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Technology Stocks : Orbital Engine (OE) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dr Mike who wrote (4544)	10/28/2000 9:36:29 PM
From: EUGENETUCK	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4908

When you guys get tired of arguing about SUV's, I'll be happy to argue about the Social Security surplus. I drive an Astro van.....bigger than most SUV's, more versatile, and better gas mileage than most. I get 20 real miles per gallon for my type of driving.....but city drivers probably get about 17. I won't drive a small car again at my age for purely selfish reasons....the safety factor. I figure I've paid my dues by now by driving Volkswagens, etc, for many years. And I also try to do my part by recycling just about every type of material possible....and by low consumption of electricity and materials. By the way, I've been through two 50 mph full-panic evasive maneuvers and the van handled great. I was able to avoid hitting cars that pulled into my path with all four wheels maintaining contact with the pavement and no skid.

To: Dr Mike who wrote (4544)	10/29/2000 1:03:35 AM
From: Maverick	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4908

We've got to do some legitimate OE links: State of CA will only buy ULEV's and SULEV's: gaea.calstart.org Global warming even worse than thought: msnbc.com Honda covering all bets: auto.com Siemens too: biz.yahoo.com How to fuel America: msnbc.com Good editorial: auto.com Delphi: biz.yahoo.com biz.yahoo.com biz.yahoo.com biz.yahoo.com Dr. Mike: Dateline did scam people on the pickup truck fiasco. And I agree, it permanently tarnishes their credibility, particularly in issues of automobile safety. However, the program did a good job of demonstrating how easy it is to flip an SUV. And how adding passengers makes it even worse. And they were able to get credible experts to admit that the SUV's don't deserve the reputation for safety that they have. People ARE NOT universally better off in a larger vehicle. It's much more complicated than that. And it is still physics. The single vehicle statistics tell the story. And they emulate the crash testing you often see tapes of. A vehicle's safety performance is a complex balance of "crush zones", both the structure of the vehicle and the actual interior components. Vehicles designed with particular care for these, such as Volvo, can demonstrate superior safety performance. Most SUV's are not built with such concerns, instead optimized to tolerate loads, transverse rough terrain, and tow heavy trailers. When you drive both into the crash test barrier, the test dummies suffer less damage in the cars than the SUV's. But what about the multi vehicle accidents showing the opposite as you cited? Here's the kicker. The heavy SUV is using the smaller, lighter vehicle as it's "crush zone". Which is what angers me most. Run the SUV's into something immobile, and the occupants would be better off in a smaller, lighter vehicle. Occupants will be injured worse when two SUV's collide than when two cars collide. Only when the SUV bullies the car does it sometimes do better. Put that together with the fact that it pollutes much more and guzzles fuel, and you've got an all around loser. If you use your SUV to tow a heavy trailer load or drive well off-road, that's a legitimate use. But probably 90% of them aren't. The answer to this problem? Treat all vehicles as cars. Same emissions laws, average them into CAFE, and subject them to auto crash requirements. What will happen? Emissions laws will slightly increase price (go OE), CAFE will drive the price up wildly as manufacturers have to increase prices to discourage purchases (or use revenue to pay CAFE fines), and what about the crash standards? Totally redesign them, which the new Acura is the first step towards (it's bumper heights match those of a car). Leave it to Honda to be first to head this direction.... By the way, if you won't watch Dateline, don't watch "60 Minutes" either. The Audi "unintended acceleration" fiasco that almost drove Audi out of the USA was a total scam too. People were putting their foot on the gas, not the brake. Any car's brakes can overcome it's acceleration from a dead stop. Note this was only claimed to have happened on Audi's with automatic transmissions (again, I'm not big on coincidences). Why did people confuse the pedals? They weren't used to import cars where the pedals were being placed close together to permit "heel and toe" driving. Leave it to dumb Americans to screw up driving. Until American's starting bitching, you didn't see cup holders in Porsche's....