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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alastair McIntosh who wrote (111608)	5/21/2009 4:23:32 PM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541402

The car companies can achieve the goals any way they like, through weight, technology, whatever. They'll probably look for the path that appeals most to the market, so if they reduce the car size, the safety standards will have to be the same or higher to compensate in terms of image. It's curious that people are so exercised by something that affects a relatively small number of people compared to something like hospital error deaths or several other causes of death or injury I could name. The aggregate benefit of cutting our national oil consumption has to be weighed against other costs. It's no different than the calculus we make with gun laws, speed limits, etc.

To: Alastair McIntosh who wrote (111608)	5/22/2009 7:02:48 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541402

Congress should require that the fuel standard not be achieved by simply reducing the size and/or weight of cars, but through technology improvements. I have been looking at new cars recently thinking that there might be a bargain to be had. In the course of that, I noticed that the estimated gas mileage on all the cars I looked at was down from the last time I shopped. I have an Accord sedan right now. My car, an ’06, was rated at 24/34. I got 35 on the drive to and from Tucson last year. Well, it turns out that the new version of my car is estimated at only 21/30, which struck me as a serious step in the wrong direction. The '97 Acura RL I had prior to the Accord was rated at 19/25. The new one is 16/24. That pattern held on all the cars I checked (including the Infiniti, Dale), so I went looking for a reason. I didn't find anything directly on point but I did find a comment at mpgomatic.com that cars have been increasing in weight. Didn't say why. Maybe people just want heavier cars. Or maybe all that new technology is heavy.

To: Alastair McIntosh who wrote (111608)	5/26/2009 2:37:54 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541402

If you don't know if its possible, I don't know why you say congress should require it. Perhaps "look in to it", but calling for requiring something that may be impossible doesn't sound like a good idea to me. The real issue isn't whether its possible to make cars get higher gas mileage without making them smaller. It is possible to do so. The issue is whether you can get big increases in gas mileage without shrinking cars, making them underpowered, too expensive, or otherwise unacceptable to the buying public. If higher gas mileage was an issue without trade offs it already would have happened.