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Most uber-rich people are *******s and Lefties, so naturally they don't see themselves as a problem. The problem is all the ordinary materialistic unthinking Bourgeois masses who can afford to buy big vehicles they don't really deserve thanks to the evils of capitalistic society which kills the planet for the sake of profit. They have this insane idea that they should just be able to do whatever they want as long as they can earn it, or they have these stupid "dreams" of living the good life. They have to be stopped at all costs.
In a marvelous Marxist society, like Cuba or North Korea, the peasants aren't allowed to do "just anything because they can do it". They are monitored by the elites - who of course are rewarded with Lamborghinis for their special service to manking.
Of course NASCAR drivers have more car control skills. Because the cars have smaller tires, smaller brakes, almost no down force compared to F1 and anybody who has ever seen Kyle Bush drive his car sideways at almost 200 MPH at Daytona can attest to to their skills.
Here is a fact, the more sophisticated a race car the easier it is to drive at the limit.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Any child in the top half of the grid in a karting series knows how to control a car in a slide. I've driven my street car around turn 17 at Sebring sideways just for fun long before I was able to properly pilot my race car around the same turn at the limits. Nascar is more about the team effort with good equipment, fast crew, excellent fuel and pit strategy, correct setup. F1 is more about design before the season, but once you're on track, it's all about driver since they don't even do fueling anymore and every pit crew is nearly the same on tire changes.
Regarding your assertion that a more sophisticated race car is easier to drive, that could not be further from the truth, which you'd know if you were actually familiar with driving race cars. I race semi-pro in the Cooper Prototype Lites series in a car called an Elan DP02. It is an incredibly advanced car for its price range, but only has a 215hp 2 liter 4. The best I have done around Sebring, for example, is a 2:02 lap after three years of racing there in that car and five years in previous cars. In my previous much lower tech car, i.e. no under-chassis or side tunnels, barely any wing, flat bottom, no vents in the wheel wells, tube frame, but with a 400hp 3 liter v6, I could do 2:05's all day long with minimal effort. It would be the equivalent of a nascar for arguments sake, with the Elan being the F1 car. The fastest even a pro driver was ever able to get my old car was 2:04. Hopping out of that car into the Elan, the best I could do was 2:12, and I worked that down to 2:08 the first weekend, but it took me two years before I saw the 2:02, and I still can only hit that a few times per race. Other, much better drivers, have gotten the same car down to 1:57 and can hit that consistently, because they're simply better than I am. But in the lower tech car, the much better driver is barely able to best me.
You see, the Elan is a downforce car, or a momentum car, meaning even the ever so slight mistake in braking, turning or speed through a corner, and your entire lap is ruined. It takes an extremely higher amount of skill to drive a downforce car at the edge, because the only way to get a competitive lap time is to ride knife edge between control and spinning or crashing. It takes far less skill to drive a horsepower car where it's mostly just timing, drafting and strategy that your spotter helps you with. A car that does 5g's sustained in turns is not something you just hop in and turn the keys; to even suggest that is laughable.
Well...can we talk about the by-products of breaking them down for recycling or the sources of the electricity used to re-charge them? Hydro? Coal? Solar? Nuclear? Wind? When breaking down the batteries after they have met their useful life...what fumes/gasses are released from the recycling process and what does that do to our environment? Does an electric/hybrid car really justify the premium imposed on like for like models?
I know this is a bit off topic as we were supposed to be discussing MPG of SUVs vs. Super Cars.
A friend of mine is the head chemical engineer at a battery recycle plant, although just lead acid in his case. It takes quite a bit energy to recycle a battery. I wouldn't worry too much about what gets released into the atmosphere though, at least in this country. He has described the procedures that are in place at his plant and the type of inspections the EPA performs regularly for them to maintain their certification and they probably spend as much time and money on environmental safety as they do just in the recycling process; not to mention that if they screwed up in any way they could expose their employees to high concentrations of lead. They have a three stage scrubbing process just to get the people and gear out of the work area safely.
In any case, the figures I've seen are that a hybrid or battery vehicle is definitely better for the environment long term even with the energy required to manufacture it and its battery, and recycle its battery at the end of its lifespan. However, the numbers I've seen have put that break even point at 30k to 100k miles driven, so if you buy a hybrid to drive on the weekends and only accumulate 20k miles in ten years, chances are you did more damage in that ten years than having just bought a gas car. Anyone using one for normal mileage is helping.
Well...can we talk about the by-products of breaking them down for recycling or the sources of the electricity used to re-charge them? Hydro? Coal? Solar? Nuclear? Wind? When breaking down the batteries after they have met their useful life...what fumes/gasses are released from the recycling process and what does that do to our environment?
ANY of our current power sources are cleaner than millions of point sources of pollution, so yeah, while it moves the pollution from the tailpipe to a centralized point, that point is cleaner and produces less pollution per vehicle than gasoline cars do. The production of batteries (especialy modern Li in the US) is cleaner than the production of gasoline. The recycling of batteries is not harmful to the environment. Less than even the escaping of fumes when you refuel your car (or when millions of cars are being refueled).
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Does an electric/hybrid car really justify the premium imposed on like for like models?
For me, yes.
I used $120 in electricity to drive my car ALL YEAR (~ $10 a month so far), daily driving it to work and back and on errands. I also took 4 long road trips in it and used $160 in gas for all year. It charges on a standard 15A outlet drawing 8A. It really uses very little electricity. I used as much or more electricity to run my TV and home stereo. Definitely used more to do laundry. So there's very little draw on the grid to cause pollution.
My lease payments are a bit over $300 a month, which means I'm saving over $250 a month vs my gas powered car that I traded in that also had a monthly payment of $300, but had a fuel bill. And I get a nicer car to be in (it's essentially like driving my old BMW 740iL as far as luxurious ride, handling, and quiet acceleration, with even more tech features than the BMW had, plus a warranty which the BMW did not have).
So yeah, it's worth it. I was talking to someone over the weekend that pays almost $400 in gas every month in their paid off car. They could lease a new car like mine and end up paying LESS for it and what powers it than they are for just the fuel cost on their old car (not to mention maintenance and repair costs on that older car).
IF you're already looking for a new car, then choosing one that uses vastly less fuel is a good thing. It leaves the gas for those that want to drive sports cars and SUVs....
Hmm...interesting as I was calculating the purchase price of my Fusion vs. the Fusion Energi and I would have to drive if for something like 8 years to make up for the additional purchase price (figuring in gasoline at $3.20):
There is a $12,730 price difference between the vehicles and I drive (commute) 15,600 miles per year. The Energi gets 100MPG for a cost of $156 per year in gas. My Fusion gets 29MPG (based on my dash MPG readings over the past year) which costs me $1721 per year for fuel. So without payments, interest, etc figured in...the fuel cost delta is $1595.00 per year, in order to make up the price difference of $12,730 it would take me 7.98 years. At that point, with both cars being paid off and the Energi being the lowest price to operate, it begins to make sense...if I kept a car for 8 years, which I do not...it would have over 124k miles on it.
You're an idiot. SUVs have a lot of utility, especially the bigger ones. Mine is used to tow a 30 ft travel trailer that your Euro sedan can't do. I can also carry 4x8 sheets of plywood and drywall home fom home depot inside it. And I just brough home a sofa and loveseat in it. No, it's not a sports car, but it doesn't need to be. Mine has not hurt anyone in the 12 years it's been in service, so obviously they don't go around crashing into things by themselves. In fact, 99% of owners never get into accidents of any sort. With your logic, you'd think that just driving one would cause accidents, but that's easily disproven. Get a clue.
Hypocrite, much? You're the one that's closed minded with the crap you spewed in the paragraph above.
I feel for you that you need to drive some big primitive vehicle, but if you have to haul a travel trailer, then I guess you are stuck with that thing. Please don't drive it aggressively as most folks do. They are horrible at avoiding accidents and cause lots of deaths that wouldn't have happened if they were driving a well made car. Sad to say, they also roll over often and kill the owners and if the owners were driving a good car they would be still here enjoying the day.
There are a few people that need some big SUV, but that number is FEW. If you look around you see tons of these primitive boxes on wheels and that is due to advertising. Sadly, so many can't think and they just fall for the massive ad campaigns for these high profit boxes.
I feel for you that you need to drive some big primitive vehicle, but if you have to haul a travel trailer, then I guess you are stuck with that thing. Please don't drive it aggressively as most folks do. They are horrible at avoiding accidents and cause lots of deaths that wouldn't have happened if they were driving a well made car. Sad to say, they also roll over often and kill the owners and if the owners were driving a good car they would be still here enjoying the day.
There are a few people that need some big SUV, but that number is FEW. If you look around you see tons of these primitive boxes on wheels and that is due to advertising. Sadly, so many can't think and they just fall for the massive ad campaigns for these high profit boxes.
Here we go again another idiotic comment about SUVs. I have a "primitive box on wheels". If you want to get real idiotic you can also say that most people don't need cars. They can easily take mass transit to work but yet they don't. Or they can get a motorcycle. Like I said in another SUV bashing thread...I see a ton of cars on the road that just have a driver in them what a waste. Cars can seat 5 people at least and I always see one person in them. So based on your argument SUV owners don't need to drive a "box on wheels" and car owners don't need cars if they drive alone most of the time. Get a motorcycle or moped stop burning gas!
As far as accidents car drivers are the ones who cause the accidents. Trucks take longer to get up to speed from a stop and I constantly have little cars behind me pull out into the left lane without a turn signal to pass me. People in tiny cars are much more aggressive drivers then people in SUVs. I don't dart in and out of traffic like cars do all the time in an SUV.
Also I bought my SUV based on what I like and need not by any form of advertising.
In just February 2014, Toyota sold over 33,000 RAV-4s in the US alone, over 22,000 Highlanders, 15,000 Sienna mini-vans, 8,600 Forerunners, and almost 1,800 Sequoias and 500 Land Cruisers. Not to mention over 36,000 total pickups between the Tacoma and Tundra. That's just US sales alone, and for one month. That's around 117,000 sales of SUVs, minivans or pickup trucks for one month and in one country. Over 12 months, that is around 1,400,000 for just Toyota and just the US. Add in Honda, Ford, Nissan, Chevy, etc, and you're soon heading north of 10 million worldwide per year just for the US, and probably double that for the world.
You tell me what is a bigger problem - 20 million or more SUVs, minivans and trucks sold worldwide, or less than 10,000 Lamborghinis and Ferraris? It seems to me that SUVs would be a bigger problem 2,000 times over.
Here we go again another idiotic comment about SUVs. I have a "primitive box on wheels". If you want to get real idiotic you can also say that most people don't need cars. They can easily take mass transit to work but yet they don't. Or they can get a motorcycle. Like I said in another SUV bashing thread...I see a ton of cars on the road that just have a driver in them what a waste. Cars can seat 5 people at least and I always see one person in them. So based on your argument SUV owners don't need to drive a "box on wheels" and car owners don't need cars if they drive alone most of the time. Get a motorcycle or moped stop burning gas!
As far as accidents car drivers are the ones who cause the accidents. Trucks take longer to get up to speed from a stop and I constantly have little cars behind me pull out into the left lane without a turn signal to pass me. People in tiny cars are much more aggressive drivers then people in SUVs. I don't dart in and out of traffic like cars do all the time in an SUV.
Also I bought my SUV based on what I like and need not by any form of advertising.
Okay there big hero, show me an SUV that isn't primitive. They are ALL boxes on wheels and have the aerodynamics of a brick. They are top heavy, handle like crap and might as well be made in the 70's as far what they are. Heck there were cars in the 50's that probably handled better. Also, don't tell me they are all slow out of the hole. Many are way overpowered and can lay down fast times in the 1/4. Those are the ones I hate the most because they get people in all kinds of trouble and many times causing death. I just love to see them flying down snow-covered roads as they think they somehow can stop better than others because they saw a TV ad showing the SUV flying through a snowdrift. Yep, brilliant as they ram some poor sole from behind and kill a couple of kids in car seats in the back. Wonderful! People that drive them are mostly all the same. Aggressive and bully types and wanting to say, "look at me, look at me, I drive what the latest rap star drives!"
Oh, and my car hasn't moved in a week because I ride a bike to and from work. You know that thing you pedal. Of course the SUV people want me to pay tax to ride it on the streets. I show them how type II diabetes is killing tons of people and causing Americans BILLIONS of dollars in medical bills, but I digress. I do understand the fat folks wanting SUV's though. The seats are higher so their guts are less compressed and they feel more comfortable. Plus it is easier to get in and out of for the fatties.
Anyway, as soon as the OP labeled people with "liberal" or "left wing" or whatever convenient label so they don't have to think, I knew brain drain was here. It is like talking to a brick wall. Good luck though.
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