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America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

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Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#231

Post by theparanoid »

Retric wrote: post #57
Swizec wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have made this argument before on the internet and I have learned that it is a European vs American perspective. American cars in the 70s and 80s were monsters . Definitely heavier than modern cars. For example, here are 10 popular cars in the US from 1984. http://www.caranddriver.com/features/1984-10best-cars-1984-h... Audi 5000s: 2850-3100 lbs Dodge Daytona: 2830 lbs Honda Accord: 2300 lbs Honda Prelude: 2220 lbs…

Don't forget 'car' is a rather arbitrary category. The car > minivan > SUV 'soccer mom' transition added these beasts: Infiniti QX80 – 5,633 pounds Toyota Sequoia – 5,730 pounds Toyota Land Cruiser – 5,765 pounds Lincoln Navigator – 5,830 pounds Lexus LX 570 – 6,000 pounds

The Toyota Land Cruiser is not like the others, it's popular with militant groups. And has been in production since 1951.

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#232

Post by dcwca »

jdhn wrote: post #192
epistasis wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's that, plus the time that it takes for the automatic transmission to decide that yes, you really do want to accelerate, and yes, maybe it ought to get around to increasing the RPMs one of these seconds. Electric cars opened my interest car performance. I now have a higher performance ICE than I ever thought I would spend money on, but I still miss my tiny little electric Fiat 500e, even though my ICE is defini…

>Fiddling with gears, monitoring RPM, what a terrible system. For some of us, this "terrible system" is one of the best parts of owning an ICE vehicle with a manual transmission.

I can totally see how that would be true. You build muscle memory and positive associations around the operation of the machine. But you've gotta see too how it's akin to turning a rotary phone dial.

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#233

Post by uslibs887 »

grandalf wrote: post #197
azinman2 wrote: post #165

For all the talk by liberatians and their ilk that regulation is bad and unnecessary, that chart of median fuel effeciency due to government requirements should give them pause. Wow. Well over a decade of non-progress until a path forward is mandated. Suddently the needle starts moving, with car owners, the environment, and energy import needs as big winners here.

Libertarians are not anti-regulation, they just believe that the good and bad consequences of regulations should be understood. Often, those who are not libertarians will support a regulation simply because they agree with its stated aim... things like "the patriot act" or "the affordable care act". Those names are chosen to sound good, not because they reflect the intent of legislation or the outcome of it. To give…

It would be great if you'd clarify that you are generalizing about mainstream libertarianism thought in the US.

US libertarians are a special breed that hacked up classical libertarianism to fit within the framework laid down by the US Constitution.

Basically they are believers in the US Constitution first and libertarians second.

Not a rigid definition but neither is the parent post

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#234

Post by maxerickson »

anarazel wrote: post #196
ghaff wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But when people wants to visit the USA, to travel long distances by car looks like something you want to do. Especially out West, for vast areas of the US, there really are no good alternatives to driving. For example, there's very limited ability to visit most National Parks without a car. And most of the cities are too far apart to reasonably take trains between them. So you're left with flying which gets expensiv…

> Especially out West, for vast areas of the US, there really are no good alternatives to driving ... > And most of the cities are too far apart to reasonably take trains between them. Heh, that's a very USian response ;). That's largely because the US doesn't have proper long-distance trains. In a lot of other countries you'll be about as fast or faster with a train rather than a car, and can comfortably work for mo…

The US has a comparable train to your Berlin-Freiburg route.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acela_Express

Unsurprisingly, it goes through a high population density region.

Even a route like this one wouldn't service all that many people and isn't even halfway across the country:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?engine=osrm_car&rout...

(It does a decent job of passing metro areas; Pittsburg, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Des Moines)

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#235

Post by YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 »

vvanders wrote: post #213
YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you non-sarcastically implying that an oil change presents as a major expenditure in owning and using an ICE vehicle? If so, I get it.. you don't own a car; which begs the question of why are we discussing this?

Yup and if you want to make a true comparison find a 500hp car(that will probably run on premium, get ~25mpg and use synthetic oil). That's what our 85D is. Did I break even? No, but with prices coming down it'll happen.

>Did I break even?

Well down-vote me to make it up.

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#236

Post by comicjk »

grandalf wrote: post #197
azinman2 wrote: post #165

For all the talk by liberatians and their ilk that regulation is bad and unnecessary, that chart of median fuel effeciency due to government requirements should give them pause. Wow. Well over a decade of non-progress until a path forward is mandated. Suddently the needle starts moving, with car owners, the environment, and energy import needs as big winners here.

Libertarians are not anti-regulation, they just believe that the good and bad consequences of regulations should be understood. Often, those who are not libertarians will support a regulation simply because they agree with its stated aim... things like "the patriot act" or "the affordable care act". Those names are chosen to sound good, not because they reflect the intent of legislation or the outcome of it. To give…

That sounds like a "motte and bailey" argument to me. It's common sense that "the good and bad consequences of regulations should be understood." That's a position that's trivially easy to defend. Libertarians usually argue for a great deal more than that: civil liberties, non-interventionism, laissez-faire capitalism and the abolition of the welfare state. But these things are not obvious simply from understanding the consequences of regulation; the arguments for them have to stand on their own.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#237

Post by theparanoid »

derefr wrote: post #110
old-gregg wrote: post #84

I suspect that people of the future will look back and be amazed that for more than a century we've been legally allowing our slow-reacting bodies [1] to ride around at 80mph in a 2-ton hideous mechanical equivalent of a horse, killing ourselves [2] and simultaneously destroying our cities [3]. I myself used to be a "petrolhead" my 20s and it's quite amazing to observe this awakening when looking in the mirror. I sus…

> 2-ton hideous mechanical equivalent of a horse This phrasing makes me curious: how did "horse-related accidents" rank among the causes of death for people who rode horses everywhere? Or people who rode in horse-drawn carriages everywhere?

Probably high. Those dealing with horses are kicked in the head not infrequently. Marie Curie's husband died after being run over by a carriage.

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#238

Post by ehaliewicz2 »

trjordan wrote: post #20

My first car crush was in high school: the 2002 Subaru WRX. It would be fine to get some souped-up monster, and high-end BMWs are always fast, but when I first saw those silly little bug eyes and the trademark blue color? God did I want one. It was weird to figure out that it only came with a 2 liter engine. Apparently turbos help a lot. It was even weirder when the 2005 STI came out with the same engine ... and a bi…

Turbos do not make anything more fuel efficient, they simply allow you to have the fuel efficiency of a small engine off boost, and match the power of a larger engine while on boost. It's still a tradeoff however, there's always some lag and delay to throttle response, extra piping and cooling hardware, and more backpressure in the exhaust means it loses efficiency compared to a naturally aspirated variant of the same engine.

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#239

Post by grandalf »

comicjk wrote: post #236
grandalf wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libertarians are not anti-regulation, they just believe that the good and bad consequences of regulations should be understood. Often, those who are not libertarians will support a regulation simply because they agree with its stated aim... things like "the patriot act" or "the affordable care act". Those names are chosen to sound good, not because they reflect the intent of legislation or the outcome of it. To give…

That sounds like a "motte and bailey" argument to me. It's common sense that "the good and bad consequences of regulations should be understood." That's a position that's trivially easy to defend. Libertarians usually argue for a great deal more than that: civil liberties, non-interventionism, laissez-faire capitalism and the abolition of the welfare state. But these things are not obvious simply from understanding t…

Just as patriotic and humanitarian rhetoric is used to justify certain polices that are far from patriotic or humanitarian, libertarian rhetoric is also sometimes used to justify lax regulation, crony capitalism, etc.

Re: America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

#240

Post by vvanders »

YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 wrote: post #235
vvanders wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup and if you want to make a true comparison find a 500hp car(that will probably run on premium, get ~25mpg and use synthetic oil). That's what our 85D is. Did I break even? No, but with prices coming down it'll happen.

>Did I break even? Well down-vote me to make it up.

Here ya go then: http://teslapedia.org/model-s/tesla-driver/total-cost-of-own...

No, I didn't break even because I came from a '03 beater that I'd been driving for the last 15 years. The thing is, if no one buys EVs there won't be sustained demand. I don't mind spending a bit more on my end to make sure the industry moves forward(I believe they call that voting with your money).

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