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It seems that the price of new hybrids and electric cars may be a bit prohibitive for many. Hopefully that will change as they get to be more commonplace.
Also, coal is used to generate electricity. The mining of coal is done with huge machines and trucks that can only (so far), run on gasoline or diesel. Will the cost of running this equipment to get the coal to generate the electricity eventually increase the price of electricity needed to run the hybrids to the point where running an electric car is no longer worth it? Or, am I way off track? (Pun intended !)
Your way off track. Hybrids aren't electric, they are gas/electric, they charge their own batteries, you don't plug them in.
The big problems with bicycles being a big part of a fuel reduction solution, lies in the fact that most people do not live/work in metro areas and those big winter snows we have in a great part of the U.S. I do think that they should be more bike friendly in this country though.
I was told that largely they do not build bike paths because it is a potentially litigious situation, if they build them, they have to maintain them well. Because if someone gets the regular roads, let construct and maintain a bike path.
If only companies would have showering facilities so you could wash when you got to work so you wouldn't smell like a goat after having ridden 10 miles to get there in the summertime.
Our state is pretty good actually, and there are so many bicyclists riding around our area roads that people are really used to seeing them and shareing the road with them.
It is still scary to have to share the road with a cager in an SUV with a cell phone though. Yikes!
It is still scary to have to share the road with a cager in an SUV with a cell phone though. Yikes!
i will be moving back to the states next summer. i have a standing bet with the mrs. that in 2 years you'll hardly see a suv anywhere!
thank God for that!
i will be moving back to the states next summer. i have a standing bet with the mrs. that in 2 years you'll hardly see a suv anywhere!
thank God for that!
I still think that the wealthy will still be driving those SUV's.
Now if the Auto makers wakeup and STOP making these SUV's and start bringing in some of the cars they make for europe (make them so they pass whatever US requirements) that get great gas mileage - then it would be a start.
I still think that the wealthy will still be driving those SUV's.
Now if the Auto makers wakeup and STOP making these SUV's and start bringing in some of the cars they make for europe (make them so they pass whatever US requirements) that get great gas mileage - then it would be a start.
Like I said manufactures bring what will sell. Even if the gas prices rose to $10 once people get use to it they will hand in their prius for that escalade.
GregW: you saw the smart car. Apparently because of all those changes that had to be made to them to bring them here its not all that smart to get one.
Scooters and motorcycles: I can understand on the highway but for going short distances on roads with 50mph speed limits or riding around in a city like NYC I see no problem. The best scooter ever made was the bmw c1. If all scooter/motorcycles made a ride like the bmw c1 I bet we would see more bikes on American streets. Also I like to read those italian scooter blogs they are making some good advancements with protection. Jackets and helmets with airbags.
If America spent half as much money as they do fixing the roads we could have a good system in place.
The best mass transit I would say is europe as a whole they have trains,plains, ferries everything to get you where you need to go cheap and quick. My second fave is japan I didn't like how there were two different companies so I had to get a new card to use the other line. I did love the guy who had to push everybody on th train to get the doors close. Nothing like having your face pressed up against glass in a hot train heh. Oh I also like how in Japan you can sit by the driver. They were fun to watch. France has a cool local system they got those double decker subways. England is a crazy country the subway comes every second but yet the English will run like crazy and push people over just to get on.
High gas prices may herald change, and for that I'm glad. However, it's a testimonial to how America has not been very forward-thinking that we are in this mess right now.
I'm 28 years old... I was born AFTER the big gas crisis of the 1970s. I have to listen to stories from my parents to figure out what it was like, because I wasn't there. Gas was relatively cheap for a long time, as far as I could tell. It was never a buck-fifty at any time, and I remember reading newspapers in 1997 where they were talking about certain stations selling gas for 69 cents a gallon. The lowest price I ever saw was 78 cents a gallon.
Gas became "expensive" at one point when I was 21 years old (2001)... hitting a "massive" $1.69/gallon average where I lived. People were yelling and screaming like there was no tomorrow. Now it's over twice that price... and are we yelling and screaming as much? No, because, in spite of ourselves, we've been forced to adapt.
It'd be great if we all bought small cars. Someone posted about how SUVs and trucks will continue to dominate the roadways... well, that isn't because there will be tons of them. It's because they're BIG, they're BAD, and they will flatten any tiny car with which they collide. A king dominates his kingdom, and there's only one king.
When the time comes that everyone buys and drives a smaller car, I will do the same. Until then, my safety is too important for me to trade away my larger cars. I was in a wreck once with my 1972 Cadillac (when gas was $3/gallon) and I walked away with no problems as a result. In contrast, I had a friend who was killed in an accident... his Cavalier had a head-on with a Taurus wagon. The driver of the Taurus wagon had three broken ribs but at least he lived. When everybody drives a Corolla, I will drive a Corolla. As long as I have to fight for my space on the road with quad-cab dually trucks and Suburbans, I will drive my full-size pickup, my old Thunderbird, and my "little car"- a Taurus wagon.
What people have to realize is that a lot of our petroleum consumption is outside of the automotive fuel realm. We burn oil to heat our houses, we burn diesel to power our electrical generation plants, we buy everything made out of plastic (which requires petroleum to produce), etc. We talk about electric cars, but what makes you think that an electric car is going to give you that much of a cost savings? It's no secret that electric HEAT is one of the most expensive forms of heat... why would electric vehicle power be cheaper than gasoline power? The only possibility is that the engine doesn't have to run, or be powered at all, when the car is coasting or stopped. That's a negligible power savings... which is why they have yet to produce a hybrid car that gets really good gas mileage.
We could heat our houses electrically, and we could fuel our electricity-generating plants with windmills... LOTS and LOTS of windmills. Heaven knows, there's ALWAYS going to be wind power. The problem there is that a lot of people complain about wind farms... they have the Not-In-My-Back-Yard philosophy. Shut up and let them build wind farms. There's nothing wrong with wind farms, and they will cut the cost of your motor fuel.
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