In fact, if you assume the price of gasoline will go down with the demand, the gasoline-powered car should wind up spending its last few years in existence being driven as an economy car. The automotive industries won't suddenly lay off every last one of their employees assembling gasoline-powered vehicles, they'll just stop expanding and hiring new ones.

Same goes for mechanics: As long as there are gas-powered cars on the road, people will still be able to make a living fixing them. If a mechanic is unskilled and/or unqualified to perform maintenance on an eco-car, it costs him some potential business to a younger mechanic, but it doesn't put him out of business completely. What will eventually happen is what I described with the automotive industry: the gasoline-powered vehicle will retire along with the generation of people that drove it.

And just as the automotive industry should be able to invest in eco-vehicles while still maintaining a steady business in gasoline vehicles, so will the truck stop companies. It's not like reducing one's dependency on gasoline will suddenly prevent everyone from stopping to get snacks, smokes, directions and air in their tires. The businesses won't just disappear; we'll just stop calling them gas stations and start calling them truck stops, auto shops or mini-marts.

It'll be like the transition from typewriters to computers: slow, but eventual. I do know plenty of people that still insist the Internet is just a fad, but they're all retired now. The Internet didn't put them out of work, it just kept newcomers from picking up where they left off.

[Konietzko]

Fair enough, Terasta. Touche. It still circles back around to what I said though, wherein there's really no quick fix to this problem. As I said, it's more of a nightmare/worst case scenario. Believe me when I tell you, there are some elements in the Green Movement that would be happy if the government came out tomorrow afternoon and said "Okay, new law...every gasoline powered vehicle will be illegal as of midnight on December 31st, 2008." Granted, these are the same people who drop firebombs into SUVs that are sitting on dealer lots, pound spikes into trees so they can't be cut down for lumber, and generally give all environmentalists a bad name.

The Green Movement, by and large, has failed, imho, to push it's agenda with anything even remotely resembling tact. They let groups like the Earth Liberation Front, who are pretty much a domestic branch of eco-terrorists, and whatever various little spin off groups of that do whatever they feel like in the name of the Green Movement...and nobody bothers to stand up and say "Hey...you know what? The majority of us aren't like that. Most of us aren't going to lay down in front of bulldozers and keep you from building houses for people to live in. We're not all looking to have us all back to burning candles and stoking fires for light and heat sources because we don't like Power Plants. Most of us are sensible folks. All we think is maybe put a little bit of forethought into things before you run off and do them." They tell you "You shouldn't drive that...drive this." And then parade out in these little Shriner cars. Meanwhile, you've got Al Gore, who screams and jumps up and down, telling us that we need to stop using so much oil. How does he tell us this? From a stage...in a different city every night...that he reaches by flying to in a private jet. It's scumbags like that that make so much of all of this just look like a complete and utter joke. I'm not even going to get into the ape we have in office right now..."We're working toward reducing our dependency on foreign oil." And then fuels the couple million military vehicles that they're fielding in Iraq and Afghanistan everyday with petrol. Huh!? Really? Kay, George...

And btw, thank you for the compliment, Terastas. I generally try not to n00b up the boards I join.

[RedEye]

Do not try this at home!

I used to carry a half dozen old golf balls in the left-hand faring pocket of my 'bike. They are wonderfully effective for SUV's, pickups, land yachts, etc. who would try crowding me off the road.
Just take one out and drop it. The chimp following too close will get the message.
Now, with Lady Gray, I just activate the warp drive. "Lady Gray" is a wolf-themed 900+ cc Ducati engined semi-tourer. The faring doesn't have any pockets, but at 120 mph, it sure makes a nice hole in the air I can hide in.
I can go from 65mph (the legal speed limit) to 100 in 5.5 seconds by just caressing her throttle. (yeah, she is a SHE. If you have to ask, you wouldn't understand why)
I keep waiting for some idiot to get out at 65mph to see why he stopped.

[Kzinistzerg]

Do not try this at home!

Oooh, I could give you some evil ideas, too! I'm restricted to a wee Ninja 250 because I'm a teeny person and any other bike's seat-height is just too tall (and, no, i'm not riding a harley!). But nice bikes do haul, don't they? My brother was riding my father's bike, a '99 VFR, on the highway one day when he tried to pass a person in a car. The guy in the car kept speeding up so my brother couldn't pass... so my brother just rolled on the throttle and shot past. Ahhh... Motorcycles...

[Midnight]

"Lady Gray" is a wolf-themed 900+ cc Ducati engined semi-tourer.

Now this is a bike I'd like to see a picture of. Got any .jpg's handy?

used to work with a bloke who had an early `eighties (or thereabouts) MHR. Nice bike. Noisiest thing on two wheels though...

[Scott Gardener]

Well, there's the Tesla Roadster; it's an all-electric car that has specs competitive with a Ferrari at half the price. The problem is, half the price of a Ferrari is still a hundred thousand bucks American.

The Smart fortwo gets slightly worse gas milage than a Prius and slightly worse emissions, but it's available starting around $13,000. In spite of being cheap, I suspect we'll actually see it popular more among richer people as a status symbol--an extra half car one can afford for brief and short skirmishes, to keep from having to pull out the hybrid small SUV just to go around the block to the nearby grocery store.

As for safety, it's doing surprisingly well in crash testing. It's engineered around a race car-like roll cage, which Smart calls a "Tridion safety cell." Because the front and rear tires are so close to each other, just about any side impact will hit either the front or rear wheelbase--possibly both if it's a Hummer. The engineering takes that into account. The car isn't designed to try to be a tank against another tank, but instead going into the crash as the smaller of the two and to bounce like a whiffle ball. Just don't let your status symbol cat outside while you're pulling into the driveway of your-four-and-a-half car garage.