Comments on: Is the ‘Smart Car’ really Smart?

By: gz9gjg

gz9gjg — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 18:26:10 +0000

On my daily commute, I observe that about 50% of the vehicles are oversized pickup trucks and SUVs which are overwhelmingly occupied by only the driver. American are voting with their checkbooks for large vehicles; I cannot imagine that many will change to smaller ones any time soon.

(I drive a tiny 2-seat car, and I am always worried that the drivers of those trucks will not see my car. If it didn’t have great brakes, it would be a grease spot on the road, due to all the drivers who don’t seem to look before they change lanes.)

The US auto manufacturers have made great progress in developing vehicles that give the performance Americans want, while achieving big improvements in fuel economy over the last few years. But the manufacturers cannot force their customers to buy the smaller vehicles with engines and lower fuel usage. I hate the idea of increased fuel taxes, or taxes on engine or vehicle size, but that’s how the Europeans and Japanese governments drove their post WWII populations to small cars.

I think it was Bob Lutz at GM who said something like this – if Americans are obese, the solution is not to sell only size small clothing – similarly, forcing American vehicle manufacturers to build only small vehicles won’t cause Americans to stop buying full-size cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks.

It seems to me American vehicle preferences and market forces are in conflict with CAFE, as well as basic physics. So long as the media continues to tell Americans that cars are ruining the air and causing global warming, and so long as our Congress is drinking the same Kool-Aid, irrational legislation like CAFE will get passed into law.

Remember the push for electric cars? They used about 30% more energy than internal combustion vehicles – which is why they aren’t all over the roads today. If hydrogen powered cars are really in our future, you would think we would have identified a source for the stuff! I have yet to see any documentation of the total energy usage cycle for hydrogen fueled vehicles.

By: hvance

hvance — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 03:52:28 +0000

we do not need smart cars or small cars. The Republicrats in congress are only interested in being re-elected and we go merrily down the tube with no oil. If we were to put a “Manhattan” style project into effect we could dump the Middle East in total. There are enough alternative alternatives being researched that with a real push from Congress we could have freedom from the oil cartels. Just think of the billions of dollars that we spend each and every year for foreign oil. If that were spent here our economy would soar even more. And for the nettering nabobs of negativism, don’t tell me we don’t have a delivery system for the new fuel. The gas stations are the obvious answer as gas won’t go away as an automotive fuel. We need leadership and will not get it from our current crop of selfish politicians.

By: sedonaman

sedonaman — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 20:06:53 +0000

I’m old enough to remember the Crosley, the Iseta, the Fiat, the Nash Metropolitan, the Honda, and the Renault.

These cars were not meant to carry a family in comfort — that task was for the family sedan. The above cars were a second vehicle for the family breadwinner to commute to and from work (hence the name “Metropolitan”).

I think the reason they never caught on is, being very small, they were not very stylish nor comfortable.