Car haters suck

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most important : hos is the PERFORMANCE..?

The new Ford Escape Hybrid performs virtually identically to the V6 version!

Something like a Prius would be great for renting, road trips where you've got miles of empty highway. But in a metro area, it would just be on and off the gas like a real car, only without as much power.

that said my ability to do those things is already about asimpaired as it could possibly get by what i currently drive. [4 cylinder automatic cavalier]

There's a GM pickup equipped with a V8 hybrid, 265hp that sounds great, if I had $30k and a burning need for a new truck.

I know, it is semantic but, you know.

cars would be better, if they didn't exist.

By cruising I mean not accelerating or decelerating. Like, tooling along at 45 mph or whatever.

As far as the electric motor never getting enough play in metro areas, well yeah, it uses the gas more in starting/stopping so that you can accelerate promptly. But remember when yr stuck in traffic for 20 minutes, the electric motor is on for about 18 of those minutes, burning no gas at all.

And yeah, tooling along at 45 - when and where, man? City driving is 0 to 45 and down and up at lights and in traffic. Highway driving is 30 to 65 up to 70 down to 50 because of the asshole with the trailer, back to 60, etc. There are very few applications where you're cruising at a stable speed for any length of time in an urban area.

milo you're confusing me. hybrid cars are ideal for metro areas where there's a lot of stop and go because the electric motor is utilized mainly at low speeds, ie from 0-30ish. they don't have much horsepower but they are generally torqueier than gas engines.

tracer are you sure? i think the electric is used during starting and stopping precisely because there is no lag with a electric motor (due mainly to the extra torque)

Milo until you drive one, kindly STFU with yourself, thanks. The whole point of the Prius is that for 99% of everyday drivers it is no worse and no better than any other cheap compact car on the market, which is what you ought to be comparing it to. Except that it gets 60 mpg.

even if all cars were electric, there would still be massive congestion and cars would still be rubbish.

powercrazy people shouldn't be allowed out of houses, never mind into cars.

The old Prius had about 65-70% of the horsepower and torque of a comparable subcompact. Maybe for comparative size they produce more power and torque but that still means the Prius has a smaller engine, less power.

The whole point of the Prius is that for 99% of everyday drivers it is no worse and no better than any other cheap compact car on the market, which is what you ought to be comparing it to
Except that the Prius isn't a "cheap compact car" - MSRP is in the mid-$20k range. That ain't cheap. And it's not suitable for 99% of everyday drivers, else the market share would be much larger.

I'm comparing it to every other vehicle on the road because, wow, it's on the road with all of them and competing with every other vehicle for market share. Hybrids are great, I'm all for anything that saves on gas and pollution. But they need to be paired with better, stronger powertrains and larger models to break out of the tree-hugger ghetto - ie the GM truck.

This is the way to go, you see. All the cars couple up, and little doors at the front and back open up, an aisle forms, and they become trains. Those tense, rude, stressed drivers get up, stretch, and go to the buffet for a beer.

so there were less accidents when cars had less power? did accidents suddenly increase in the early 80s?

milo your second paragraph is incomprehensible. First it sounds like you're saying it's got worse power and torque than other comparable cars, and then you say that actually maybe they produce more power and torque?

As far as the price goes it would be even more expensive if it weren't subsidized. I think the electric motor alone costs $20K. I would imagine more people would buy if it were cheaper, especially once they realized they were spending half the usual on gas.

I don't understand the animosity, milo, the constant "tree hugger" line. You say that hybrids are "great" and you're "all for" them, but that what they really need is to be stronger and bigger and have lots more horsepower. And then you give an example of such an automobile. So what, exactly, is the problem? If anyone is putting hybrid cars in a "tree hugger ghetto" it is you, milo z auckerman.

it's sprawl your fault, in the end, though.

It's easier to build a car to fit consumer's needs and wishes than to make the consumer conform to the car. That's the primary failure of compact hybrids to me and may be a problem that will be solved.

And that's why I like the V8 hybrid, which isn't going to get 60mpg but is usable by the millions of people who drive trucks and will shave off 20% of the truck's gas use. That's a much better proposition both in human and green terms (and probably a better idea from a profit standpoint). Now adapt that to the SUV market and family sedans and minivans - and you're making people happy with their power and size while moving toward cutting down on gas use. Then you take it to the next step, another slight cut in power for all-electric or fuel cells or CNG or biodiesel or WTFever.

milo your second paragraph is incomprehensible. First it sounds like you're saying it's got worse power and torque than other comparable cars, and then you say that actually maybe they produce more power and torque?
First sentence - car vs. car. Second sentence - engine v. engine.

A small four-cylinder engine is often more power-efficient than a V8, but the V8 will almost always still produce more horsepower and torque. That's the case here - yes, the Prius might have a more efficient wee motor and engine, but it's still going to be slower than most cars in its class and almost everything on the road.

I see no downsides to the V8 truck (even better if future models are more efficient), as it looks and sounds like any other truck on the road, has plenty of power to tow and haul, etc.. There is no compromise to the engine, it should appeal greatly to the people who currently buy trucks and full-size SUVs. You'll never win over the ex-fratboy who has to have a 9.8L HEMI, but it would be great for an electrician who puts up 30k miles a year or a suburbanite soccer dad/mom.

The Escape V6 (which I'd forgotten about) is even better, esp. if they use it in whatever Ford's family sedan line is now (Tauruses?).

Milo, you really should test drive one - I believe you would be pleasantly surprised and very possibly converted!

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Is it just the space they take up and the roads?

if people hadn't wanted to live far away from each other, we wouldn't have needed to have these huge, complicated road networks that don't work.

Blount, the Ford Escape, the Lexus SUV, and the Toyota highlander will all have hybrid versions this year.

Also, I'm not usually described as so American...

it's a different way to live, alright. I think the problems and requirements of high-density living are much easier to deal with than those of sprrrrrrrrrrrrawl.

-- MVP (adamr...), March 16th, 2005 1:45 PM. (nordicskilla)

In flip flops.

-- MVP (adamr...), March 16th, 2005 1:45 PM. (nordicskilla)

Far Gone and OUT!

The problem is that auto manufacturers spent a lot of money in the 30s to make sure that our lives would be dependant on cars. I don't see how being dependant on public transportation would be worse than being dependant on cars, assuming all the money spent on car infrastructure had been spent on public transit infrastructure.

I think it is weird the way that my inlaws, if they can't park close to the Walmart/Best Buy/Shoe Carnival entrance, will simply pull up close and hover outside while one of them runs in and gets what they need. Amazing!

crossposts--

people are allowed to not like public transport and people are allowed to not like private transport

social stuff. in the beginning, like, living apart and travelling apart, made these problems.

sure people are allowed to not like either public or private trans, but those who dislike private tend to take transfer their ire to those who prefer private. the reverse almost never happens.

It does? I dunno, I've never felt problems either way.

http://bias.blogfodder.net/archives/images/Traffic%20jam%20on%20way%20to%20work2%20%208-9-02.jpg

xxp

but I am not really having goes, at people, here.

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sorry, MVP

I think some of the car-sharing things sound quite fun. you pay in a certain amount and you get a car, a few times a month or whatever.

Also, there are just some beautiful cars. Not the kind I might get to drive, but still...

if you cannot admit that having a car gives you more (more. meaning public trans give you some) freedom and privacy, i don't know what to tell ya.

if I had a car, it would be no end of hassle.

are you kidding, again?

I mean, apart from farming and shit, I wonder what sort of area it takes up Vs. what it could take up.

Not necessarily. If I want to go from Melbourne to Broken Hill [~nine hours] I think I have to drive. Three hours of that trip is literally bugger-all. You can actually see the outback developing.

Yeah, friends of mine always talked about that as being their thing -- I don't think I honestly ever felt it. When I was in my main teen years the two places in town I valued the most were the library and the book/record store -- both within easy walking distance, as was everything else (the advantage of living in a small town on a small island). A lot of people always wanted to get to Tijuana and party but I never felt the urge. Then I went to UCLA and, well, I was away from home and more than happy with my state. And who needed a car? So personal experience as much as preference feeds into this all.

All this "no-car" talk is nice and utopian but try living in Texas. Public transportation isn't even feasible for most places in the state.

Gee, I wonder who's fault that is.

I mean, my story is similar to Ned's, except I was in NYC, and even though I was in the relative boonies of northeastern Queens, I still had more than adequate transit options which I could take on my own at about age 12. And thus freedom.

Cars, meanwhile, seem like a huge investment in time and money and insurance and, you know, personal danger. Obviously I take advantage of other people's cars all the time, but this is not because cars are great, it's because the way things are sucks.

If you want to say a car is wasteful and unnecessary in New York City, great, I'm sure you're right. It's not that simple in the sun belt, the vast majority of the rust belt, the midwest, Pacific NW, etc..

I think almost everyone would agree that car use has to fall, dramatically, and a lot of people would agree that we should really be TRYING to have no or as little as possible private transport, in the end.

it will be okay, when we get there, but, just now, it is difficult to have a complete conversation about it.

copenhagen, in the late forties, decided that it didn't want to go the same way as so many american cities and planners laid out a radial mixed-use development based on five finger-like routes and made the public transport network to allow it.

curitiba, in brazil, is nowhere near as rich as copenhagen but, in the sixties, did something similar and, today, is in a good position, w/ much fewer vehicles, in its centre, and all the benefits, that come with that.

I think zurich began most of their policies in the seventies and they are still going continue, now, in a kind of v. gradual and nonconfrontational way--making small restrictions, year on year (lowering speed limits, reducing parking, closing or excluding private traffic from some routes)--which drivers can accept and adapt to.

extreme measures are not a good idea since they may, very well, not be the best (cf. motorways, in glasgow and birmingham and all over the world).

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that's 1.

I just meant that, if all urban development were denser, no-one would need a car.

I think that it would be better if everyone, who could, lived urbanely. not everyone thinks that.

Actually... I live in the Pacific Northwest now. A surprising percentage of the people I know who grew up here (in Portland) never felt the need to learn how to drive. But, you know, we did a good job of tearing up Robert Moses's highway plans. And it's actually very easy to imagine the rest of the NW being well supplied with public transit. It is fairly trivial to get from Seattle to Olympia in about 2 hours for, I think, $3 using local transit. I'm not sure if I can get to Eugene as easily, though, since I've never looked into it.

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If memory serves, there was train service that went from the Queensland coast to Darwin or so. The big problem was that every 20-30 years or so there would be enough of a storm in the outback that the tracks would be washed away.

yeah absolutely true. i have made a point of having my last three jobs on the same freeway exit i live at (so i don't commute). i can walk to the beach or work. i can cycle to school or all of my favorite stores, restaurants, people...

the cost = accepting tremendous limitations on my career / wallet. so i have no urge to sneer at people on the freeway.

Yeah, actually it works backwards from that. First you build reliable public transportation, and density crops us around that. The availability or unavailability of trains or streetcars has determined the shape of every American city, it's safe to say.

Anyway let's all agree that fuel economies have to rise and fast. Put a legal minimum of 30 miles per gallon on all new cars sold (cars = private/ light goods as in the UK, no light truck loophole thank you) rises a couple of mpg every year. Legislate for good design and efficiency. Have whatever shape or weight of car you like, just evr increasing economy.

how is the public transportation, where you live?

I think some people think "I need my car", when they do not but, then again, I am a hypocrite, since I think I probably think "I need my computer" when, really, I don't.

OTOH, I am really not enjoying using public transport at the moment. Too many shitheads. It's ok going to work, but coming home is sometimes stressful enough that it's actually got me contemplating getting a car again. Terrible.

: //

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The public transportation where I live - Chicago - is great. But if I want to take a day trip out of the city, I'll want my car. If I'm going to see a concert on the other side of the city where parking isn't too bad, I might want my car. If it's freezing outside and I would have to make a bunch of transfers, I might want my car.

I prefere the train cause that's an hour of reading time!

haha that day is when i become minister for transport!

im starting at grad. fo transprot for london then working my way to up to become the king of all world transport.
just give me 30 yrs

but yeah, i sort of think that somethign has got to happen, something will change.

a major technology shift will make mass car transport more viable, but eventually a better solution must be found for urban transport.

Not at all, but there are things I enjoy and things I wish to do that make living in Chicago/NY/etc. unfeasible even if I wanted to move and could afford it. I'd like to learn to weld, and I'd like to learn how to do woodworking at more than a shitty carpentry level and I'd like to have my own darkroom, etc. - having a garage and an extra room is a lot easier and more affordable in the suburbs or semi-rural.

: (

-- Momus (nic...), March 16th, 2005 12:24 PM. (Momus)

A great idea, but you have to admit as Transformer toys they would kind of suck.

YES. Why is that so difficult to fathom?

I mean, why would you hate it so much?

I love cities but even moreso I hate them. Too much people, too much noise, too much concrete, too much crime, too much of Man.

It's not impossible to have this conversation, in fact it's necessary. Imagine a series of systematic attacks on the global oil infrastructure, leading to gasoline quadrupling in price, or becoming impossible to get for, say a fifth of the population. Suddenly those desirable suburbs, with their antisocial, sprawling, car-dependent design look like wastelands of useless road and impossible distances. Too bad Man didn't run a few trams out there when He had a trillion-dollar surplus to spend.

of course practically speaking, a reduction in car use (eg due to oil crises etc) will leave people unhappy, lifestyles disrupted, etc etc. it would be apinful. but theres no case to dismiss the idea completely.

oops, I completely believe that, where you live, you NEED a car.

that is what I keep saying.

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www.kunstler.com

on the L i see many misanthropes outfitted thus

another point debited from cars: it is almost impossible to flirt with other drivers

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the former complaint is pretty mysanthropic (hence my original comment about desiring isolation from other people), the latter complaint is simply not true, as those perceived "restrictions" are in no way inherent in public transportation.

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xpost that still doesn't change the fact that they don't! this is going in circles again. that's how it is. are cars partly/mostly to blame? yes. but that's how it is! i don't know about the rest of you, but I am not a policy/law maker so discussing how it should be is a pointless. You know things are fucked. So do I.

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in fact i have no car, and feel as free as a bird. i cycle aroudn the city, i cycle to other towns, i walk to the shops. freedom in this sense is just yr personal definition. But i feel that this freedom is not one that should be a fundamental freedom as a human being

and indeed, for many people in the world, this freedom is not available to them.

ambrose OTM re:"freedom" (thank you!)

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You know what's totally relevant to a discussion of cars? JIM CROW

xpost i'm not demanding anything! holy shit.

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what if your freedom denies someone else the same freedom to live as they want?

don't talk like you are getting the thin end of the wedge, here, please, oops. me saying "please no car" affects you probably less than 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002x as much as you saying "yeah yeah", afterwards, affects me.

(also I fully admit to being self-righteous on this thread. I'm okay with that in this particular case - I don't know how to broach these issues without coming off that way, to be honest.)

essential services and things to provide us with the lifestyle we desire are possible outside cities, in small towns and suburbs, and existed for many years within walkign distance. promotion of car use led to land use patterns that followed new possiblities afforded by increased car ownership, and in the UK and spectacularly in the US, these new land use patterns came to dominate lifestyles.

What is at first a situation where people dominate new forms of transport in 60 yrs or so becomes one where peoples lives are utterly utterly dominated by transport.

which is why im gonna get in on the game, and finally get a job!*

*he hopes

*scratches head*

ideals get put aside when you need food and shelter. don't they teach that in engineering school?

"what do you want me to do? pick up and move somewhere so I want need a car? "

hey, that's what I did.

eg

quotign from Bannister "Transport Policy and the Environment": (data from 1996)

"The Transport sector is responsible for over 25 per cent of world primary energy use and 22% of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use"

yes that does include air transport of course...

but drivign a car is not just a personal choice! just as snorting a line of coke, or buying a mcdonalds, is not something you do that is just between you, and the burger, it strikes me that drivers are unwilling to understand the full ramifications of what they do.*
whether they need to drive or not, there is a level of responsibility that needs to be taken that i feel is often massively underestimated.

a good analogue to the idea of drivers understanding the environmental and quality-of-life issues that come with car use: the potential danger you impose on others by driving a car. Safety is a key factor that in the UK at least, drivers ( and other road users, ie everyone) are unwilling to engage with, or understand more fully what goes with the territory. I think that this sense of dislocation from the impacts of using a road is greatly heightened for car users by the box like feel, the cut-off, personal-space nature of being inside a car.

*"drivers" here doesnt mean "im talking to you OOps". It means drivers in general.

And your point is that you have a car, why not drive it? it sustains you.
yo have made that point, but all im tryign to point out is that to be Oops isnt inherently to have to drive a car, nor is payign the rent, making sure your not "pestering people in the street", options only available to you through car use.

xpost im not sneering at anyone, i understand his point. there are many many proposals that even attempt to acknowledge current cultural and political realities. they are being put in place all the time, little things that affect thje way people drive roudn a junction, a campaign to get kids to walk to school, a minibus that picks up people who live on distnat housing estates to get them to their jobs.
but this thread isnt really the place for current policy per se. a thred called "car haters suck" sets the tone for a thread where peoples valuation and emotional responses to car use are called for.

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I think they go hand-in-hand. To some extent, the behaviors and attitude exist because of the way the infrastructure is set up presently.

well, not to climb back on my high horse here (*mmph* damn these stirrups are uncomfortable) but uh, my concerns/choices about cars are based more on what I see as the single largest most dangerous sociological issue for humanity at large - ie, energy usage and by extension, our reliance on fossil fuels. Re-distribution of wealth/resources being the other biggie. But energy issues are the more pressing concern in my view, as they could very well spell the end of the species as a whole if they aren't resolved/confronted.

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(water issues are massive, but not insurmountable - that's more of a distribution/resource management problem)

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and what you said about infrastrcuture and behaviour illustrates what i wanted to say before. they are chicken and egg. behaviour and atitude follow the present infrastructure and land use. but it was behaviour and attitude that created those patterns of land use and infrastructure. So that gives credit to a notion that the pattern could be reversed.

xpost so you're also going to not eat anything that was grown in southern california and other such areas, right?

yr arguments are weak like clock radio speakers.

central valley is irrigated, isn't it? yes, food is grown in socal.
not everyone has the access or finances to buy co-op or local food.

er that doesnt make any sense does it

im meant to be thinking about safety testing Human Machine Interface systems*, not this!

*this seems to mean not much more than a car radio, bizarrely

as for pre-emptive change, I guess I should just wait for that magical post-"peak oil" moment and hope I survive the massive riots, starvation, wars, etc. that are bound to ensue, in the meantime happily going about my business like nothing's wrong, eh? you have fun with THAT.

this is extraordinarily pessimistic, and i believe untrue. to believe this is to believe that advertising has no effect for instance. peoples behavious can be influenced all to easily. it also dictates that awareness compaigns in general have no effect, which doesnt soudn that contentious, but in the UK the large decrease in UK drink driving, especially amongst the young (now sadly creeping up), msignalled a major attitudinal shiuft, that an effective and relentless (every christmas) tv ad campaign must have contributed to wards.

there wasnt some cataclysmic drink driving related pile up that had to occur before such a chabnge came about, it was gradual, and in some part, influenced by those behind safety planning, i believe.

there are no co-op veggie places or local butchers in my vicinity. you living in san francisco makes not only your lifestyle possible, but your attitude. explains a lot.

pessimistic or realistic, you make the call.many people died from drunk driving, didn't they? i mean it just wasn't some people swerving around not hitting anything that affected change, right?

haHA! Couldn't have put it better myself. The benefits of city living my friend.

xpost it was tolerated EVEN AFTER many many people died. i think that, and the fact that people STILL don't buckle up strengthens my point that people are very reluctant to pay heed to something unless its consequences are readily felt. I know several people who didn't wear seatbelts until they themselves were in an accident.

shakey, i wouldn't mind living in SF either! how bout hooking me up with a well-paying job?

doctrinaire \dahk-truh-NAIR\ adjective
: attempting to put into effect an abstract doctrine or
theory with little or no regard for practical difficulties : dogmatic

but that cant be wholly true, otherwise the entire advertising industry would be out of jobs. and as far as i know, they make quite a bit of money....

as for little or no regard for practical difficulties, that isnt true. again, ILX for me is not the place to set out watertight, scientifically rigourous theories, or wholly formed policies or statements of intent. if you give me a few years, then i will have a clearer idea of what i believe to be an effective way to continue with transport policy, and might be able to set them down, with regards to practical implementation. In fact, i actualyl hope to effect this. By choosing to work with organisations that are interestded in areas of transport which are directyl related to the way people think about transport*, i hope to explre the practicalities of effecting change, and get experience of wha is and isnt possible. its just that i need a bit of time to gain 30 yrs experience. like, about 30 yrs...

* example: persuading parents to abandon the school run and investigating joining "walking buses", which although necessitating a change in routine, could bring many more benefits than sitting in hrs of queus in a Land Rover, with 4 kids messing about in the back, whiole you are late for work.

more of an actual victory, than the alaska vote.

Take that

However in the realm of private transport there is no way we can progress in the way we are. There just isn't the space anywhere for universal 4 wheeled private transport. Let alone enormous inefficient vehicles carrying one person at a time. So this is where the big stick of authority has to come out. OK, so the US suburb has grown up around the car, not around the train as in many european cities. So a solution has to be found that works for the US suburbs and edge cities, which I'll grant is very difficult due to the multi-directional nature of flows. There are very few US cities were commuting transport flows are the very traditional European/East Coast US are radial flows so you have a problem.

So what technological solutions can be offered to allieveate the tangled mess of US suburban commuting in amorphous US cities.

Well for a start everyone should get a more efficient car There is no excuse for 15mpg when 35mpg is easy to achieve.

Next you have to restrict autonomy. Trunk routes are inefficient as they consist of streams of traffic made up of inidividuals with different driving skills, attitudes, urgencies. Stop start flows, tailgating, bunching all cause delays. So hand over control of cars to the road system on the trunk routes. Speeds, flows, routing all controlled centrally by the traffic system, rathwer than by inefficient human autonomy. Increasing safety and efficiency of the overall system. Cells joining and leaving a tarmac railway.

So that's how you backfill into th existing suburbs.

However new suburbs musn't be built like this. Casting aside radial cities will eventually be seen as a great folly, if it in't already. Where is the centre, the identity, the heart of an amorphous city. Does the inherrent inefficiency of an amorphous city choke and restrict economic sucess, intellectual advancement, cutural identity?

Does slavish worship of the steel bubble, the isolation chamber brutalise society. Starving gumanity of the reference points, the interactions, that keep them Human? Is freedom really to be found behind 265bhp of internal combustion engine? Is someone with a 30bhp car less free? Is someone on a bike less free or more so?

-- Ed (dal...), March 18th, 2005.

For many people, carstarring IS something very central to their existence, and keeps them human. Let's say you're at a party and it sucks and some prime badoogadoonk wants to leave - well if you're the guy with the car, you've got the freedom - AND you have the freedom to thunderpimp so hard that kids on the sidewalk start dancing to YOUR beats and men want to kill you because their girlfriends turn they heads and nod at you like "Wow, the gentlemen in that automobile know how to roll hard huh", but they can't kill you because you have the freedom to peel away. I guess they'll just have to kill their girlfriends. Do not ignore freedom forgone when hoofing it either, people.

increases in technology can do a lot to alleviate problems associated with car use, in terms of noise and emissions reduction.

But

this is a mid term solution (if the long term is 60 yrs or so); eventually a greater change in living patterns, behaviour/attitudinal shift will, i predict begin a shift away from car use.

heres the UK Natioanl Road Traffic Forecast for the next 30 years FYI