its not unabomber-ish, dude. thats ****ing ted kazinsky

I understand your point, but you have to understand that it is completely different here in the states. In Europe, I agree that there are a lot of automobiles being driven around despite the really high gas/diesel prices. In Hungary, where people on average make half of what an average American makes, and pay the same amount for gas/diesel, they absolutely love their cars. However, there is also better social structuring that allow people to walk/take a bus/ride a bike/a train to schools, stores, movie theatres, bars, their friend's apartments/houses.

In the states, people of all social classes are pretty much reliant on automobiles to get anywhere. Children are able to drive by themselves at 16 because it is a necessity for them to drive to school. Supermarkets, movie theaters, bars and homes are all stretched far apart from each other, and unless you're super dedicated to tackling traffic, bad weather and multiple mile bike rides like many of us are here, you need an automobile that can get you somewhere far quickly. If you want to visit your girlfriend who lives an hour away, there are no trains to take that can get you there. Nope, you have to pony up the cash for gasoline (which is less efficient than diesel and fuels over 90% of American cars) and get going. Even in a lot of big cities, public transportation is a joke. I live in Columbus, where it takes forever for a bus to come and reach a destination. It would take me one hour by bus to get to work instead of the 15 it takes me by car or 40 by bike.

So yes, $7 gas would hurt America a lot more than it does Sweden.

but here's the thing: $7 gas is inevitable.

how do we restructure society so that we don't get screwed by it? if you don't get that the status quo is unsustainable, you are totally missing the point, as well as the significance.

And there are many many less 8mpg Ford pigs rolling around in Sweden too.

My goodness, my Guinness, I was only debating a point that was made about Swedish gas prices not affecting the driving habits of the Swedish people and how that should theoretically apply to American driving habits.

But is it? If what someone before said is true, and at $5/gallon refining mineral oil from shale and such becomes viable, we might never see $7/gallon in our lifetimes. Higher pollution, probably. And as I said, wars for water. That one I believe is pretty much inevitable.

look at it this way, if gas doesn't get to $7 a gallon because of climate change legislation, we'll have far far far more serious problems to worry about, like the water wars, like NYC being totally under water, like everyone in Africa either starving or moving to europe, like wars between china and russia, or the US and Canada over agricultural land, like total disruption of the world economy etc etc etc.

Saying that $7 gas is inevitable is me being an optimist.

I'm not sure that it would hurt America in the long term, but it would certainly change it.

I agree that the US seems to be somewhat lacking in the public transport department, but outside of the more densly populated areas we have pretty much the same situation here. My parents have 20 miles to the store, and there are no alternatives to driving. There are a few old people back in my home village that has stopped going to the doctor from fear of losing their drivers license. That's probably not good desicion when you are over eighty years old.

On the other hand, here in the city public transport works just fine. Despite that, I have colleagues that drive -- alone in their car -- 3-5 miles to work, complain when they have to walk more than 50 meters from the parking lot, and think that there must be something wrong with me or my economic situation because I ride my bike to work. Taking the bus would probably kill them, and it would be quite amusing to see their reaction the day when they finally have to restrict their driving to strictly necessary trips :-)

/s-o

The understatement of the year

won't work that way, as the price of fuel goes up so does the cost of doing everything else which puts that previously out of reach oil and minerals still out of reach, which is what oil co's are dealing with now already

what it boils down to is, can it be done with a positive return on the energy used to get it, if not, it won't be done on any sizable scale

I think it depends on the state and city.

Way back when I lived in Portland, Oregon, I had a bicycle and I bought a monthly bus pass.

With a bus pass, I could get around Portland easily and as quickly as most folks in a car...and for much less money.
If I lived in Portland today, I doubt if I would own a car.

My wife recently returned from a trip to New York City and said the subways ran on time, they appeared clean, safe and reliable; and, she saw no reason to own a car in New York City.

I just read that Canada and Venezuela have some 3.5 trillion of barrels of crude oil-worth of tar sands. And the US has about 1.9 trillion of crude oil-worth in oil shale deposits. Extraction of oil from these is expensive (a significant amount of energy is consumed during the extraction) but it will be eventually profitable. The canucks are already extracting crude oil from their tar sand fields and selling it to the USA at the pace of 1 million barrels a day!!!! which makes them the primary exporter of crude oil to the US.

the thing is, even the "small" cars have grown steadily in size to keep up in the highway arms race.

20 years ago, a honda civic weighed right about 2000lb. now the honda civic weighs about 3000lb, and yet it is still considered a "compact" car. How the **** does that add up? EVERY car has steadily gotten larger, and average fuel economy has plateaued (or maybe even dropped) in spite of better engines.

the new honda fit is almost identical in dimensions (and also fuel economy) to the civic wagon of 20 years ago, and yet it is now considered a "sub-compact" and a death trap in the presence of 3 ton suv's.

What im getting at is that we need better CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards. The technology exists (and has for a while) to make perfectly functional small cars that get great millage. Most people could drive a car 30% smaller and more efficient than what they drive right now with little to no loss of convince. But they dont because of the desire for safety, conspicuous consumption, and what the market offers and promotes (when was the last time you saw an add pushing a compact car, in comparison to all those obnoxious Hummer adds).

With better cafe standards large cars and trucks would become more expensive for the auto companies to manufacture and they would be forced to promote and build more small cars. The auto companies would still make money, we would still get to where we need to go, and everyone would be just as safe on a whole in potential accidents.

Its just that the economics has tended to larger and larger, so CAFE standards need to rein in this tendency, since the market wont do it on its own.

My car's 20 years old and weighs just over 2,000. It's funny, many times when I park somewhere, I lose it behind SUV's, full-size sedans, fat people, etc... It's got a 200,000 mile 16v engine with some light tuning and I can still get 28-35mpg.

Lighter cars made out of light-weight alloys/other materials coupled with new engine technology would yield insane mileage ratings.

I'd be willing to bet though, that the average car in Sweden is not a 5000lbs+ SUV that gets less than 20mpg on a good day.

Speaking of small cars, in Japan the government offers a lot of incentive to people to drive small cars - they even have their own government defined/controlled class, the Kei Jidoshi. The government sets the limit on engine size, and on overall exterior dimensions. The government taxes owners of these cars far less, does not require them to go through the rigorous (and extremely expensive) inspections the larger cars do, cheaper registration, they're allowed to park overnight on city streets (maybe big cars can too now? I'm not sure) and of course, they cost less initially and in upkeep.
Somehow I doubt the U.S. would ever adopt a program that makes as much sense.
I should also point out, that while the engine size of these cars has risen dramatically over the past 40 years, their fuel efficiency hasn't shown as dramatic a corresponding decrease (the engine size was allowed to be larger to compensate for emissions controls, and the exterior dimension were enlarged ever so slightly to allow for stronger, safer, bumpers,etc.)
The bottom line is though, that consumers will always opt for the most they can afford (or even what is beyond what they can afford, usually) and auto makers make a lot more per unit sold on big cars than on small cars.

It wont even take fancy materials or technology, just good design and the will to do it. The key is in making cars smaller while still retaining as much possible of a larger car's functionality. Better space management etc.

If a 5 passenger car could get 40 mpg 20 years ago, why cant one get 40+ mpg today?

These car companies act like they have found the holly grail making 25 mpg suv's and hybrid trucks, when they could be churning out 45 mpg compacts using decades old technology in their sleep.

You know that's far from the average car in America too, right?

god damn, this thread must be heaven for some 13 year old writing a report on gas prices

Oh,sorry. I should have said 4200lbs and 27mpg. Of course those figures are for CARS and do not include SUVS because everybody knows SUVS are not CARS, and therefore do not figure into averages.

There are many things wrong with measuring these things as "averages," but in any event, Sweden has the worst auto pollution in the EU. As I understand it, the most popular cars in Sweden are Volvo and Saab, neither of which is known for making fuel-efficiency a high priority.

Worst auto pollution in the EU - must be Greece. Greece is overall one of the most polluted countries in the world, not just air, but rivers and land. Only the chinese metropoles beat the hellenics.

Sure you can get around without a car in NYC, but there are also places that are much easier to travel to by car. And yes, our train/bus system is not without faults, but it's extensive.

You'd be surprised at how many people in Manhattan have never left the island or traveled to other parts of downstate NY.

With that said, I'd still be driving my car if gas went up to $7 a gallon. My time with my family is much more important than saving a few bucks and commuting an extra hour to work because I didn't want to drive.

Just for fun, the average SUV as of 2004 weighed over 4700lbs. And currently, the average SUV apparently gets less than 21mpg... (could not figure out if that figure is for all SUVs sold in America, or only SUVs made in America)

Why worry about the extra hour to work BTW? What's the big hurry?

"The tiny 2007 Honda Fit just received a 5-Star crash rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is their highest rating. This is great news, because it shows you don't have to drive a huge behemoth in order to have a safe car."

https://blogs.edmunds.com/Straightline/1038

I bought a 1987 Honda Civic Wagon, new.
Great car, possibly the best car our family has ever owned.
We got 30mpg in town and 35mpg on the highway.
The new Fit gets 33 and 38.

When I say I have attended over 1000 fatal automobile accidents in the past 24 years, consider that a conservative figure.

Airbags have made the biggest difference.
A huge difference.

However, even airbags won't protect passenger vehicle cars from SUV's and Pickup Trucks with separate girder frames and a higher impact zone.

Yes, weight gives some advantage to the heavier vehicle.

However, if all vehicles weighed 1650GVW, they wouldn't bring as much energy to the accident as SUV's and Pickup Trucks do.

Energy...force...mass times velocity.

Reduce one or both, and the injuries and fatalities will go down all out of proportion to expectations.

AND, fuel efficiency will go through the ceiling.

my first car back in highschool was a '91 civic hatchback. Probably one of the most practical and effective cars ever made in terms of doing more with less metal. I just shake my head when i see what it has bloated into now.

if you wanted a car that was fast and sexy and said "i've arived," look elswhere, but if you just wanted to get you and 3 friends or a hatch full of stuff from A to B (which is all you realy need a car for) it was perfect.

its good to hear that the Fit is such a safe car, but public perception has long been that small=dangerous and dorky. Hopefully the high gas prices will make people more receptive to small cars like it did back in the early 80's. but i have the feeling some people would almost starve before giving up their gas guzzlers.