🚀 go-pugleaf

"John Beardmore" <wookie@wookie.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:TtfE3cF8rc$$EwcI@wookie.demon.co.uk...
> In article <vvri3g69pdgn26@corp.supernews.com>, Jeff Strickland
> <beerman@yahoo.com> writes
>
> >I would think the outcry would be against your 'vette more than against
the
> >SUVs of today. The typical SUV, Toyota 4Runner, Ford Explorer, and that
> >size, typically gets from 15 to 20 mpg, while your 'vette also delivers
> >mileage in this range, maybe as high as 22 mpg. Your 'vette (is it 'vette
or
> >'Vette?) can carry at most two people, giving it at most 44 passenger
miles
> >per gallon, but the SUV that I used in my example can carry 5 passengers,
> >and will yield 100 passenger miles per gallon, plus it can carry more
than a
> >can of tennis balls in its cargo compartment. It seems to me that the SUV
is
> >a better deal for the environment than a "vette, but we only hear about
> >outlawing SUVs. Isn't that amazing?
> >
> >PS
> >I am not opposed to your 'vette, I only wonder why evnironmentalists can
be
> >so narrow minded.
>
> Probably because of the proportion of the time we see SUVs carry only
> one person !
>
True, but the most popular size of SUV is the Toyota 4Runner and Ford
Explorer and those of that ilk. The Suburban-sized models are not nearly as
popular as the smaller sized models, and the smaller SUVs get comparable
mileage as any minivan or even a Full Size car model, like a Crown Victoria
or Cadillac deVille.

Your penchant for lumping all SUVs under a single umbrella is problematic
for me to get onboard with your complaints about them. You lump all SUVs
from the miserly Honda CRV and Toyota Rav4 to the behemoth Suburban and
Excursion into the same group, or at least you fail to distinguish between
the miserly models and the guzzlers.

You have no idea what that SUV that you are complaining about right now was
carrying around yesterday, or even an hour ago, or what it will be doing in
an hour from now. You are clueless about what the needs are of the families
that drive SUVs, any SUV. You see a woman driving one to the nail salon, and
call it wasteful, but you have no idea that she just dropped two kids off at
the elementary school, another at the middle school, and one at the high
school. You don't know what the family needs that vehicle for when you are
not looking at it with disgust. You think that because YOU don't need an
SUV, then nobody needs them. You blame the consumer for having needs, you
blame the automakers for meeting those needs. What you ignore is that you
created the SUV market place by shutting down the stationwagons of the '60s
and '70s. You (environmentalists in genreal, not you in particular) shut
down a vehicle market that caused polution and was decried as being
behemoth. The polution issues needed to be addressed, and this effort on
your part was a worthy one. But, a byproduct of that was to shift car buyers
over into the truck market where the pollution efforts were not applied. You
effectively shot yourself in the foot, and complain today that you need
crutches to walk. Now, you want to start over again to force people into a
market place that does not suit them, and they will seek a new market that
will not suit you. The cycle will repeat itself again and again.

The lesson here is to find a way to give buyers the products they want and
still reduce the harm to the environment. We don't want Geo Metros, they
simply do not meet our needs. We want the SUVs and the new crossover models
that you haven't hit yet, but I am sure that is just an oversight ou your
part. since we want this size of vehicle, then we need to work on a power
source that will be appropriate. Fuel Cells are expected to work well here,
and Hybrids should do farely well too. Both of these technologies are more
enviro friendly and are not very far over the horizon, perhaps 3 ~ 5 years
at best, maybe as long as 12 ~ 15.