My opinion is that any company whether foreign-owned, domestically-owned or the mongrel-mixes we have these days (100% of all entities) should not be allowed to sell goods in this country, if they are subsidized, or using child or slave labor, or being in egregious disharmony with the environmental and safety standards of this country.
It's pretty simple stuff, just like the rules of a game. The rules should be the same for all. One team can not have an extra-player, or use steroids, if the others don't. Ban them from the game here.
Keynseyian theory AFAIK has nothing to do with a fair, economic system free of government. It does create favorites by directing money to certain businesses and industries, creates market-bubbles, and creates more opportunity for system corruption. Oh and as the last few years have shown it puts us much deeper into debt, with little benefit.
I went to the local show even in the bad years. I'm in the Mid-Atlantic, so I usually try to do New York in April, and even Philly or Baltimore once in a while.
It sucked when a lot of automakers did not even show up. How much would it cost to ask a local dealer to display a few cars, at least?
Oil hovers around $100 a barrel, which is cheap. What if it hit $145 again?
That would take one Iranian missile or torpedo being fired and hitting a ship. And then the U.S. is committed to taking out the Iranian air force, missile batteries and Navy.
We can then send Israel the bill for cleaning up the mess...oh wait, that would be like giving ourselves the bill :sick:
All the money spent on automakers pales in comparison to generations of other waste. I wonder if our defective foreign policy monies had been spent to coddle GM like Toyota and Hyunkia have been coddled by their respective nations, if the company would be a leader again.
>My opinion is that any company whether foreign-owned, domestically-owned or the mongrel-mixes we have these days (100% of all entities) should not be allowed to sell goods in this country, if they are subsidized, or using child or slave labor, or being in egregious disharmony with the environmental and safety standards of this country.
Yup. My point exactly. Give GM help since other competitors have had help from their governments for years, and even through the recession.
> disharmony with the environmental
I assume that would include cadmium for nickel cadmium batteries and the wasteland the mining produces?
"Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.
The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.
“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.
All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn’t end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?
Wait, I haven’t even got to the best part yet.
When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer – the Prius’s arch nemesis.
Take a quick look at Cars.com, I see 9 Prius with over 200,000 miles already, for sale.
Yep, the highest mileage Prius on Cars.com has 299,999k miles on it (I wonder if the add is correct). The highest mileage H2 I found on Cars.com had 233k, the only one over 200k. Still their are several Prius listed with well over 200k miles.
How is the manufacturing of a Prius different than other hybrids?
Even that same source corrected itself, the assumptions were so absurd.
That study was discredited way back in 2007:
Pacific Institute: study was based on "faulty methods of analysis, untenable assumptions, selective use and presentation of data, and a complete lack of peer review."
For starters, the report automatically penalizes the Prius by prorating all of Toyota's hybrid research-and-development costs across the relatively small number of Priuses on the road. New technologies obviously require massive upfront investment, so this puts the Prius deep in the energy hole right off the bat
The skeptical e-mails often state that Sudbury is an environmental wasteland that resembles "a surrealistic scene from the depths of hell." That assertion might have been true about three decades ago, long before the Prius
the Hummer's frame, for example, has twice as much nickel as the Prius
the report is ludicrous. It evidently was self-published, lists no authors, quotes no technical literature, never explains its methodology, and contains numerous unsupported and often bizarre assertions
Only a fool or a commentator with an ax to grind would take such nonsense seriously.
an article last spring in the Mail on Sunday, a UK paper, blaming the Prius for devastating environmental damage around a plant in Sudbury, Ontario, that processes the nickel used in Prius batteries. The story was grossly wrong; the major damage occurred more than 30 years ago, long before the Prius. Pollution has since been reduced 90 percent and the region reforested. The Mail yanked the piece off its Web site with an apology
The source APOLOGIZED for being wrong about that, yet some still wear blinders no matter what; blatant bias.
Hummer is assumed to last 35 years, and travel 379,000 miles
That is just a ridiculous assumption. Then the idea the average Prius will only last 109k or whatever is an equally ridiculous assumption.
How many people here have actually seen a vehicle with 379k miles that didn't have Peterbuilt, or KW on the hood.
I've seen one and have heard of a few. I knew a guy that drove nearly 100k year as a courier and he drove a E350 Ford Van. He got about 400k before it was just completely worn out. Oil leaks, trans slipping, among many other issues.
The Toyota Prius V didn’t hit dealerships until the final week of October, but it still managed to beat the Chevrolet Volt’s entire sales total. According to Bloomberg, Toyota moved 8,399 Prius V models in 10 weeks. The Volt sold 7,671 examples in 2011. Volt production has yet to re-start since it went idle in December, and we can only assume that Toyota is cranking out the Prius V as fast as they can.
I saw that, but the comparison isn't really relevant.
Prius V is a roomy people mover vanlet thingy, while the Volt is a 4 seat compact. Also, there's a pretty big price discrepancy.
Volt should be compared to the Leaf and iMiev. I guess you could add the plug-in Prius when that comes out, too, since it and the Volt both have dual power sources.
Remember - the first generation Prius didn't exactly light the sales charts on fire. That only happened with the 2nd generation.
I don't know if that's the same truck or not, but on 100 years of Chevy, they showed a guy with a million miles on a Silverado.
I'd guess driving a vehicle 80k is the best way to get high miles. Can't believe he still changed the oil every 3k miles. That would be every other week.
I don't know if I trust corporations to be any less corrupt than the government intertwined mess we have now, though.
Right now you have corrupt Wall Streeters & banks, not-so-moral and corrupt corporations, and a political system corrupt because its money and power is co-mingled with the others. What I'm suggesting is to lower the corruption level by returning the government to the rule-setters and enforcers, not the friends and supporters of Wall Street.
Read up on the behaviors of MLB umpires. They aren't allowed to socialize or travel with players, owners, or managers. They stay as far apart as possible, to avoid giving the perception or reality of favoritism. The teams are also not allowed to send 3rd party lobbyists over to the umpires, or to the commissioner's office. Our government should at least try to meet those standards of impartiality!
As far as foreign governments and companies go: 1) they can start paying for U.S. protection, sending us a check every year, and 2) they can play by our rules in this country, if they want to sell products here.
So certainly there is a lot wrong, and you say where do we start to fix? You can't fix it the way we try now, with the typical Dem. or Rep. The system basically needs to be scrapped, pretty much what I suggested should GM should have done during their BK window-of-opportunity. (if the UAW wasn't efficient, they should have been let go; execs cleared out, and dealers too). GM should have been completely dissolved, and restarted as a completely new entity. Or sold brand-by-brand, or factory-by-factory to other auto makers and businesses.
That price discrepancy is why I think GM should get extra subsidy to lower the price on its Volt to where it will establish more sales. It's in a different slot than the Leaf. It's different than the original Prius without the plugin capability. It needs more subsidy to help people recognize its value.
>the first generation Prius didn't exactly light the sales charts on fire.
That was this model? Where it didn't establish an identity with a different appearance. Most people didn't realize it was any different than an Echo when they saw it on the road long ago.
Yep, that's the one. That didn't stand out, and they only sold a few.
It was the Prius II that took off.
The Volt needs more time. Personally I think a $9500 total incentive where I live is right about the rational limit for an incentive. The Jetta TDI only got $750 when it was eligible, way back when, and it succeeded well enough that it's still for sale.
It needs more subsidy to help people recognize its value.
So in a general evaluation of products and services in the world, there are good values and bad values. People usually see that, and can value things correctly. Except once in a while, government gets the idea that if they support something they can create a new value-equilibrium. So then you have government enacting subsidies and laws to promote something like housing. Values become distorted, bubbles are created which is a result of artificially pumping money into something - bad, and then there's a big fallout.
If you don't like the housing example, take a look at some other government sponsored boondoggles - solar energy over the decades and the result of giving companies funds might be a good search.
If the Volt is a value, then let people judge that. Personally I don't see the value of a $40K car that is mainly built to save someone $.
Personally I think a $9500 total incentive where I live is right about the rational limit for an incentive.
As someone mentioned here before GM had $6B in profit in 2011, and things are oh so rosy. So why doesn't GM cut the cost, or provide the incentive? huh? It sounds like they can afford it.
That was this model? Where it didn't establish an identity with a different appearance. Most people didn't realize it was any different than an Echo when they saw it on the road long ago.
Gasoline had also gotten pretty cheap again, while the first-gen Prius was on the market. I remember in late 2001/early 2002, seeing gas for under $1/gal again. So, while the first-gen Prius was a noble idea, with cheap gasoline it just didn't seem worth the effort.
But then gas prices started rising. The Prius was re-done for 2004. I remember that summer, having a fit when fuel prices broke $2/gal. I saw my first $50 fuel bill when I had to fill up my '67 Catalina that year, and it gulped down 24 gallons.
Prices tapered off in the fall and winter, but in the summer of '05, they shot up to the upper $2 rang. In '06, they broke the $3/gal barrier.
So, in those later years, when the 2nd-gen Prius was out, it made a lot more sense. The 2nd gen was also better in just about every single respect. Bigger, roomier inside, faster, and more economical.
You do have a point on styling though. While, IMO, all the Priuses are kinda nerdy looking, the 2nd-gen and current Prius have sort of a nerdy sci-fi look to them, where the 1st gen was just nerdy in a bit of a dorky sort of way. :shades:
The comparison suggests how far GM is behind in hybridized vehicles. Again, they remain predominately a truck company feverishly working to regain car sales, particularly where the competition chose the correct development path.
I most definitely will be there! I like going the first weekend before the public gets a chance to trash-up the cars. The Friday before the event opens to the public, they have a black tie gala, but tickets are $200 each.
Comments
It's pretty simple stuff, just like the rules of a game. The rules should be the same for all. One team can not have an extra-player, or use steroids, if the others don't. Ban them from the game here.
Keynseyian theory AFAIK has nothing to do with a fair, economic system free of government. It does create favorites by directing money to certain businesses and industries, creates market-bubbles, and creates more opportunity for system corruption. Oh and as the last few years have shown it puts us much deeper into debt, with little benefit.
It sucked when a lot of automakers did not even show up. How much would it cost to ask a local dealer to display a few cars, at least?
That would take one Iranian missile or torpedo being fired and hitting a ship. And then the U.S. is committed to taking out the Iranian air force, missile batteries and Navy.
I don't know if I trust corporations to be any less corrupt than the government intertwined mess we have now, though.
All the money spent on automakers pales in comparison to generations of other waste. I wonder if our defective foreign policy monies had been spent to coddle GM like Toyota and Hyunkia have been coddled by their respective nations, if the company would be a leader again.
In other words, fairly likely...
Time for everyone to trade up?
We know they're looking (auto show attendance).
Yup. My point exactly. Give GM help since other competitors have had help from their governments for years, and even through the recession.
> disharmony with the environmental
I assume that would include cadmium for nickel cadmium batteries and the wasteland the mining produces?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Are we back in the 80s or something? Boy, that's a flash back.
Nickel Metal Hydride replaced those a long while ago, and newer batteries are either Lithium-ion or polymer.
Lead-acid batteries are the ones in disharmony with the environment, BTW. You could bury NiMH batteries right under your veggie garden.
NiCads, hadn't said that since...wow, since way back in college.
The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.
“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.
All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn’t end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?
Wait, I haven’t even got to the best part yet.
When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer – the Prius’s arch nemesis.
http://onemansblog.com/2007/03/27/prius-outdoes-hummer-in-environmental-damage/
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Absurdity #1:
The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles – the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.
The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles
Right away he assumes the Hummer will last 3 times (!) as long as the Prius.
Take a quick look at Cars.com, I see 9 Prius with over 200,000 miles already, for sale.
Your favorite mag {irony} CR tested a 10 year old Prius and it pretty much performed like new. So the 100,000 assumption is absolute stupidity.
Cost per mile drops by 2/3rds if you get rid of that ridiculously biased assumption.
Your link is also outdated, in fact the same source updated that info. Link coming soon.
Yep, the highest mileage Prius on Cars.com has 299,999k miles on it (I wonder if the add is correct). The highest mileage H2 I found on Cars.com had 233k, the only one over 200k. Still their are several Prius listed with well over 200k miles.
How is the manufacturing of a Prius different than other hybrids?
Here's an updated document from the same source, CNWMR:
http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/107%2008%20Models%20Cost%20Per%20Mi- le%20From%20Low%20to%20High.xls
Prius is on row 157, H2 way down on row 258.
Even that same source corrected itself, the assumptions were so absurd.
That study was discredited way back in 2007:
Pacific Institute: study was based on "faulty methods of analysis, untenable assumptions, selective use and presentation of data, and a complete lack of peer review."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/04/EDGI7Q63U01.DTL#ixzz- 1jw8dm2d4
Hummer is assumed to last 35 years, and travel 379,000 miles
SF Chronicle: "The lesson here is to beware of junk science"
There's more...
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2008/03/tank_- vs_hybrid.html
unsubstantiated bunk
For starters, the report automatically penalizes the Prius by prorating all of Toyota's hybrid research-and-development costs across the relatively small number of Priuses on the road. New technologies obviously require massive upfront investment, so this puts the Prius deep in the energy hole right off the bat
The skeptical e-mails often state that Sudbury is an environmental wasteland that resembles "a surrealistic scene from the depths of hell." That assertion might have been true about three decades ago, long before the Prius
the Hummer's frame, for example, has twice as much nickel as the Prius
lame scuttlebutt masquerading as science
Another source:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2759/are-electric-cars-really-more-ener- gy-efficient
the report is ludicrous. It evidently was self-published, lists no authors, quotes no technical literature, never explains its methodology, and contains numerous unsupported and often bizarre assertions
Only a fool or a commentator with an ax to grind would take such nonsense seriously.
an article last spring in the Mail on Sunday, a UK paper, blaming the Prius for devastating environmental damage around a plant in Sudbury, Ontario, that processes the nickel used in Prius batteries. The story was grossly wrong; the major damage occurred more than 30 years ago, long before the Prius. Pollution has since been reduced 90 percent and the region reforested. The Mail yanked the piece off its Web site with an apology
The source APOLOGIZED for being wrong about that, yet some still wear blinders no matter what; blatant bias.
Hilarious!
OOPS! :lemon:
Figures.
Don't ask for a source, just say "concede" and I can stop beating this very, very dead horse.
That is just a ridiculous assumption. Then the idea the average Prius will only last 109k or whatever is an equally ridiculous assumption.
How many people here have actually seen a vehicle with 379k miles that didn't have Peterbuilt, or KW on the hood.
I've seen one and have heard of a few. I knew a guy that drove nearly 100k year as a courier and he drove a E350 Ford Van. He got about 400k before it was just completely worn out. Oil leaks, trans slipping, among many other issues.
"Never mind!!!"
Junk science (and reporting), indeed!
I'm sure other car enthusiast club periodicals have the occasional high mileage report on a vehicle, but no where on a regular basis.
Panthers ftw! lol. :shades:
LOL
The irony of all this is that Sudbury actually went through a greening process about the time they started supplying nickel for the Prius.
http://www.ser.org/project_showcase/show_12.asp
You're welcome. That one was just too blatant to let pass.
You qualify as one of the good, neutral posters in this topic. Can't lose one of those!
Hey, juice! You going to Philly this year? I think I'm finally gonna go and should look for some company there. Who else? Lemko? Andre?.....
Remind me closer to the date.
Well, here's a Honda Accord that made it to a million miles:
Driver in Maine reaches one million miles
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/02/01/wisconsin-mans-91-silverado-set-to-hit-1-mill- - ion-miles/
The Toyota Prius V didn’t hit dealerships until the final week of October, but it still managed to beat the Chevrolet Volt’s entire sales total. According to Bloomberg, Toyota moved 8,399 Prius V models in 10 weeks. The Volt sold 7,671 examples in 2011. Volt production has yet to re-start since it went idle in December, and we can only assume that Toyota is cranking out the Prius V as fast as they can.
Regards,
OW
Prius V is a roomy people mover vanlet thingy, while the Volt is a 4 seat compact. Also, there's a pretty big price discrepancy.
Volt should be compared to the Leaf and iMiev. I guess you could add the plug-in Prius when that comes out, too, since it and the Volt both have dual power sources.
Remember - the first generation Prius didn't exactly light the sales charts on fire. That only happened with the 2nd generation.
I'd guess driving a vehicle 80k is the best way to get high miles. Can't believe he still changed the oil every 3k miles. That would be every other week.
Right now you have corrupt Wall Streeters & banks, not-so-moral and corrupt corporations, and a political system corrupt because its money and power is co-mingled with the others. What I'm suggesting is to lower the corruption level by returning the government to the rule-setters and enforcers, not the friends and supporters of Wall Street.
Read up on the behaviors of MLB umpires. They aren't allowed to socialize or travel with players, owners, or managers. They stay as far apart as possible, to avoid giving the perception or reality of favoritism. The teams are also not allowed to send 3rd party lobbyists over to the umpires, or to the commissioner's office. Our government should at least try to meet those standards of impartiality!
As far as foreign governments and companies go: 1) they can start paying for U.S. protection, sending us a check every year, and 2) they can play by our rules in this country, if they want to sell products here.
So certainly there is a lot wrong, and you say where do we start to fix? You can't fix it the way we try now, with the typical Dem. or Rep. The system basically needs to be scrapped, pretty much what I suggested should GM should have done during their BK window-of-opportunity. (if the UAW wasn't efficient, they should have been let go; execs cleared out, and dealers too). GM should have been completely dissolved, and restarted as a completely new entity. Or sold brand-by-brand, or factory-by-factory to other auto makers and businesses.
That price discrepancy is why I think GM should get extra subsidy to lower the price on its Volt to where it will establish more sales. It's in a different slot than the Leaf. It's different than the original Prius without the plugin capability. It needs more subsidy to help people recognize its value.
>the first generation Prius didn't exactly light the sales charts on fire.
That was this model? Where it didn't establish an identity with a different appearance. Most people didn't realize it was any different than an Echo when they saw it on the road long ago.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
It was the Prius II that took off.
The Volt needs more time. Personally I think a $9500 total incentive where I live is right about the rational limit for an incentive. The Jetta TDI only got $750 when it was eligible, way back when, and it succeeded well enough that it's still for sale.
So in a general evaluation of products and services in the world, there are good values and bad values. People usually see that, and can value things correctly. Except once in a while, government gets the idea that if they support something they can create a new value-equilibrium. So then you have government enacting subsidies and laws to promote something like housing. Values become distorted, bubbles are created which is a result of artificially pumping money into something - bad, and then there's a big fallout.
If you don't like the housing example, take a look at some other government sponsored boondoggles - solar energy over the decades and the result of giving companies funds might be a good search.
If the Volt is a value, then let people judge that. Personally I don't see the value of a $40K car that is mainly built to save someone $.
As someone mentioned here before GM had $6B in profit in 2011, and things are oh so rosy. So why doesn't GM cut the cost, or provide the incentive? huh? It sounds like they can afford it.
Gasoline had also gotten pretty cheap again, while the first-gen Prius was on the market. I remember in late 2001/early 2002, seeing gas for under $1/gal again. So, while the first-gen Prius was a noble idea, with cheap gasoline it just didn't seem worth the effort.
But then gas prices started rising. The Prius was re-done for 2004. I remember that summer, having a fit when fuel prices broke $2/gal. I saw my first $50 fuel bill when I had to fill up my '67 Catalina that year, and it gulped down 24 gallons.
Prices tapered off in the fall and winter, but in the summer of '05, they shot up to the upper $2 rang. In '06, they broke the $3/gal barrier.
So, in those later years, when the 2nd-gen Prius was out, it made a lot more sense. The 2nd gen was also better in just about every single respect. Bigger, roomier inside, faster, and more economical.
You do have a point on styling though. While, IMO, all the Priuses are kinda nerdy looking, the 2nd-gen and current Prius have sort of a nerdy sci-fi look to them, where the 1st gen was just nerdy in a bit of a dorky sort of way. :shades:
That's why I think it should have been a Cadillac all along.
It actually keeps getting funnier as it goes on...
Regards,
OW