The SUV is Dead, R.I.P.

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Originally Posted By: Kestas
After paying $45K for a vehicle, one would think that gas is a minor concern. Selling it just to save gas was a penny-wise, pound-foolish thing to do. It shows how some people were emotionally affected by the gas prices this last summer. Ourfamo4, do you think it was a wise decision for talking your MIL into taking this kind of loss? How much is she saving in gas? Too bad she couldn't fall in love with the Mazda 5 earlier.


It is not about short term change in habits. It requires one to sit down and understand their long term priorities (like this woman who dumped her Denali for 7K, I cannot shed a tear for her, she chose to polute the env with her lousy choice, fyi, most americans make stupid auto buying habits, she isn't any better). If the short term priorities are to fill up 40-60G every week so be it w/o having to save for hard times or much worse not saving for kids education etc. These are the folks who end up on welfare and straining the system... Everyone has to look beyond today..

Kestas: Your argument of folks getting emotional about oil prices is downright stupid. Everyone needs to get into the habit of conserving and knowing what to buy for the basic needs to go from point A to point B. SUVs are going to the tubes and it is paramount that Congress put hard MPG stds for the next decade vs sleeping the beds of the auto companies...
 
No, I don't think what I said was stupid. It was more like she made two bad decisions in a row. She may have made a bad decision to buy the Denali in the first place. But to dump a supposedly otherwise good expensive vehicle because of high gas prices - again - is penny-wise and pound-foolish. I agree that people should take responsibility for not wasting our resources and their pocketbook, unless they can afford it.

Spending $45K on a vehicle is not basic needs to go from Point A to Point B. Instead it shows a conspicuous use of her money and our resources. If she's rich, she has every right to spend her money any way she want to use our resources, and she made a poor decision to sell an opulent vehicle at a loss to gain very little in gas savings. If she's barely managing her finances, then she made a poor decision when buying the Denali. Either way, the decision was poor and probably based on emotions.

Why should Congress get on the backs of auto companies to meet CAFE? You can't mandate demand. We went through this in the 70s-80s. The auto companies will build vehicles that people want and what makes them a profit. Why would you fault that? Why don't they get on the backs of the buying public who've bought SUVs for the past two decades? Wait... I see... the auto companies are an easier target than to ask people to take responsibility for themselves and our geopolitical underdog position in the oil market.
 
SUV's were promoted since they were the easiest way to profits and public acceptance was unlimited. Your paycheck, in terms of payments, typically dictated how BIG (perhaps fast, perhaps luxurious) a vehicle you got.



We've got a personal transportation culture. A vehicle isn't a mode of transportation. It's an extension of your self image/ego. How many SUV owners could make due with a minivan, but shun it for the image of being some "domesticated" herd member.

People "mature" along their personal lines of "finding an identity" in the vehicle that they drive. Virtually none will surrender to sensibility of utilitarian needs ..but more emotional needs.

Kestas is correct.
 
Originally Posted By: Kestas
...

Why should Congress get on the backs of auto companies to meet CAFE? You can't mandate demand. We went through this in the 70s-80s. The auto companies will build vehicles that people want and what makes them a profit. Why would you fault that? ...


I agree with much of what Kestas said, except for this, because it loads up shared responsibility in one place, when it should be in several others as well. What those who take this position overlook (whether consciously or unconsciously) is that in large part, the US car makers manufactured this demand, and then fed it steroids for years through spending untold billions of dollars advertising these mastadons. "Like a rock...", "Built Ford tough...", "...Ram...". All that sound familiar? For decades, the US makers (and now Toyota and Nissan) have inundated the airwaves and cables with romantic images of cowboys, muddy construction tough guys, heavy equipment movers, and so forth, all with the idea of selling the pickups to suburban guys, and their SUV cousins to Mrs. suburbanite.

The American consumers who gobbled these things up by the bazillions didn't just awaken one day and say, "hey, I want a giant, wasteful pickup." They were groomed and brainwashed for more than twenty years.

These buyers are going to suffer their losses, so they will suffer the consequences. That said, I see no problem with applying appropriate pressure to the automakers to "redirect" them, since apparently, not even the threat of predictable economic disaster is enough to keep them from wrecking themselves out of submission to short-term impulse greed.
cheers3.gif
 
Personally, I think CAFE is a great idea (if it includes land yachts as well).

Nobody is telling them how to meet the target, just that they have to meet one.

If they choose to sell a 2MPG Gas turbine powered vehicle to a niche market, then make an attractive econobox that people want.
 
Okay, then where do we stop? Should we mandate that a family of four will live in nothing larger than 1300 sq ft?... should we mandate that a family of four have only so many BTUs of heating energy for the winter?... ration gasoline? It's all for the same end.

Cars are too easy of a target for Congress. Again, we're asking for Congress to go on a witch hunt to absolve ourselves of our horrible personal habits. Instead, we should be looking in the mirror to find who's at fault.

The automakers advertise just like any other corporation. Again, you're putting the blame on the "horrible greedy automakers" when it really falls squarely on the shoulders of the undisciplined masses who act like sheep. They can choose to ignore advertising. I have. Answers like "Well, the guy on the television told me to do it" just doesn't cut it in my book.
 
Quote:
"almost 200,000 people's jobs in the UK depend on car manufacturing and already we've seen cutbacks in production in August. I know the figures in September are even worse, so it won't be long before we see lay-offs. We have to be very careful. The vote today makes lay-offs, a loss of jobs more likely, there's no question".

Why? I ask him.

"Because manufacturers are making less money from smaller cars, many of them are imported into the EU and of course this is forcing manufacturers to produce smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, but making consumers buy them is the other side of the equation. And of course if people keep their older, more polluting cars on the roads for longer nobody gains, we loose jobs and the environment suffers as well."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2008/09/blow_to_carmakers.html
 
Gary Allen: mini-vans are as bad, if not worse, than SUVS.

MaximaGuy: overdosed on socialist kool-aid

Unless you know the personal financial position of that woman, how can you state factually she has not saved for her kid's education or that she is otherwise in the financial poorhouse?

I find it interesting (and nauseating) that the politically correct crew seem to focus solely on SUVs. There are a TON of other makes/models that have poor gas mileage, not just SUVS.

Obnoxious minivans should be held to the same fuel efficiency standards as four-cylinder Civics. I see very few four banger mini-vans on the road. Most are Siennas and Odysseys, most loaded to the hilt ($35,000+), most taking up as much room as an SUV on the roads and in parking spaces, and most are driven by the proverbial soccer Mom, ALONE, headed to the local health club. I know, "it's for the children!"

Quit the politically correct [censored] and target the mini-vans and huge non-diesel pickups.

Once you eliminate the SUVS (you won't), what's next on your list?
 
I have just as much space in my full-size car as most SUV owners probably have. Not to mention it's every bit as quick, has the same amount of leg/foot/headroom (probably more), is easy to get into and out of, and gets 20 mpg in town. That's better than what many SUV's get on the highway, where my car can knock down low 30's without breaking a sweat.

We need tighter CAFE standards. Obviously the automakers won't spontaneously start making vehicles with better fuel economy. They want the easy money just like we all do. Sometimes we as a society need to tell other people what to do to better society. Reducing mobile sources of pollution is a good way to start, and an effective one. The average American drives like a foot-to-the-floor zombie, mashing either of their two pedals seemingly all the time. So they need vehicles that get better efficiency for the way they drive.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Personally, I think CAFE is a great idea (if it includes land yachts as well).


I don’t think it is possible for me to vehemently disagree more. CAFE is a response of lame duck politicians to p-foot around the issue. The issue is American consume too much oil. TAX THE FUEL to curb demand. CAFE puts the burden on manufacturers to get consumers to buy something they don’t want to buy. Change consumers minds instead and they will buy what is good and the manufacturers will get a clear signal in what they need to build. If gas was $4/gal 10 years ago, the automakers would not be up this creek without a paddle.
 
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Originally Posted By: sciphi
... We need tighter CAFE standards. Obviously the automakers won't spontaneously start making vehicles with better fuel economy. They want the easy money just like we all do. Sometimes we as a society need to tell other people what to do to better society. Reducing mobile sources of pollution is a good way to start, and an effective one. The average American drives like a foot-to-the-floor zombie, mashing either of their two pedals seemingly all the time. So they need vehicles that get better efficiency for the way they drive.

How will tighter CAFE standards appease the foot-to-the-floor zombie? You talk as though somehow the automakers will magically transform their vehicle lineup into fuel-sipping pieces of machinery with no perceptible change in the package. This will take a lot of money to accomplish. You can't run a company without expecting a return on your investment. These new CAFE rules will cost the public dearly in the form of more expensive cars.

There are only three ways to make cars more fuel efficient... make them smaller, make them slower, or throw more money into the technology, which will make the cars more expensive. Take your pick. There's no free lunch here.
 
Originally Posted By: XCELERATIONRULES
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: XCELERATIONRULES
Am I the only one without short man syndrome?
I never needed a big fat suv,and never saw more than one person driving/traveling in one.
Mostly for fat folks.
lol


I grew up with big cars (we've never owned a Japanese vehicle except for my wife briefly owning a Mazda Precidia) and I LIKE big cars and trucks. I have three young children, I have a vehement hatred for vans, and so something larger, like an Excursion or Expedition seems to be a good choice, as my wife really likes them too. But the Excursion has a diesel, and a better towing capacity, and given the prices right now, it seems to be the better choice.

I used to own an Explorer, and I cannot picture trying to cram three kids into the back seat of that for long trips.

It's crazy I know, but there are people out there who just hate small cars. I drove my good friend's Corolla back from Kitchener yesterday (a three hour drive) and I developed a rather strong dislike for the car during that trip. Different strokes for different folks I guess.


I've never seen a family exit a suv.
Usually one woman and a bag of shoes.
LOL


That's really unfortunate. My parents started off with station wagons when they had us. We had an old Chevy Caprice wagon, which was replaced by an Olds wagon with a 307.

There are six of us total (four kids), so finding a vehicle that fit us all COMFORTABLY was an issue. The wagon with it's three rows of seating did this reasonably well.

When the SUV craze took off, the olds was given to me for a vehicle, and my mom purchased a 1998 (new) Expedition Eddie Bauer with the 5.4L. It was a great vehicle, but had towing gears, and sucked fuel like there was no tomorrow. Two years later, it was replaced with a 2000 with "fuel economy" gears (3.55's) and it did in fact get a lot better mileage. Both Expeditions were great for piling us all into and taking off to another province, which we used to do quite regularly. We are one of those families that used to take the station wagon cross-country for summer break. The wagon was just eventually replaced by the Expedition.

I bought my Explorer near the end of '98 (it was a '97) and drove it until 2002, at which point my dad bought it from me for my sister, who continues to drive it.

So, getting a large SUV to use as a family vehicle to me makes sense. For a single person who has no real use for one... Yeah, that's a waste.
 
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Originally Posted By: Kestas

There are only three ways to make cars more fuel efficient... make them smaller, make them slower, or throw more money into the technology, which will make the cars more expensive. Take your pick. There's no free lunch here.


All the above ways will make consumption of oil less and also keep gas prices at levels which will make business grow and keep money in the pockets of middle class families which will come to use in the future. Conserving is not socialism, it is common sense. Conserving results in many goods that trickle down to common households.

The most best way to get sensible vehicles on the roads is for the oil and auto manufactures to stop bribing the folks in congress and setting tough stds (we set a target to send a person to moon and got it done in 10yrs flat, we set a target today for tough MPG stds, we will get there in 20yrs, but we need to start and not complain about the Arabs).

The bribes taken by congress in the developed world is called "campaign finacing funds", it the third world it is called "corruption".
 
Conserving?

How do you conserve with a 556-hp Cadillac CTS-V? (I want one of those).

How do you conserve with Ford's new F150? Or Subaru's Impreza WRX Sti that AutoWeek managed to squeeze 17.8 mpg out of? Or the less than fuel efficient Mazda Rx-8s? Or the new line of Ram pickups from Dodge?

Notice I still ain't named an SUV, yet?

In reality, SUVS aren't the problem, they're just YOUR problem.

Try focusing on reducing consumption by eliminating the millions of vehicles each day that are commuting on our nation's roadways with just ONE person in most of those vehicles. That would seem to be a logical, low cost approach to decreasing gasoline usage.

While I loathe the exterior styling of the Prius, I gotta admit I like the hybrid technology and the resulting mpg. But with gasoline at $1.99 per gallon in my neighborhood, the incentive to rush into hybird technology as a new car buyer just diminished.
 
Quote:
Gary Allen: mini-vans are as bad, if not worse, than SUVS.


How so? I think that a minivan can do the family truckster thing as cheaply as it can be done. Much cheaper than an Explore, Expedition, Excursion, ..Suburban. 7-8 people and/or all the luggage?? Hard to beat with good penetration into the mid-20's in fuel economy.

Now if you're going to load your minivan up with AWD ..the bigger engine ..all the appointments ...blah-blah-blah ..then you can get a real pig ..and there are some minivan offerings that aren't economical at all.

That doesn't mean that you can't play soccer parent with a much more economical vehicle instead of an SUV.
 
Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
Quote:
Gary Allen: mini-vans are as bad, if not worse, than SUVS.


How so? I think that a minivan can do the family truckster thing as cheaply as it can be done. Much cheaper than an Explore, Expedition, Excursion, ..Suburban. 7-8 people and/or all the luggage?? Hard to beat with good penetration into the mid-20's in fuel economy.

Now if you're going to load your minivan up with AWD ..the bigger engine ..all the appointments ...blah-blah-blah ..then you can get a real pig ..and there are some minivan offerings that aren't economical at all.

That doesn't mean that you can't play soccer parent with a much more economical vehicle instead of an SUV.


But you can't tow the 'ol family yacht with one
wink.gif
hehe!

SUV's can perform duties that an van cannot. Unfortunately, a great percentage of them are never exercised in that manner.
 
Originally Posted By: Duffman77
I don’t think it is possible for me to vehemently disagree more. CAFE is a response of lame duck politicians to p-foot around the issue. The issue is American consume too much oil. TAX THE FUEL to curb demand. CAFE puts the burden on manufacturers to get consumers to buy something they don’t want to buy. Change consumers minds instead and they will buy what is good and the manufacturers will get a clear signal in what they need to build. If gas was $4/gal 10 years ago, the automakers would not be up this creek without a paddle.


Duffman, I agree with you part way...fuel taxes will drive up demand for more efficient cars, and is one way to achieve a goal.

Problem is that the semis that deliver my groceries, carry my tools and equipment to site when having a shut-down etc. sup from the same bowsers as me.

Double my fuel bills, and I'll try to find a way to curb them. Double their fuel bills, and it rolls all the way through the economy.

CAFE is by no means perfect (and Kestas is correct in his "build things that people don't want"), but I think a better answer than outright fuel taxes.

Could you have two taxes, one for "business", and the other for the regular consumer ?
 
Hi,
Shannow - You mention semis.

When I first came to live in OZ about 1978 the "fleet average" for semis was less than 5mpg (Imp) and the GVM was 36t. Today in OZ the "fleet average" is about 5.5mpg (Imp) and the GVM 42t.

We have come a long way in thirty years - it has been via engine-drive line technologies, better aerodynamics and the almost universal use of radial tyres as the major points
Vehicle speed and sizes are now about optimised for our public road system with triple Road Trains at the top on highways (quads plus, off road of course)

We have very little else we can improve on in Trucking except auto transmissions and better Driver education

And yes every on-cost in Road Transport has a negative result in the wider economy
 
Taxing gas differently than diesel can work here. The EPA assures that diesels offer no advantage in cost in passenger cars and assure that they're not a large part of the market.
 
Originally Posted By: Kestas
Okay, then where do we stop? Should we mandate that a family of four will live in nothing larger than 1300 sq ft?... should we mandate that a family of four have only so many BTUs of heating energy for the winter?... ration gasoline? It's all for the same end.

Cars are too easy of a target for Congress. Again, we're asking for Congress to go on a witch hunt to absolve ourselves of our horrible personal habits. Instead, we should be looking in the mirror to find who's at fault.

The automakers advertise just like any other corporation. Again, you're putting the blame on the "horrible greedy automakers" when it really falls squarely on the shoulders of the undisciplined masses who act like sheep. They can choose to ignore advertising. I have. Answers like "Well, the guy on the television told me to do it" just doesn't cut it in my book.
The government has someone working on it I am sure. The guy on TV did tell me to do it.
 
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