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Do you know how many poor drive older bad mileage vehicles because it's all they can afford. That would include almost every illegal doing lawn work on your neighbor's house. You can't cram all your lawn eq into a prius.
We bought gas on vaca three years ago for a buck fifty in Carolina.
All the Hispanics doing lawn care in my neighborhood work for companies that use Isuzu trucks.
And no, poor people don't drive old bad mileage cars because it is all they can afford. There are bazillions of old cars that are quite economical. We are a LONG ways away from the 1960s and 1970s when all cars were gas guzzlers. Today an old car can be a Toyota Corolla or Hyundai Accent or Honda Fit with 150,000 miles that gets 35 mpg.
I get what you're saying. And living the PNW driving a monster truck or huge suburban can be as much about status as it is an actual necessity. It usually goes with other expensive hobbies. You gotta have something BIG to tow all those toys - boats, fifth wheels, ATVs, motorcycles, on and on. Folks would rather starve than give up a certain lifestyle living on acreage with all the expenses that entails. Maybe its a cultural/generational thing. Then there are the city slickers with their jacked up monster trucks parked next to their lowered sports cars, etc.... We've got that all throughout Clark County. Everyone's got a big gas guzzling truck it seems. If push came to shove, do they really need such gas hogs?
On the flip side, there really are folks that rely on these larger vehicles for their livelihood. For better or worse, those vehicles help bring home the bacon. And they may not be able to go out and buy a latest, fancy electric truck equivalent. Those anemic older Prius will simply not cut it. So, they are stuck with no other option.
All that said, it still doesn't address the larger problem I have with this. That is our current have baked approach only working toward these larger low emission goals with punitive policies in place. Why not instead turn those millions of tax dollars into positive financial rebates/incentives of significance like so many other states are doing working toward these same goals with greater success? Otherwise, it will take a lot longer to reach these goals while only hitting people with that tax stick as the means to a better tomorrow. It's just too short sighted in its current form.
Derek
I still call BS. My brother is a tile contractor and so is always hauling around heavy tools and equipment. He uses a Nissan NV200 van that has a 2.0 4 cylinder engine and gets about 28 mpg that is just like the one below.
v
More than adequate for the job. All you have to do is travel overseas to pretty much any other country to see that working people use all manner of smaller economical vehicles that do a better job than some F350 with a 500 hp diesel that gets 14 mpg. Somehow Americans have convinced themselves that $70,000 diesel pickups are necessary to carry a 2x4 or ladder. That simply isn't the case. Both of these trucks have the same size bed. And the Japanese one will probably go a lot further before requiring expensive repairs.
Now part of the problem is the American market that doesn't make a lot of small trucks available for a wide variety of reasons from tax policy to the fact that truck manufacturers make more money selling people big trucks that they don't need. But there are alternatives. They just aren't as cool. In pretty much any other country you can get small economical work trucks like the Toyota Pixis. They just don't import them to the US but they should
And if anyone thinks that gas prices are going to come down and stay down for the next 10-20 years they are frankly dreaming. Expect current gas prices to be about as cheap as they will ever be for the rest of your life and plan your life accordingly. That is the more likely outcome. Especially as we shift more and more to EVs and gasoline becomes more of a niche product sold in less and less locations. Which I promise you will eventually happen.
Last edited by texasdiver; 06-22-2023 at 12:02 AM..
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Well... a 'poor' immigrant contractor is not gonna be buying a NEW USA work truck.
I got my 50mpg free fuel burner pickup for $300, it puts in a good day's work. (every day since 1979)
My medium duty 4x4 dually work truck cost $3500 gets 22 mpg on free fuel, and has a dump bed and can tow 30,000# (And does so frequently). It will still be around and working hard in a million miles
I'm sure glad for my 'poor' immigrant business clients. They are my most driven, committed, and successful clients. I (we) have a lot to learn from them.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,551 posts, read 81,085,957 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by texasdiver
All the Hispanics doing lawn care in my neighborhood work for companies that use Isuzu trucks.
And no, poor people don't drive old bad mileage cars because it is all they can afford. There are bazillions of old cars that are quite economical. We are a LONG ways away from the 1960s and 1970s when all cars were gas guzzlers. Today an old car can be a Toyota Corolla or Hyundai Accent or Honda Fit with 150,000 miles that gets 35 mpg.
The two vehicles I have owned that got the best gas mileage:
1967 Cortina GT (40 mpg)
1980 Datsun 210 (42 mpg)
There are poor people driving newer cars, that is what keeps the Repo companies busy.
Currently, Washington state average gas prices a higher than California by 4.4 cents a gallon according to AAA. I never thought I would see the day when the Washington state government is dumber than the California state government.
Be sure to write the Governor and his fellow Democrats.
Give the governor and democrats an applause...for putting this burden on the lower and middle class.
I have a feeling the Microsoft/Amazon Seattle crowd really doesn't care about the lower and middle class as long as they can get their $10 designer Starbucks coffee while complain about how terrible it is for the homeless, which will grow as they can no longer afford gas to get to work.
Give the governor and democrats an applause...for putting this burden on the lower and middle class.
I have a feeling the Microsoft/Amazon Seattle crowd really doesn't care about the lower and middle class as long as they can get their $10 designer Starbucks coffee while complain about how terrible it is for the homeless, which will grow as they can no longer afford gas to get to work.
Yes, therein lies the problem. If the goal is to get Washingtonians off fossil fuel through charging too much for gas, lower and middle folks will get hit the hardest. The expectation is that they will go out and buy an EV with no financial help to do so. We're not talking about a cheaper, older, smaller/truck car that perhaps gets better gas mileage. Small cars still pollute and possibly more so due to age of the vehicle.
It's also important to note that democratic leadership in other states such as CA are offering quite a bit of help in purchasing an EV. So, its not simply a punitive measure. Tax and then provide something of value in return vs. simply tax alone and then leave lower and middle folks to fend for themselves. There's a not so subtle difference in WA's approach to the problem - hit 'em with a stick to prod them along while drinking that latte from my Tesla or $60k Ford F-150 Lightning.
Derek
Last edited by MtnSurfer; 06-22-2023 at 11:03 AM..
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,551 posts, read 81,085,957 times
Reputation: 57744
Quote:
Originally Posted by rantiquity
Give the governor and democrats an applause...for putting this burden on the lower and middle class.
I have a feeling the Microsoft/Amazon Seattle crowd really doesn't care about the lower and middle class as long as they can get their $10 designer Starbucks coffee while complain about how terrible it is for the homeless, which will grow as they can no longer afford gas to get to work.
The most ironic part is that the "crowd" you described can easily afford the gas prices, but they are the ones driving Teslas and other expensive EVs, so they don't have to buy gas at all for their 3 days a week commute. Near me in Sammamish, next to Safeway they just installed a bank of superchargers for 8 cars, Well chosen with so many of them in Sammamish, in fact the ones at Home Depot in Issaquah have 2-3 cars lined up waiting their turn sometimes.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MtnSurfer
Yes, therein lies the problem. If the goal is to get Washingtonians off fossil fuel through charging too much for gas, lower and middle folks will get hit the hardest. The expectation is that they will go out and buy an EV ...
or... use one of a million solutions that does not require investment or EV's
During a recent trip to CA I was listening to a local PR broadcast and the ONLY solution was EV's. Thats not gonna cut it for many reasons, especially the grid and electricity demand for business and economic growth (required).
Transportation is an element of the infrastructure that has a lot of options and solutions. More personal vehilces is not a sustainable solution, especially for CA. (They have plenty already).
Comprehensive energy conservation spread throughout all users could be a very effective and FAST (and free) solution. As one who has been very frugal and keeping a small energy footprint for over 50 yrs, I could easily reduce my energy usage by 10 - 20% each yr (and I live rural, so need to drive, use my tractor, provide for my livestock, heat my home ...
EV's are NOT a total energy benefit, they are but a small, incremental, temporary tool that should be an appropriate part of a National Energy Plan. They are also filling the pockets of very short sighted profiteers, and politicians, but this too will fizzle out. (as did all the 'temporary' energy programs of the 1970's)
We (USA) took our shot-across-the-bow in 1973, and did.... nothing.
Tho at my engineering employer, we built (12) EV conversions and our parent company installed EV chargers in every factory in the USA (in 1974). We've come so far, and we're (USA) so smart!
Ironically, as of today, in the same garage as we built our EVs (50 yrs ago) There is a company building delivery truck EVs (which is an important use of EVs...) vehicles that run 24x7, not in your personal vehicle that you use for a 20 min commute on the couple days / week you head to work.
Be intelligent, identify the heavy hitters, fix it, educate your populace on what contribution they can make (if they learn and THINK). Move on together and solve some REAL problems (there are plenty... HC, EDU, Social woes, Economic stability...).
Educate and nurture your neighbor, don't hit him over the head with your lame EV. We're smarter than that (I hope).
Brew him up some free fuel . (A friend in Coleville brews 300 gal / week and distributes it to friends and neighbors. ) but... that does not get vehicles off the road. (which is also an important step to sustainability). It does fuel a lot of tractors and heavy equipment and quite a few trucks and cars. (and is 80% less emissions than dino / fossil fuels)
Self-sufficiency isn't just about arming yourself and growing your own vegetables. It is about reducing your reliance on fossil fuels that have to be imported or shipped down from Alaska via monopolies controlled by enormous multi-national corporations.
EVs are one tool for doing that. But they are just a tool and probably not the most important one. EVs are really more about saving the car industry than saving the planet.
True self-sufficiency is about building your life so that you aren't dependent on monopoly-controlled fossil fuels at all. And barring that, reducing your reliance to the extent that is possible and reasonable.
This is great. The only real way to incentivize decreasing consumption to reduce pollution and waste is to tax at the source, fossil fuels. And it should incentivize more dense housing solutions and public transit use, making investments in public transit more popular as well.
And you will be giggling with delight as your grocery prices soar and anything that has been shipped anywhere (which is absolutely everything you buy) goes up greatly in price?
Your vision of a great America is the entire population stuffed into huge high rise buildings in the middle of vast empty areas where no person ever goes?
Is it some how difficult to understand that things that might work inside a big city might not work elsewhere? It must be one of those things that is incomprehensible because none of those city folks seem to be able to grasp the concept.
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immigrant
contractor is not gonna be buying a NEW USA work truck.
. (A friend in Coleville brews 300 gal / week and distributes it to friends and neighbors. ) but... that does not get vehicles off the road. (which is also an important step to sustainability). It does fuel a lot of tractors and heavy equipment and quite a few trucks and cars. (and is 80% less emissions than dino / fossil fuels)
