Well predicting the future is close to impossible, I would have won the loto a long time ago if I was good at it!

But I think in say about 50 years cars will have fuel cells generate electricity and power 4 electric motors one for each wheel. Think of it like a diesel electric system on heavy equipment like the Cat 797 dump truck but on a smaller scale.

I still don't understand why diesel electric cars are not made, not having a transmission and CV joints and all of that other crap would be nice.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

The fact that they lump all diesels in the same basket is what I find very silly. I could turn that around and say that a Honda Civic is filthy because the Hummer H2 uses a lot of gas. Afterall, they both run on gasoline.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

The leaders of the Granola crowd are the people with the biggest SUV's and biggest houses to heat and cool......I find it pretty pathetic these people cry and moan while using far more energy than I do. And I am no tree hugger.

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Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

What's being silly got to do with anything. People are that way. They will only differentiate when it comes to their pet issues. If they have an SUV, those are ok vehicles but others are bad. Having owned both a 1500 truck and an SUV, I can say that both are about as good or bad with the gas mileage. People will give the SUV dirty looks whereas my truck will be fine. No one will point a finger at it because it is a "Man's vehicle" whereas the SUV is a soccer mom thing so if they don't have one, they will blame it for all the ills of the world.

Personally, I would rather have a Hummer than a Civic. I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those lunchboxes. Yes, I could have saved a bunch on the purchase price and the gas but I won't drive a FWD car with a transvestite engine. I have personally seen the results of a civic hitting a C280 in the driver side door at 55 mph and the civic getting the worse of it. Up to a point, bigger is better. When my wife suggested we get her a lunchbox with wheels when she first started to drive, I put my foot down and said that we will not own a sub 3000# car. My only concession would be that IF I didn't have to pay more than $10 for a working FWD car, I MIGHT consider it.

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

Your logic implies that we should all be driving semis for maximum crash protection, though that would be beneficial only if at least some people were still driving small cars. Driving a bigger vehicle than what others have mainly for your own safety is rather selfish, wouldn't you say? I recently saw the aftermath of a big pickup running a red light and killing a man in a sedan. I already didn't like SUV's and pickups because they create a lot of pollution and they easily clog up the roads, and this accident made me dislike them even more.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

Slightly off topic: It burns me up when I see hybrids in Virginia with license plates that say "Clean Special Fuel." WTF is so "special" about gasoline and electricity? Could I get one of these plates if I were to run BioDiesel?

Read my statement Up to a point, bigger is better. I'd say "Read my Lips" but that is already used and you can't see my lips here. After that point, it gets impractical and we get into the realm of an M1A1 Abrams MBT. People, some of them, will always drive small cars because they cannot handle larger cars or don't want to handle larger cars.

Yes it is. I have no problem with being selfish. Self preservation is not a bad thing. People are basically selfish. I am assuming they look after their own interests, and so far, in general, little has proved otherwise. I am more blatent about it. WYSIWYG. Like it or not, that is the way I am. I don't sugar coat anything and I tell you like it is instead of finding some way to make it more easily swallowed.

I also see a lot of tiny lunchboxes causing accidents. Because you look on SUVs with a jaundiced eye initially, you see something, it confirms your view. What about the F-body cars or Mustangs that used to be in many accidents? What bout the new lunchboxes that are running around with their fart pipes trying to be sporty and crash into stuff? Oh, never mind, they get excellent gas mileage so that is ok.

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

Ok I admit I exaggerated a bit, and the comment about semis wasn't meant to be taken seriously. But yes it is selfish to drive a bigger vehicle just for your own safety and at least you admit it. I guess the only satisfaction I get out of this is hearing these people complain about how much they pay for gas.

I never said small cars don't cause accidents, but the truth is if they do hit something they are less likely to kill someone else.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

I buy 3000+ # vehicles because I feel safer in them. I consider myself and the wife first, the dogs second when I make a decision. All in the order of closeness to me. I complain about how much I pay for gas too. However, I suspect, like myself, many others are disgruttled about what they pay for gas because it is taxed and we don't see enough benifit for what we pay for. For instance, do you know what the difference between I90 or I94 on the WI side vs the IL side in winter? Snow. Once you cross the border into IL, the road is generally clearer than in WI. Our taxes are supposed to go towards fixing and clering the roads. Yet, the roads are not as good but we are paying more in taxes. Why? That is the complain about the gas price I have. That I am not seeing the benifit. Besides, people are always going to be whining about the prices. Go work in retail, the customers are always astonished at how the prices have jumped since the last time they bought an item.

In a sense, maybe. However, the small cars make up for it in number and speed. They tend to speed faster and are more numerous so I wouls say it is a wash. For every SUV accident, I see more than 4 or 5 small car accidents. Often on a Fri night in the summer I see ricemobiles with their fart pipes racing around on a busy street. Of course, they are not as dramatic as a larger truck or SUV. I know for sure that I would not be alive in one of those transvestite engined lunchboxes. Sure, I'd save money in gas but how much money is my life worth? Even the cops at the scene said it was the fact that I was hit in the driver side by a 1500# civic in my 3000# C280 that had a lot to do with my relatively minor injuries.

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

I can see how you're motivated by the fact that you were broadsided. In fact my dad was broadsided by a 67? Cougar in a 3 month old (at the time) 1986 Honda Civic. After 4 months of recovery my parents bought a 1987 300SDL from the dealer fleet manager with 3k on the ODO. The guy who hit my dad was 19 with no insurance and with no license. And therefore isn't the issue the driver and not the car who can be assigned fault? I guess it just so happens that the civics are cheap to fix repair and replace so that's why people with presumably fewer driving skills and less money drive and use them like a bumper car. If everyone followed the rules and stopped yapping on their cell phones and made complete stops and used turn signals then accidents would be far less common (barring environmental and design flaws etc.) Of course this isn't going to happen magically but perhaps blame is being asserted in the wrong area in this case.

By the way....what exactly IS a transvestite engine?

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1974 240D 3.0L 4(M) - 250K -OM617.910 + 300D FW + Rajay turbo power!
1977 6.9 3(A) - 84k

Blame is secondary. Why something happens is for others to understand. I never car about the "Why" as a first thing. I just know it happens. Bottom line is people are going to drive that way and nothing is going to change it. I talk on a cell phone and with the earpiece, I don't see how it is any more dangerous than talking to a passenger. In fact, even if I held it to my ear, I drive with one hand anyways so what does it matter? as to the other problems, nothign will change the way people drive.

People call FWD car engines transverse engines instead of longitutional engines, I call them transvestite engines..

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

I know what you're saying about seeing benefits from the taxes you pay, but if it's any comfort to you, gasoline is $5 a gallon in Europe, but then again they do have much better public transportation over there. Part of the reason gas & diesel are so cheap over here is subsidies which make it difficult for biodiesel to compete against them, but that's another topic. Bottom line is I feel people who complain about gas prices in this country are spoiled.

There's nothing wrong with 3000+ lb vehicles, most sedans fall in that category. Civics are about 2600 lbs, not 1500 lbs. It's not all about the weight though and there's more to crash safety than weight, but I agree in a multi-car collision the weight does make a difference in who has a better chance of survival, but then again, SUV's roll over easier and are harder to stop because of the extra weight so whether they're safer overall is questionable.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

Oh boy, here I go again!!!-there is really no good reason to drive an SUV(or even a pickup for that matter) with only people in it(I guess if your dogs were really big I could understand it), but I personally see so many Suburbans/Yukons/Tahoes, etc. driving with only one person in them it's not even funny. I don't even drive my pickup unless I'm towing something or hauling a bunch of tools and it averages 17 MPG! If we don't find a way to convince people to use a little less somehow, the day is coming where we will all be screwed!

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1982 300DT 190K (Diesel Purge + synthetic oil=smoothness at last!!!)
2004 Ford E-350 6.0 L PSD 227K
2006 Dodge Ram 3500 SRW HO Cummins 4X4 48RE 42K (brute force tow vehicle)
2005 Scion xB wife's rolling pop can
1993 GMC Sierra C3500 6.2 142K

I think you said it right there, you feel safer... Studies tracking actual accidents and comparing actual numbers of injuries have shown time and again that size is not a good predictor for safety, rather, build quality and available safety features is.

For instance, in real world accidents, Jetta's were safer than the safest SUV (the suburban). However, the Neon, similarly sized to the Jetta, was one of the most dangerous to the occupants of the vehicle. Pickup trucks were the most dangerous as a group to the drivers of the vehicle, and whomever they hit. SUVs ranged from pretty good to the drivers, and so-so to the other car, all the way to terrible for the people in the SUV, and terrible for whoever they hit.

Midsize and compact sedans were the safest on the road, to the people in the car AND to the people in the other car, assuming they had good safety features. VW and Toyota: Very safe, Dodge Neons: Not so safe.

Didn't we just have this discussion?

peace,
sam

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"That f***in' biodiesel is makin' me hungry."

1982 300TD Astral Silver w/ 250k (BIO BNZ)
2001 Aprilia SR50 Corsa Red w/ 5.5k (>100 MPG)

"WASHINGTON -- Emissions from *old* diesel engines cause more than 20,000 Americans a year to die"

This study is using data that's 10+ years old! They do not at all take into account the newer (95+) electronic controlled diesels. Diesels reduced their tailpipe emissions by more % in 10 years than gassers did in 30 years!