Americans are getting screwed.

Have a look at this puppy. 0 to 60 in 4 seconds. The cost, well around 100K. There is one in Kirkland. I saw it the night they unloaded it. http://www.commutercars.com/
Coporate Hquarters is in Spokane, WA

 

for 100k you could get a Tesla and it doesn't look ridiculous like those things.

http://www.teslamotors.com/

 

True about the looks. But in places like I understand California does you can drive them between the lanes like they let motorcycles do. Driving between traffic lanes, right down the striped line between vehicles, is not allowed in Washington state but motorcycles can ride side by side in one lane here.
The one I saw was really narrow, no sound to speak of either. It was the T600. Ideas abound for innovative autos.

 

I have heard that a hybrid prius is twice as harmful to earth as a BMW M3 in the whole scheme of things. For the batteries them mine the nicke in Canada, ship it to Europe to be processed, then to China to be manufactured, then to the U.S.A. Eco-Freindly my butt.

 

This "theory" that hybrids are worse than regular cars is bullshit propaganda. So the Nickel is mined. Hmmm. really no different than the iron ore used to make steel, the oil to make plastic, and the lead to make batteries in "normal" cars. Besides, Toyota pays you $600 for the old battery because they're too expensive to throw away. They get recycled.

 

But the iron doesn't get shipped round the world to get processed.

 

What do you suppose they use to generate the heat needed to melt down the lead in the Prius batteries? Fossil fuels????

 

Exactly. The "batteries are bad" argument is a red herring. The batteries used in hybrids are completely recyclable.

 

Yes, Iron gets shipped around the world. In fact, China is the biggest producer of steel and the biggest supplier of scrap steel to China is the US. So again- no different between a hybrid and a regular car. I know just how much people hate hybrids, but they're really not all that crazy. Just an engine with a motor mounted inside a transaxle with a 200 pound battery stuck under the back seat. lastly, something like less than 2% of all Prius batteries have needed replacement, and that's after 10 years of them being on the road. So we're not talking gobbs and gobbs of batteries here anyway.

 

As long as the EPA and the rest of the Federal Government think that CO2 is the end of all good things, diesels will not be accepted in the United States. Diesels are inherently cleaner (when biodiesel and NOX after treatment is used) with the exception of CO2 emissions. California's CARB board has convinced the United States government that CO2 is the devil of the air.


...doesn't photosynthesis require carbon dioxide?

 

But is the body of the Prius steel? I understand that steel is not great for the enviornment. If the Prius is made of steel it is'nt that different than a regular car. Just has a massive toxic battery in the back seat.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9JiE5pVIWg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-0ZhlgrCyI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44jihf6ypQE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laVJpWCxJYY&feature=related

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmxUsGiGp3w

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnxwCcVwXfc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVxdK36_PE0&feature=related

 

You think that's getting screwed? Wait til you realize that you pay income tax on your wages, then you pay highway use and/or sales tax when you buy your truck, then you pay property tax every year you own your truck, and if you sell it, you have to pay a capital gains tax.

Remember when they had that good ol' revolution back in the 1700s because of double taxation?

I spec the founding fathers would spin in their graves if they knew about the US of the last 40 odd years.

Wait, am I off topic?

 

Plain and simple. We don't have more diesel options because people don't want them. You can make them cheap and clean but Americans think they are smelly and noisy. Or else all the jettas you see would be diesels.

 

If you're gonna go that route....then you've gotta dig deeper than that.

Then look inside your home. Look at how many things you own, things you use, things you depend on every day. I'll bet the cell phone and computers you work with on a daily basis are far more harmful. How many computers are in the landfills?

You can sit there and complain about hybrids but you don't have any issues with using your computer everyday?? How much fossil fuels does it take to put computers on the market (from developement to your home)?

The world has gotta start somewhere...and hybrids (and the processes to develope them) are only the beginning. I wouldn't complain about the hybrids until you realize just how NON-GREEN you really are!

 

There is a lot of truth here. When people think of "fuel economy" they don't think diesel...they think hybrid.

 

I understand that everything you has an impact, but I just wanted to compare hybrid to a traditional vehicle. I'm not sure I want to dig into how much a computer and those things do, might be a little scary.