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America’s Cars Are Getting Faster and More Efficient

bloomberg.com

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

#351

Post by ljf »

exclusiv wrote: post #150
rsync wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What do you get in the place for this lower efficiency? Are American cars that much heavier? More comfortable? Faster?" I cannot speak for everyone, but as someone who lives in the US and also spends a lot of time in Europe, there is a very big lifestyle difference at play here. First, I have a five person family (wife and three kids) and you[1], statistically, as a European, have 1.6 children - and as a highly educ…

I witnessed that as well in Europe. They don't like driving any distances and they have some great countryside and fun roads. In London - people seemingly stay really tight to where they live and work. They have no problem flying to other countries, but exploring their own city and country or even neighboring country is a chore to them. I think a lot of it is because there are so many different and interesting countr…

I'd say it is the cost of fuel vs the cost of public transport. I've taken the train London-Paris for £58 return, or flown to Spain or Greece for less than £50 return with easyjet or similar. Even with 2 or three of us travelling it would cost far more than that to do it by car (plus have to sort out European insurance and breakdown cover), and then struggle to find places to park in Paris, and pay through the nose for it.

Instead I can get on a train to Paris for just over 2 hours, or I loved leaving work one day at 5pm, getting the plane to Amsterdam for £27 each way, and arriving there at 8pm UK time (9pm Dutch time), and was in the city centre drinking by 10.15. If I'd tried to do that by car...

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

#352

Post by mtgx »

vvanders wrote: post #151
Someone1234 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric vehicles are a tough sell now though. The Chevy Bolt EV has a 60 kWh Lithium-ion battery; to charge that fully costs $8.7 in Utah (14.5 cents per kWh). Per the EPA's measure that gets you 238 miles. Gas costs approx $2.24/gallon in Utah. A Prius has a 11.3 gallon tank and a 540 miles range (again, EPA standard). That means that $11.15 would get you the same distance as a full Bolt EV charge in gas. Now, befo…

You forgot oil changes in you calc. Also your $8.70 is only $4.19 in Washington :). Costs are dropping on EVs and will continue to drop as economy of scale picks up. They may not make sense today but there's a good chance they will tomorrow.

Maintenance costs are about 1/3 of ICE cars, too.

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

#353

Post by rubyn00bie »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #344
rubyn00bie wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to point out this is due to confusion by almost all peoples who haven't formally studied the economics of regulation. There are in fact, two types of regulation: "Safety and Soundness" and "economic." Economic regulation is almost always a bad thing and results in gross market inefficiencies like barriers to entry, cronyism, and destroys any hope of a functioning capitalist system. Think trucking regulat…

> There are in fact, two types of regulation: "Safety and Soundness" and "economic." You're just creating terms that only mean "good regulation" and "bad regulation" and arguing that all we need is to have the good regulation but not the bad regulation. The business of separating the one from the other is the whole issue. > Yes some business and markets may go under because of safety and soundness regulation but this…

> You're just creating terms that only mean "good regulation" and "bad regulation" and arguing that all we need is to have the good regulation but not the bad regulation. The business of separating the one from the other is the whole issue.

For starters I didn't create those terms. The second issue I have is your statement is completely unqualified, that the problem is separating them. Please qualify how they are the same or provide evidence. Right now you're just making things up or so it appears.

> Problem: Minors are gathering in outdoor community spaces to consume alcohol.

For one you assume it's a problem. It may or may not be. Your solutions are at best a false dilemma and are limiting choice when there could be and are a multitude of other options. If there's a point you're trying to make with your example it has gone well over my head.

> It's also trivial to devise regulations that will simultaneously be effective and inefficient. You can easily prevent elevator accidents by prohibiting elevators.

Yes... You can trivially make anything work or not work. What is your point? Are you attempting to say there is a triviality to making something safe and sound and/or economic in regards to regulation? I really don't at all know what your point is here. What is the relevance of this in the conversation?

Right now I'm very honestly, very, confused about what you're trying to say.

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

#354

Post by molf »

adekok wrote: post #144
rsync wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What do you get in the place for this lower efficiency? Are American cars that much heavier? More comfortable? Faster?" I cannot speak for everyone, but as someone who lives in the US and also spends a lot of time in Europe, there is a very big lifestyle difference at play here. First, I have a five person family (wife and three kids) and you[1], statistically, as a European, have 1.6 children - and as a highly educ…

> It is very, very rare to meet Europeans who drive across multiple countries for leisure Then you've never been to the south of France in the summer. It's filled with license plates from all over the EU. Mainly Dutch, UK, German. I've even seen Estonian plates. It's ~1200Km from the Netherlands to the south of France. People do it in camper vans all of the time.

Also Italy, north Spain, Croatia. And Germany/Austria/Switzerland in winter season.

It might not be as widespread to travel long distances by car as it is in the US, but it is definitely not "very, very rare". I would even say it's common for many Dutch, Danish, German, Belgian, Polish (from what I can observe).

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

#355

Post by galdosdi »

Past a certain point (like, not being able to maintain highway speed limit up a modest grade), I am not sure this extra horsepower is such a good thing.

The thing I really notice when driving lower usable power-to-weight vehicles like a heavy truck or an unpowered bicycle or a car with a dying clutch or is this: they force you to think further ahead, work harder at predicting the possible movements of all other road users and in short, be a better, safer, more aware driver. I actually find them more fun (except on the track or an empty parking lot of course) too for this reason.

Is it possible excessive horsepower is making us shittier drivers?

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

#356

Post by rubyn00bie »

hueving wrote: post #335
rubyn00bie wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to point out this is due to confusion by almost all peoples who haven't formally studied the economics of regulation. There are in fact, two types of regulation: "Safety and Soundness" and "economic." Economic regulation is almost always a bad thing and results in gross market inefficiencies like barriers to entry, cronyism, and destroys any hope of a functioning capitalist system. Think trucking regulat…

>Because it's what makes the most scientific sense You need to justify that, otherwise it's pointless claptrap. The far left advocates for lots of government-provided services, which means markets without competition. I'm not aware of economic theories that strongly back the idea that no competition is best for social utility. > and economics is in fact a science. Well there are large portions of economics that are b…

> You need to justify that, otherwise it's pointless claptrap. The far left advocates for lots of government-provided services, which means markets without competition. I'm not aware of economic theories that strongly back the idea that no competition is best for social utility.

I don't need to qualify it. You can study it. You don't walk up to a physicist and ask them to qualify relativity they say it's science and to go learn it. So go learn you some economics for make benefit your brain.

> Well there are large portions of economics that are bunk. If you have a field that has multiple "schools of thought", then it's not really scientific because it means there aren't experiments to reproduce. If it's not reproducible, it's not science

You can have different schools of thought, take super symmetry vs multiverse in physics right now. I also don't know how you can go from multiple schools of thought to not being reproducible and thus not science. Different ways of looking at a problem will yield the same answer if it's correct. Im aware of nothing in economics that goes against this. The different schools of thought are trying to solve largely different problems. Assuming I at all understand what you mean by this...

> So most 'economics' studies that compare things like government structures, entitlements, etc are about as useful as trash. There are so many confounding variables that can't be controlled for that it's really easy to ignore all of the ones that disagree with the author's premise.

Can't be controlled for yet. Neuroscience will put all the social sciences out of business one day. And to make such a broadly sweeping statement is just full of so many fallacies I'm not sure where to start addressing them so I won't because it's pointless. Have you studied economics? Or can you more thoughtful provide examples?

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

#357

Post by henrikschroder »

rsync wrote: post #127
oblio wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Audi A8 thing, is that because A8 is an expensive car? Or because it is comparatively smaller? If it's the second one, I've seen horse trailers pulled by smaller cars (even Golf, I think).

No, you see - in the United States it is assumed that any towing or work activities must be done with a truck . I am not exaggerating at all when I tell you that the minimum acceptable size for this truck is larger than most freight/delivery trucks in European cities. Here is a completely normal, totally average truck that millions of people in the US use as a daily driver and have on-hand because they occasionally b…

> No, you see - in the United States it is assumed that any towing or work activities must be done with a truck.

I love subtle cultural differences like this where two sides are completely unaware that life could be any other way than it is. :-D

In the 80's and 90's in Sweden, I remember that every single car had a trailer hitch with a tow ball. And if you needed to buy something bulky at a hardware store, you borrowed or rented a small trailer. Every single hardware store has trailers for rent! Most large gas stations has trailers for rent! The only people who own pickups are farmers! Why would anyone want to buy a pickup?

Meanwhile, in the US, tow balls are extremely uncommon, and I don't think I've ever seen small trailers for rent anywhere.

Another funny difference is what camping looks like.

In Europe, it looks like this: http://www.widlundshusvagnar.se/valj-dragbil-och-husvagn-med...

In the US, it looks like this: http://www.rv-camping.org/towing-a-vehicle/

The first time I saw an RV towing a pickup I was completely dumbfounded.. It's on backwards! The car goes in front! Whyyyy?!?

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

#358

Post by MertsA »

DamnInteresting wrote: post #171
Someone1234 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric vehicles are a tough sell now though. The Chevy Bolt EV has a 60 kWh Lithium-ion battery; to charge that fully costs $8.7 in Utah (14.5 cents per kWh). Per the EPA's measure that gets you 238 miles. Gas costs approx $2.24/gallon in Utah. A Prius has a 11.3 gallon tank and a 540 miles range (again, EPA standard). That means that $11.15 would get you the same distance as a full Bolt EV charge in gas. Now, befo…

Economics is only a single factor though. Part of the decision for me was that zippy-peppy driving, it's mad fun. I haven't driven a Prius, but I don't get the impression it's so much fun to operate. Also, I hate stopping at gas stations, not just for the monetary cost, but for the time and general annoyance. Now I just plug in every night, my car is always ready to go. I'm never rushing off to an appointment only to…

> And I never have to change the oil.

Well yeah, you kind of do need to change the oil if you don't want the gearbox to die an early death. There's also still coolant that needs to be changed regularly as well. EVs have significantly less maintenance, but there's still critical maintenance that must be done on time if you don't want to damage your car.

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

#360

Post by wiredfool »

galdosdi wrote: post #355

Past a certain point (like, not being able to maintain highway speed limit up a modest grade), I am not sure this extra horsepower is such a good thing. The thing I really notice when driving lower usable power-to-weight vehicles like a heavy truck or an unpowered bicycle or a car with a dying clutch or is this: they force you to think further ahead, work harder at predicting the possible movements of all other road…

It is much more fun driving a lower powered car at the limit than an overpowered on at 25%.

(source -- owner of 1990 miata. 120hp, 2000lbs. Steer the front with the wheel, the back with the throttle.)

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