LOL

The scooter is actually my favorite ride and the wife enjoys riding it too. I'm not out looking to pick up anymore women - heck I already have one. What would I need another one for?

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Jim

If I cared what people thought, I wouldn't have just bought a Trice QNT for my new grocery-getter transportation to replace my road and mountain bikes!

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John

2003 Firemist Red/grey leather SL 500
2015 Palladium Silver/black mbtex GLK 350
1987 Smoke Silver/burgundy mbtex 300E Sportline (SOLD)

Click to see 87 300E

I spent almost the entire last year exclusively on a bicycle, grocery shopping, going to work, visiting my family. I rode upwards of 30 miles on some days. This year I upgraded to a Ford Festiva, and a 300SD.
That said, my brother has an Insight, which is a cool car, but not much bigger than my bicycle. Our mass-transit sucks in St. Louis. His car made me think, if auto makers can make hybrids, which are more or less subsidized by the makers anyway, and they are all jumping on the bandwagon with them, why is it that there are no diesel hybrids? Drop a diesel engine in an Insight or a Prius? What kind of milage would you get? VW gets like 50mpg with the TDI Golf, what would you get with a hybrid version?. Seems to me that the US consumers are not going to give up thier cars very easily, so why not build them something that can be run on something renewable, and fix the problem that way? I don't want to ride the bus, I love driving. I think the whole thing boils down to the fact that we all want to go where we want, when we want, and not have to worry about well can I get the connecting bus at this intersection to make it to work on time if I decide to hit the snooze an extra time this morning?

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Chris

82 300SD

For a diesel hybrid to work, the engine would have to stop/start on demand within a second or so. I don't know what the state of the art is now with diesels, but it should be technically possible. I am sure there are such cars being evaluated. Maybe the oil companies aren't ready to let us have 100mpg cars?

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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma

for more data/input on this topic.

http://images.google.com/images?um=1&tab=wi&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&q=diesel+hybrid+

This was a good thread.

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2006 CL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2026 Genesis GV70
2007 Tiara 3200

That's gotta be one of the ugliest vehicles I've ever seen. These auto makers, are not going to price these cars off the road. They're going to cosmetically make them so un-appealing, that no on will buy them because they're so friggin ugly. Who thinks THAT is a nice looking car..I think the designers need their heads examined. What happened to nice body lines, and appeal..? Where has that gone..? I mean..Never mind, it's useless. Nobody will listen anyways, and they're only going to get uglier as time goes on. We're doomed.

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[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

I bought a moped during the '79 gas crunch. Good thing I kept it!

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

Since posting this thread I have come to several conclusions and changes to the way I perceive and think about things, because reality has changed.

The increase in the price of fuel and the sacrifices it creates for most of us. That means us poor folks, that are getting poorer because we feed another mouth, the OIL Companies. The vast price increases inherent to the cost of energy will tag along with us like a parasite, because it will reduce our buying power, with the inceased costs and values for everything.

The hybrids seem to be a working temporary solution, until the new tech small diesels, reach us here in the good ol'USA! The Solar Factor, needs to be introduced into the solution also. The Diesel-Hybrids, or the gas engined hybrids, like GM offers today, seems to be the best bet for hauling big and heavy things that we own like RV trailers, big boats, horses, race car and motorcycle trailers, farm and construction equipment, for the near term.

Transportation, urban and inter-urban, seems to be the question of busses or rail. The costs of infrastructure must be taken into account for these, as well as the costs of the new technologies. What are they?

The answer begins and ends with us personally and with our needs and wants. I haven't seen anything proposed by State and Local Govt's, other than traffic roundabouts, eliminating 4-way STOP signs, to conserve energy, by eliminating all vehicles, coming to a full-stop and the idling time needed to get through the intersection. This is going to be tried here in little ol'Alma. Sounds good, but I don't know the proper rules of the road, when it comes to one of these beasts, and neither do the other drivers. Lot's of body shops are gonna be busy around here! The Amish and the others who still use real horsepower, may have a jump on all of us, when it comes to transportation costs in the present and future. Those of us who live in the Snow-Belt, are really gonna get it in the head this Winter, when we can't use the warm weather methods of getting around. It will hurt us very much financially!

These are some ideas on how to cope with it at present. We need to think how we can reduce and replace it for the future, in an economic way for the people like us. Just a few thoughts...we need more!

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SONNY was right...Nobody Cares.
Calogero, from the movie, "A BRONX TALE."

Too many entities in this country ( world ) have a license to steal and don't hesitate in using it.

I bought an old beater for the mileage and am averaging over 33mpg, better than 37 on the road. What else can you do? Light car, small engine, manual transmission, short commute, carpool and learn to drive economically.

http://www.bobbridge.com/camry_special.html,

Just choose your color..

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[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

"Beam me up Scotty" would be the only way to travel!

I would enjoy walking, however my average commute is 50-60 miles per day.

There are lots of folks like you that commute long distances to daily jobs. Over the past few years I've heard or read politicians who suggested government-intensive ways to address the fuel crunch. I believe that each of these proposals would negatively impact your ability to commute.
1. Fuel surtax, used to subsidize alternative sources of energy
2. Rationing (could be odd/even days like Carter (IIRC) devised)
3. Price controls

Imagine what the price would be today had the pols imposed a fuel surtax.

I believe that fed, state and local taxes already comprise close to half of the fuel price.

If gov's goal is to ease the price burden on the consumer then the simplest quickest tool they have at hand is to remove fuel taxes. Since that isn't even on the table then perhaps their actual goal is not their stated goal.

B

Interesting. How much is a gallon of fuel where you are Bot? And how much of it is taxed?

Here it's about $3.00, of which approx. $.25 is state and another $.25 is fed road tax. Far from half the price of a gallon of fuel.

I suggest the government stop subsidizing our deadly addiction to something we ourselves have very precious little of and let the "fair" market regulate our consumption of a dwindling resource by including the real and true costs of all it takes to get the fuel from where ever it comes to our tanks. That cost ranges from something like $8-$12 per gallon in studies I've seen.

Kinda makes what we are paying now look like a deal hey?

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300TD W124, Two VW TDI Passat Wagons,Cummins Ram 250, Kubota Tractor
23 cylinders sipping the sweet sauce of the soy bean