[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!
