cwerdna
Well-known member
The Honda SUV isn't a BRoD though. IIRC, they don't make anything quite in that class.DaveinOlyWA said:no matter what you call them, cwerdna is right. I know too many people who are complaining right now that their gas bill has gone up $100 a month (they are paying $500 so not really a large percentage jump) driving a Honda SUV (gets about 22-23) and a Ford 4X4 pickup (gets about 17 or so he says...) but these were BOTH cars bought last year when gas was nearing $3.15 a gallon.
But they got the cars because gas had just come down from $4 and all of a sudden they felt they had an extra $100 a month! (how does that logic work???)
But, sigh... that is crazy "logic".
As a magazine column I read put it: Americans complain and also want fuel economy standards raised (e.g. to "54.5 (CAFE) mpg" (aka ~37 mpg combined on the window sticker)) when they don't need to wait to 2025 or whenever for that "54.5 mpg" and instead can go and buy more efficient vehicles now. The (current) Gen 3 Prius counts as having over "70 mpg" for CAFE purposes. The Gen 2 (04 to 09) Prius IIRC counted as having over "64 mpg" for CAFE purposes.
Yes, but not all SUVs are battering rams of death. I wouldn't lump small (e.g. Escape, CR-V) and medium sized (e.g. Highlander, Explorer, Lexus RX) ones into that category. BRoD to me == full-sized ones w/curb weights of 5200+ lbs (e.g. Tahoe, Yukon, Suburban, Escalade, Expedition, Navgiator, Sequoia, etc.) The uber-monstrosities would include 6400+ lb. beasts like the Hummer H2, Excursion (aka Ford Exxon Valdez), Hummer H1, etc.edatoakrun said:No need to use a pejorative.DNAinaGoodWay said:Battering Rams of Death
The correct designation is SUV.
Slow Ugly Vehicle.
From the above piece I linked to:
The Sierra Club awarded Ford Motor Company the "Exxon Valdez Award" for environmental destruction to recognize Ford's newest sport-utility vehicle (SUV), the Excursion. The Excursion is a four-ton "super duty" sport utility vehicle that guzzles enough gas to make Saddam Hussein smile. At a time of mounting concern over global warming, air pollution, and oil exploration in fragile wilderness areas, this gas-guzzling SUV is a rolling monument to environmental destruction.
The nine-passenger Excursion is a suburban supertanker, stretching more than 19 feet in length and slurping one gallon of gasoline for every 12 miles it travels. This "suburban assault vehicle" spews as much global warming pollution into the air as two average cars.
"The Excursion guzzles gas and pollutes the air," said Daniel Becker, Director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program. "It's basically a garbage truck that dumps its pollution into the sky."
The Excursion is so large that it won't be classified as a "light vehicle," the category for normal-sized cars, trucks and SUVs. ...
Vehicles like the Hummer H1, H2 and Excursion are not considered "light trucks" (because their GVWR was over 8500 lbs) and thus were exempt from fuel economy testing and hurting GM's and Ford's CAFE numbers.
Yep.klapauzius said:It seems that money, like gas, comes from some mysterious, infinite reservoir, and its dispensation is not related to real world factors such as IQ, availability or environment.
Yeah, if you or anyone end up in my neck of the woods (South Bay), you should come sit in the parking lot of a local Safeway and just count the insane # of BRoD-class SUVs that come and go. And, when you look inside, almost every single one of them is being driven solo or w/minimal cargo and passengers. Gee... a small woman driving alone really needs to be driving a Ford Expedition EL (extended length) or a Yukon XL/Suburban. :roll:
Examples of such vehicles if you don't look carefully at the badges:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:01-06_GMC_Yukon_XL_Denali.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:07-Ford-Expedition-EL.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Yep. My mother is an example of one making up excuses. Other than she is horrible w/technology (and thus she'd find the Leaf SV's and beyond telematics complex), she'd be the perfect candidate for a Leaf or EV w/similar range. She basically refuses to drive on the freeway ("too fast", "makes her dizzy") and almost all of her trips are short. But, she doesn't need a new car. Her 07 Altima Hybrid (bought as a leftover in early 08) is totally fine.johnrhansen said:I've become a big EV advocate at my place of work. I've noticed that people go out of their way to tell me I should have bought a ICE powered car, or how that an electric car will not work for them, and other ways of trying to prove to me how silly of an idea an electric car is. There is lots of resistance to the idea of an EV in mainstream america, most of it not based on logic at all. Not really sure people are going to adopt it into the mainstream until they have to.
I've heard her make statements along the lines of the range isn't enough, it'd be "scary" to have so little range, that one has to keep "worrying" about range, etc. I need to run some of what I her trip lengths are. For a typical trip that she might do say from home, to where I live, to a relative's house and then back home, it's less than 16 miles total! None of it is highway.
Sometimes she heads to some Asian supermarket in Cupertino. If she added that into the above trip, it's still only 40 miles total.