[quote=equalizer][quote=flu][quote=Ren]Oil isn’t an issue. In fact, if we do run out of it, it will be at a time when it doesn’t matter. There will be no energy deficit. Hundreds of companies are pouring Billions of dollars into alternative energy and materials for everything from cars to home heating to tupperware. If you can build any substance molecule by molecule, power an engine with pure water, and store large amounts of sun/wind-produced electrical energy for years, where is the need for oil?[/quote]
I think the entire concern about oil is overblown….To bring about change, it needs to be consumer pushed. If if companies create viable altenatives, consumers aren’t going to adopt it unless it
1) at least has identical performance to the existing thing
2) it costs the same or less.
So either
1) companies need to figure out how to make these altenative “green” things as cheap as non-green and perform as well
…or
…
2) the cost of non-green things need to dramatically go up…
Companies have the ability to create 60mpg cars right now if they wanted to. Put a 2 cylinder engine, that cant go faster than 60mph, and remove a bunch of safety equipment. BUT, consumers would not buy it in the majority anyway. So what the company ends up doing is expending a bunch of resources producing “green” stuff that people don’t buy/use.
Now, I bet if all the sudden gas prices are $5-10/gallon, well then consumers will be demanding for alternative fuel products in the majority. So if we run out of gas. Great, at that point it will be prohibitively expensive, so that alternative fuels would be a viable solution at that time.
(Polution is another subject, but that’s not the point of this thread)[/quote]
It’s not a single choice between no safety and 60mpg and 60mph. Horsepower has gone up significantly in last 10-15 years in typical sedan while mileage has stayed same or even gone up! I’m sure you can pull up the stats. If gas prices go back to $5/gallon, then consumers will demand that future efficiency (over say 170HP for simple sedan) increase be transferred to mileage instead of horsepower. Knew some big guys who carpooled in Geo Metro from early 90’s with 3 cylinder engine with nearly 50mpg. Just don’t let anything hit you.
The greatest threat to auto safety besides the tyrannical DUI drivers is texting, game playing on that phone by teenagers. What we need is a tough new driving test similar to those in European countries. Flu, I bet you could come up with some ideas. What about taking written test on ipad while parallel parking? My only driving experience over there was in Madrid. Wow, that was tough cause I couldn’t figure out to put car in reverse with the manual stick. Had to stop at a gas station with someone who showed me the slider on gear that you had to pull up. He probably shaked his head, “American”. Got lost from Airport to hotel, but luckily on Sunday morning with no traffic, otherwise I would just returned to the Airport following signs![/quote]
My point with safety (perhaps I should have been more clear) was weight. Weight gain wasn’t just because of safety, but a good part of it has to do with it too.
Horsepower has gone up for two reasons. (Besides auto bragging rights on sports car/luxury, which is a separate issue), cars have packed up a lot of libs lately and in part the increase in HP was partly needed to just maintain a level of performance. The latest german sedans have curb weights around 3500lbs-… Current generation of accord weighs close to 3300 lbs (before all the bells and whistles).. Compare that to an 96 accord that weighs around 2855 lbs. And usually curb weighs do not include options that are thrown in on top of that. A lot of the cars have packed on pounds, partly due to all the safety enhancements. Partly due to all the crap they are putting in cars these days (car-tainment).
The biggest improvements car companies can/are going to be making is putting cars on a diet. Not only will it help improve gas mileage, the driving dynamics would also improve. Germans put a lot of emphasis here these days with composite materials. VAG and BMW is employing a lot of aluminum into body frame in their higher end vehicles. without compromising strength of the frame….(Problem though is repair cost of cars made from these materials is considerably higher, since it’s a lot easier to screw up the aluminum since it’s very senstive to heat/pulling/etc)…Take note because this also means cars with more aluminum in frames would probably have a higher propensity to being totalled if involved in an accident. It should be noted that the germans and ford have already been adjusting for the changes. More cars are starting to be using forced induction versus normally aspirated V8/V10’s. Most of audi’s lower end line comes only with a turbo-charged 2.0 4 cylinder. And they have been gradually replacing the V8’s with supercharged V6. Ford is revamping it’s engine lines with ecoboost v6’s to replace v8’s (ford’s fancy way of saying turbo charged)… And BMW’s employing a 3.0I6 turbo throughout their lineup…
anyway, imho we’re not ready for alternative fuels or energy yet. It’s right now just a fad and experiment that some rich people/geeks ticker with here/and there (tesla buyers, prius buyers,etc) …Until energy prices are really really expensive, there won’t be that much revolutionary breakthrough, because there is little incentive from consumers to do it.
