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The Growing Divergence Between Horsepower and Speed Limits
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Otherwise, perhaps you'd like to make a rebuttal based upon something that I actually said? (Let me guess...no?)
Not even 1 HP is excessive. The guy that buys the Bugatti is not going to go out hot rodding to show off. He has it parked in his 10 car garage for his friends to drool on. The other big plus for that 1000 HP Bugatti is it probably supported a village where it was built for 6 months. You cannot claim that about any mass produced vehicle. Exotic cars do more to support their local economy than any mass produced products.
I'm sure that's true. But do you really think that matters to someone who doesn't like sports cars simply because they're sports cars? Some people simply don't see the point of driving a nicer car, and a few of those would like to be sure that you aren't allowed to.
sophomoric
Otherwise, perhaps you'd like to make a rebuttal based upon something that I actually said? (Let me guess...no?)
I am waiting for an idea or proposal that actually addresses the topic of this board.
Not even 1 HP is excessive. The guy that buys the Bugatti is not going to go out hot rodding to show off.
Quite an assertion based on what? Rich people such as Leno and Jordan "do" drive their expensive and exotic machinery on public roads. I will "assert" that there are others. R & T had an article awhile back about a rich guy who drives his Enzo on public roads.
Facts man, we got the facts. Look at Ebay Motors. There are 154 Ferrari's for sale. The highest mileage one in there is a 1972 with 65k miles. That is under 2000 miles per year. The last 3 pages of them are under 17K miles. You think you can find a 1970 Camry with 60k miles still in perfect condition. People that have exotics drive them very little and are NOT the cause of Pollution or excessive speed on the highways. I cannot remember being passed by an exotic sports car on the freeway. I get passed at 80+ MPH all the time by CamCords.
Here is another one The Golden Gate Bridge and its sister work horse Bay Bridge (there are more but...) let 56,000 and 270,000 cars cross per day respectively. One way on each bridge it is a government mandate to stop to pay a toll and in fact has been for YEARS or at least as long as I have been alive. So how much idlling fuel has been WASTED to stop to pay the toll? All things being equal do you think you would use less/more fuel if you did not have to stop? They have never published the results if a study has been done.
Gasoline is subsidized and cheap in Dubai as it is in most Gulf countries, fueling local preferences for large sport-utility vehicles, which remain in vogue here even as they disappear elsewhere.
By the end of 2006, the economy of the six Gulf Cooperation Council states -- the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman -- will have almost doubled to $600 billion compared to the average of about $300 billion for 2000-02, the Washington-based Institute for International Finance estimates.
http://money.canoe.ca/News/TopPhoto/2006/02/06/1428577.html
I gave my idea on my first post on this thread -- there is no problem vis-a-vis horsepower and road safety.
Set speed limits based upon the flow of traffic (the 85th percentile) and safety will be optimized.
Set emissions level targets we can live with, and expand California requirements to include the entire country, and trucks, vans and SUV's now held at a lower standard.
Set fuel economy targets based upon a combination of CAFE and fuel taxes, and let the normal laws of supply and demand market sort out the rest.
Piece of cake. Now, can we talk about cars again?
Wrong! The majority of car pollution is produced from vehicles have 1 and more cylinders, 2 or more doors and 4 tires. The more cylinders the more pollution, the more C0, the more C02.
It somehow makes it right that there is a small majority of 12/16 cylinder cars vs 4/6 cylinder.
Sloppy info, as usual. It's the amount of fuel used, not the number of cylinders. CO2 doesn't really care amount cylinders were used to produce it.
(Of course, if Shapiro was right, we could all solve the greenhouse gas problem by buying RX-8's with rotary engines -- no cylinders, no pollution!)
OK, so who pollutes the most? The guy in the Corrola doing 50 mile commute to work or the guy that takes his Tahoe out on the weekend to the mountains? The Corolla ends the year with 15k miles and the Tahoe with 5k miles.
It somehow makes it right that there is a small majority of 12/16 cylinder cars vs 4/6 cylinder.
Why such a case of heartache over someone that can afford a big expensive car? I dare say they are helping the economy & the environment more than the guy driving a 1980 Plymouth. How you can think that the infintesimal few exotic sports cars have any affect on our environment is mind boggling.
You are not willing to accept that the millions of 5 year old CamCords are all rated 0 on the new EPA emissions list. They are the ones still being driven to work every day 20-30-50 miles and more.
And one other thing. That score you see for emissions and GHG is only accurate IF you are getting the EPA mileage that is estimated. They estimate the emissions based on fuel consumed. So all the hybrids getting 25% below EPA estimates are actually polluting 25% more than expected. If the truth were known a Prius is probably only PZEV when it is getting 55 MPG combined.
The web site is nifty in that you can alter some of the variables ie price of fuel, % of city vs highway driving mileage, etc.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/sbs.htm
The Z06 is an anomoly. Those mpg numbers are only achievd using 1-4 shifts and babying the gas. Also consider that the cars power to weight ratio is way up there at 8.09 (lbs/hp)
Use of exotic materials has kept the weight down and the price up which is not realistic for normal cars.
As I said an anomoly in this day and age.
That makes it special. I don't see any issue with someone owning one. It is not a problem relating to speed, too much HP or use of fossil fuel.
Maybe if they got the price down to $30k and they sold 400k per year it would become an issue. I would bet that 99 out of 100 Corvettes are not in single car households.
The Smart car's Carbon Zero Program will mean enough trees are planted or there is enough investment in renewable energy to offset the carbon dioxide emitted from its exhaust in an average driving year (16,000 kilometres).
Last week Honda made an even bigger commitment for the new version of its petrol-electric Civic Hybrid. Honda will pay for enough trees over three years — 18 for each car — to soak up the heat-trapping gases it produces.
The schemes are a first for the Australian automotive industry, but car companies have previously made the connection between their vehicles and trees that soak up carbon dioxide. There are the "forests of Toyota", which includes 1753 hectares of trees in Western Australia, and Peugeot has a carbon sink in the Amazon, with more than 1 million trees planted.
Buy a car plant a tree
Use of exotic materials has kept the weight down and the price up which is not realistic for normal cars.
As I said an anomoly in this day and age. "...
This gets back to a much earlier post where I said very clearly that I thought (America and American) cars need to be redesigned. So the Corvette is vilified for being the ghost of symbolism past. When the Corvette is redesigned and actually gets better performance and mph and emits less to at most same emissions as the main line environmental examples such as Toyota Camry, it is vilified for being .... redesigned.
VW has the 43-63 mph combo 48.6 mpg. Another (alternative fuel) in the vilification spot light. One of the only cars that is capable of matching to beating it is another Toyota product , Prius.
So it seems like the inertia is clearly on the side for the status quote. Even as hot air is generated about how it must change.
Natural gas is another alternative, but the Honda prodcut is 22,000 (vs the gasser of 13,000) plus you can or must rent a refueler at 49-75 dollars per month (in addition)
Hydrogen Civic's are being beta tested but hey if 3 dollar unleaded regular is cause for heartburn with 37-41 mpg, what does 16 dollar per gal (weight) for hydrogen going to engender with 22 mpg?!?
OK, let's not get ahead of ourselves here.
-- An individual Corvette pollutes far more than does an individual Camry per mile driven. (This data is available from the EPA website that I linked above.) In fact, most high performance cars do tend to be at the higher end of the range when it comes to air pollution emissions.
-- What is also true is that the entire pool of current Camrys pollutes more than does the entire pool of current Corvettes, because there are more Camrys and because they get more daily use. Therefore, if a public policy solution is being implemented with the intent of obtaining more significant gains, it would be worthwhile to focus on the Camry simply because of the volume of such cars on the road. But that does not make the Camry a dirtier car.
--What is also not true is Shapiro's constant claim that bigger necessarily means dirtier. That has been addressed thoroughly above, so I won't bother repeating it again.
{my quote}mph and emits less to at most same emissions as the main line environmental examples such as Toyota Camry{unquote}
I probably would be clearer if I put in SAME mpg (19/28 combo 22 vs 20/27 combo 22)
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/sbs.htm
Using a 2001 Corvette and a 2001 Camry, I stand by what I said; LEV 2 vs LEV 2, 8.5 tons vs 8.5 tons. 15,000 miles vs 15,000 miles. When you plug in the true mileage of the average Corvette (5000 and under) then it drops from 8.5 tons to 2.8 tons. So folks are free to draw whatever conclusions. Of course the incorrect one does nothing for credibility.
And I think the entire POOL of "CAMRY" type cars has been more than amply demonstrated to pollute more, if only by the "NO cylinder" advocates steadfast refusal to even pull out their "crack cu lators" to put the numbers in.
Could you please tell me how much the Corvette Z06 costs?
And can you structure that in the same sentence where you explain why American car companies are in trouble?
..."Could you please tell me how much the Corvette Z06 costs?"...
When you factor in same same costs, Z06 again blows away its competition. (performance and mpg dept.)
6000-7000 numbers vs any other oem that will bring app 6000 to 7000 numbers to market.
In the case of the 2001 model year it was 5,773.
According to Edmund's TMV of $69,780 in San Diego. Quote Edmund's review:
Performance on par with the world's best sports cars, daily-driver livability, precision build quality, a performance bargain when compared to cars of similar capabilities
Every red blooded American male needs one. :shades:
PS
He is the epitome of "the guy that dies with the most toys wins". A typical exotic car buyer.
The EPA states that CO2 is caused by burned fuel, which is measured by fuel economy. For some reason, I'm inclined to believe them, rather than you, but perhaps I'm misguided...
Or if we take Gagrice's suggestion and have every red blooded American male buy one, your "fleet" number argument will be moot.
Be thankful that the Z06 is an anomloy.
Can we move on from comparing anomolies to talking about actual passenger cars?
Again not to beat the C02 from a dead horse, but the 2006 2 cylinder RX8 puts out slightly less C02 (9.3 vs 9.6 tons) than the 2006 V8 500 hp Corvette Z06 . Fuel mileage again is almost identical.(18/24/combo 20, vs Corvette Z06 16/26/ combo 20.)
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/sbs.htm
I would whole heartedly agree!! The Z06 vs Camry was the low hp advocates' vilification of the Z06. The math indicates that "actual" passenger cars produce the most bread and butter pollution, given the average Am drivers mileage estimated between 12,000 and 15,000 miles per year. The inclusion of the Z06 is strawman to me.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/sbs.htm
Must be all that excessive hp in the MASSIVE 1.3 litre engine, RX8 194 hp 164#ft of torque>
(vs V8 tiny 7.0 litre 505 hp 470# ft of torque in the Z06 Corvette!!)
If that's the agenda, then the most obvious culprits vis-a-vis smog and emissions per vehicle are pickup trucks (particularly those of the full size variety), vans and SUV's. They are (a) driven by many people, (b) get poor fuel economy (high CO2 emissions), and (c) have higher tailpipe emissions (lower emissions requirements than do cars).
Because they are heavier than are regular passenger cars, they require more output and torque at any given point to propel them, which means more fuel consumption than a lighter car would have with the same engine. And they tend to be less aerodynamic than cars, which also increases their fuel usage.
I'm not opposed to having smog controls on Vettes, but emphasizing them while ignoring the volume of truck sales (the Ford F-150, the most popular truck in the US, sells far more units than the Toyota Camry, the most popular car) is disingenous for those who care about emissions and greenhouse gases. Then again, it's tough to carry large bits of cargo in a Camry, so I'm not clear how we'd address this fairly for those who genuinely use these trucks for their carrying capacity.
(your mileage may vary, the "dont shoot the messenger" rule is in effect changes 445 and 446. (this is NOT an AL Qaeda code
So for example, one can drive an SUV 5000 miles per year (@15 mpg)
Civic drive 18,000 miles per year (@37 mpg) and 28,000 miles per year at (50 mpg)=
51,000 miles/1379 gal @ an average of
36.98 mpg.
garbage
We just need cars that actually GET higher fuel mileage!!
Actually I'm not sure you are seeing the big picture. I'm not inclined to explain it, but I do believe it's not the EPA economy that should be taxed, it's the potential real emissions and potential waste. A 6L engine running as intended will pollute more and use more resources than a CAMRY. The EPA even themselves indicate their testing is out of date, why should we believe them. Or is it a case of believe them when it helps your case, but don't believe them when it doesn't?
CO2 emissions are created by burnt fuel. The amount of CO2 produced is directly related to the amount of fuel consumed.
A car that burns more fuel produces more CO2 than does one that burns less fuel. It really doesn't matter what burns the fuel, the result is the same.
So if a 2.0 liter engine and a 3.0 liter engine get identical fuel economy, the CO2 production will be the same. Displacement doesn't matter -- consumption does.
me: hmm, how about the IRS tax you based on your potential income. We'll base your tax on what we believe you could be making.
you: A 6L engine running as intended will pollute more and use more resources than a CAMRY.
me: and if the 6L does use more resources, it IS ALREADY taxed more. The more gas the driver uses the more gas tax is paid by that driver per mile. So you've already got your wish!
you: The EPA even themselves indicate their testing is out of date, why should we believe them.
me: right; there is no tax on the EPA rating. The gas tax a driver pays to drive X-miles is based on the actual mpg. So if a Corvette driver hammers it and gets 15mpg they are going to pay more tax, than if a Camry owner gets 25mpg to drive 100 miles. Do you get that, or are you just ignoring it?
CO2 emissions are created by burnt fuel. The amount of CO2 produced is directly related to the amount of fuel consumed.
A car that burns more fuel produces more CO2 than does one that burns less fuel. It really doesn't matter what burns the fuel, the result is the same.
So if a 2.0 liter engine and a 3.0 liter engine get identical fuel economy, the CO2 production will be the same. Displacement doesn't matter -- consumption does. "
{my quote}
Again not to beat the C02 from a dead horse, but the 2006 2 cylinder RX8 puts out slightly less C02 (9.3 vs 9.6 tons) than the 2006 V8 500 hp Corvette Z06 . Fuel mileage again is almost identical.(18/24/combo 20, vs Corvette Z06 16/26/ combo 20.)
{unquote}
My post #1515 is a GRAPHIC illustration of what you are saying!!.
Exactly. And not a bad example, being that the RX-8 motor is 1.3 liters, while the Corvette motor is 7.0 liters. In this case, size doesn't matter.