Originally posted by: TuffGuy
AmigaMan, Excelsior, exdeath - Man, you guys have issues. If I'm anti-SUV than I'm automatically a tree humping eco-mentalist. :roll: And since I drive what I drive, I can't afford to pay more for gas or buy an SUV. :roll: I bought my car to learn how to drive stick before the Evo X comes out. I can probably afford to buy both your cars outright if I so desired.
Seriously, are you guys trying to argue that SUVs are as emissions friendly as regular sedans? And that millions of SUVs wasting millions of gallons of gas have absolutely no effect on either the cost of gas or on pollution?
Yes actually they are just as emissions friendly. They may consume more fuel to make more horsepower to move a larger mass and emit a larger quantity of emissions, but those emissions are just as clean as a Civic hybrid. So while the volume of consumed fuel and resultant exhaust may be higher, it is of no worse quality (research stoichiometrics).
As for quantity, well there are more people who can afford Civics than can afford high performance vehicles which means there are more of them. In fact there are people that wouldn?t even afford to have a car at all if it wasn?t for cheap small cars. So while it make take 2 Civics to equal the volume output of 1 SUV, there are probably 4 times as many civics on the road which means Civics are twice as responsible for ?greenhouse gasses.?
(numbers above are for illustrative purposes only)
Also I've heard the stories about how heavy SUVs are destroying our roads? Are they talking about the highways that are routinely traveled by 1000+ ton (?) 18 wheel semis? Or the city streets built in the 60s and 70s at a time when large all steel American cars weighed 3,000 lbs minimum? Hmm...
Quick trivia: In some instances increasing horsepower also increases fuel efficiency at the same time! *shock* Many stock engine control computers use aggresively rich air/fuel mixtures as a margin of safety to prevent knocking and lean conditions under periods of high load and acceleration. Tunning AF ratios to the specifics of a particular engine and leaning it out a bit not only increases your power output (less fuel/ more air = hotter reaction), but also reduces fuel consumption by not dumping more fuel than minimally neccessary for safe operating conditions (knock prevention).
The high cost in gas is not due to increased consumption, and demand is nowhere near the supply at this point in time. The high cost of oil is due to higher profits and the fact that the oil industry is not a free market industry (see oligopoly; cartel). For starters, ever notice the price of gas is the same everywhere other than the 3 cents the retailers have to play with?
And if it did cost more to produce and refine oil, then yes perhaps the cost is simply being passed along. But if it were a case of cost being passed down the line, profits would not be at record highs like they are. The cost to obtain and produce a barrel of oil has not changed in 40 years yet profits are breaking records. And the best protection against excessive profits, competition, is nowhere to be found. Why? See oligopoly and cartel, above. Also because we won?t allow new suppliers (i.e.: drill for known oil or build more refineries).
Case in point: the recent attempt by Chavez to persuade oil producers to increase the cost of oil just for the hell of it, or to make the US pay for its political positions, or middle east countries speaking out that prices should be raised arbitrarily because they feel we should be forced to pay more for oil because of our technological and economic success as a country. Is higher demand putting a strain on supplies or causing any sort of real economical reason to raise prices? Nope. Just a small group of people in power deciding they want to do it. How can they get away with it? Because if the price of a gallon of milk goes up, we can drink water or find another vendor. Does that option exist with gasoline? Is there a vendor capable of charging $1.89 /gal when everyone else is charging $3.15 /gal? If not then why? If the cost to produce a barrel of oil hasn?t changed since the years gasoline cost $0.79 /gal then why isn?t there more room to be competitive at the pump?
Even if it was a genuine supply problem (which it isn't), the rapid increase in automobile ownership throughout the world makes American SUVs non existant (think 50,000 Suburbans in the USA consumes more fuel than 500 million small fuel efficient cars idling around in the crowded streets in China or India? LOL)
Think about these things before pointing fingers at SUVs and do proper research.
FYI: we have 3 cars, a 2006 Avalon that gets 32 mpg with 280 HP, a 2003 Cobra that gets 22 mpg with 700 WHP, and a 1995 Camry that gets 30 mpg with 130 HP.
I wouldn't drive a SUV simply because the media attention and the social stigma, both the "positive" stigma (being a 733t yuppie like everyone else with the lastest SUV fad) and the "negative" stigma (being labled a gas guzzling environment destroying wacko)