GT_2003

minneapolis is far from a dump But you can choose to see the world however you wish.

Home ownership is all about trade-offs. You can't expect a brand new house in a good neighborhood for less than you'd pay to live in a suburb with lower land prices. Any city has higher average land prices and older construction than a suburb. But there are benefits. I fail to understand why you'd prefer drive up the cost of every good and service simply to save a little on housing costs. Seems like a false economy, IMHO.

Raising taxes on gasoline might not be a problem for you, but then, that's an obvious argument against it. If it isn't going to affect your driving habits, why would you think it would be effective? Do you really believe the people most responsible for increasing emissions and entirely optional gas usage are the people who would be most affected by $10 or $20 a tank increase? Seems to me the people who are already the most conservative in their usage are the ones that would be the hardest hit by a higher gas tax. If an additional dollar or two per gallon will cause a person to make drastic changes in their habits, they already have adopted habits that minimize usage. If you wish to push people further to the edge of insolvency, artificially increasing prices across the board would be a good first step. But I fail to see how this could possibly improve the environment.

The only "benefit" to a higher gas tax is more money for the state. With the downside of increasing the cost of everything. I can't really see how shifting more money to the state coffers saves the world. The goal is cheap, plentiful, clean energy, and a big gas tax doesn't move that agenda forward one inch.

vader1

Most of that last flurry went over my head because I am not sure what you are referring to, may be aimed at another argument from another poster or misinterpreted something I said.

I am fine with a higher gas tax because it will change habits, and improve roads. Secondly, if you live where there is congestion, it can save energy because you are not idling in traffic. And while I generally don't like regulation, am fine with cafe because the market has proven you can meet higher milage standards (Toyota) and make money, but some companies do not (GM) at there own peril but also at a social cost to the nation. (higher demand means higher prices and guzzlers just waste) I am fine with both as a means to and end, not one over the other.

High gas prices change my habits, I am down to using one tank of gas every two weeks. I use less than 8 gallons per week. I know people who use that almost every day. I set a goal of a having cars that are at a minimum of at least 30 hwy. I fell short because the my "toy" is not rated at 30 (although I have achieved that on a couple tanks) gets about 27-28 on every tank in mixed driving. They currently don't make a car capable of 30 that will tow my ski boat 10 miles five times a year, so I got a subie rated at 28 mpg hwy. Did the best I could with those two, might trade the S2000 someday for an Elise, and those do better than thirty.

I think that the arguement that the hardest hit will be the ones closest to insolvency. That is totally specious. The guy driving the Escalade is not close to insolvency. The guy driving the Hummer is not close to insolvency. They just don't give a rats ass about gas prices. They still would have the free choice to buy what they want, it would just come at a greater cost.

JonBoy

[QUOTE=vader1,Apr 13 2007, 02:14 PM]High gas prices change my habits, I am down to using one tank of gas every two weeks. I use less than 8 gallons per week.

TrackStar

Serious- fifth is for passing If I ever had to rebuild my tranny I would look into that. With a lightened flywheel however, you'd need to revmatch the upshift as well as the downshift for the car to drive smoothly.

twohoos

Only skimmed the thread but didn't see it mentioned: one key to MPG is LESS POWERFUL CARS. With CAFE and emission standards essentially constant for the last couple decades, engine technology improvements have been geared toward one thing: power. (C&D observed that the 2005 Ten Best cars were on average exactly twice as powerful as those from 1985.)

Car makers just need to turn down the wick a little on the motors. I'd guess a lot can probably be done just by remapping the ECUs. So your need 300+ hp V6 and V8 grocery getters will lose 20 or 30 hp. Who cares? Combined with the other technologies mentioned above (harder and narrower tires, improved aero, CVTs, brake regen, etc.) that 30% improvement is easily doable.

GT_2003

the hardest hit isn't necessarily the ones who already spend the most on gas. It's the ones with the least extra income. The kids who just graduated from high school and moved out. Single wage earning households. Students. NOT the people rolling Escalades :/

And the bulk of my point was that focusing solely on mpg as a factor in reducing consumption and emissions is to ignore some of the more obvious issues that still need to be addressed. Raising gas taxes won't solve the issue any more than limiting engine size. But a higher gas tax has ramifications other than what its proponents suppose.

ZDan

MPG is not so much less powerful cars as it is LIGHTER-WEIGHT (and more aerodynamic) cars.

Which is why I'm all for bumping CAFE up! Cars are just too damn heavy. S2000 included.

Take a given car and reduce its power, and you haven't changed the power (and hence fuel) required for it to cruise at 75mph or to accelerate at a given rate. More powerful engines do typically have greater internal losses, but those are pretty small compared to losses from mass, rolling resistance, and drag.

QUIKAG

I'm planning on a new Denali and C6. I don't really care much about gas prices. I'm not being cavalier about it, I just think the added fuel cost is worth the power factor. I like horsepower and I like speed. It's worth the cost to me.

Our IS300 averages 20mpg is mixed driving and requires premium. Not that impressive for a 3300lb 215hp car. I know the 3.0L inline six is an old school motor and that's most of the problem. I've been averaging about 22mpg lately in the S2000. I like to drive fast, what can I say.

s2kpdx01

When I did my normal day commute in Houston I never got better then 19mpg in the S2000. When I live in Portland I never got better then 18mpg. I would get 25-27 if I drove only on the highway, but that was very rare. If you are getting 25mpg in the S2000 you are driving almost exclusively highway/freeway or you are taking it very easy in terms of accel.

rai

Good points about the way we drive can determine a lot about what type of gas mileage we get.

Here is an interesting fact about the Bugatti 1000hp engine but can apply to any engine:



You can figure the 500hp Z06 is capable of burning 1.33 gal of gas every 2 minutes (half what the 1000 hp engine does). Of course you don't drive cars at 100% power, but the point being if you short shift or skip shift you can stay lower in the power band and use less gas.

But as somebody else said, sometimes the lower power engine may not get better gas mileage, a lot of other factors come into play such as gearing, weight, and rate of acceleration.