I think alot of the SUV baggage come from those of us who are often subject to many SUV driver's poor driving abilities and or lack of judgment. At least this why I don't care for SUVs. I can't tell you how many times I've been nearly missed by clueless drives who happen to chose to drive SUVs. Or worse yet coming across SUV drivers who think they own the road by virtue of the size of thier vehicle. And in Los Angeles, more often than not, you see just one person driving themselves around, NOT towing boats, hauling loads etc. I think if SUV drivers showed more courtesy and awareness, they wouldn't be such a target.

4ndelit, im not buying a hybrid... all im saying is the way SUVs are right now, is they are wasteful... especially considering most poeple just use them to drive to starbucks and such.

you're right... SL's get poor gas mileage as well... any high powered sports car does.. and so do limousines... but there are only 100,000 high powered sports cars in the US, 50,000 limos, yet 16 million SUVs...

spock, i deleted messages, thanks

eric

The caption should read Gas Hogs not SUVs.
 

Looks like the argument should be against gas hogs not SUVs.

Many of the so called SUVs these days actually are pretty good in the mpg dept. Ashman is right on about putting diesels in them, the landy company has diesels available in ROW but not here!

Funny thing is most manuf who used to offer diesel suvs here have phased em out! Though Liberty is supposed to come out with a diesel for this market soon.

If every one did 5 below the speed limit the gas savings would probably outstrip the savings from corralling the gas hog suvs eh.
Not to mention the benefits of less wear and tear therefore longer lasting cars with less new plastic production and less landfill stuff etc etc etc.

I dunno but it would be great if trucks and suvs came with a two speed rearend. One for when the thang is loaded and the other for when its just cruzing. The low tech way of upping the mpg in a hurry not to mention an upgrade pathway for older units on the road!

BTW hows the nudy string I mean thread going?

Ashman...
 

...who died and made you god?

Ashman...
 

...who died and made you god?

Ashman writes:

"I just hate people who buy SUV's and don't use them for anything other than normal driving."

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If a person has the cash to buy an SUV, then he or she can drive it for whatever damned reason he or she pleases.

It is no one's business what "normal driving" should be or shouldn't be. What next? If one buys a sports car one can only drive it fast around Mulholland Drive? Or if one buys a pick-up truck one can only use it to haul supplies from Home Depot? And if one buys an H2 one can only drive it into combat?

I like driving my wife's Yukon because it gives me a better view of the road. Hell, if I didn't have to save up money for my kids' college tuition, I would buy another Yukon for me to drive around. Heck, I'd not mind using it to drive over a few anti-SUV (or anti-war) demonstrators.

A SUV is a vehicle, bigger than some, but it is still a vehicle, nothing less nothing more. People need to get over it. Sheesh!

Why does oil matter? First of all, if the demand for oil goes down, oil production will go down, and oil prices will go up. The 11 OPEC nations will just vote to decrease oil production. If you produced a million barrels at $25 before, you just sell 900,000 barrels at $28 a barrel. You still have the same amount of money going to "terrorists."

You can't increase the supply so you have a huge surplus because that would drive current prices down and you'll go out of business. ie., you'll have non-liquid oil.

How about this?
 

Hmm...you need space...yet you need efficiency and towing power...what about the Freightliner Sprinter Van? Mercedes 2.7 Litre CDI Diesel Engine, 22 MPG, and massive passenger/cargo capacity. Put that in your pipe and smoke it! And all for around 35,000 dollars.

That Sprinter with duals in the back is one stable pulling machine though I wouldn't pull anything over 4.5 to 5K with it.

Great utility/work van though. I the EU its available in truck config but not stateside yet.

benzlgb
 

heyhey, let's be reasonable and polite okay?

when your wife's yukon allows the occupants a better view of the road it obstructs the views of everyone on the road behind you. that's a pain! especially considering you don't NEED that SUV.

but.. you're right.. everyone has the right to buy one.

you say it's nothing less nothing more... it's a lot more... it's a waste of energy... driving an SUV instead of a car releases 20lbs of carbon dioxide PER MILE, contributes to smog, and wastes energy equivalent to leaving a refrigerator door WIDE open for 6 years every year you own and drive it.

i like those sprinters.. they look very european. but they do look top heavy.

eric

Let's deal with basic economics. Supply and demand - if less of a product service is demanded, prices go down - not up.

Aside from advising you to read any textbook on microeconomics (not being rude, I'm serious), let's take an anecdotal example that we've all witnessed in the last two years. In the auto industry, let's take as a baseline that production can be adjusted flexibly up or down to meet demand (I know there are limits, but they're irrelevant for our purposes - there is something like 30% overcapacity globally). Sales got soft due to the recession in 2001, and fell off a cliff immediately after 9/11. Did demand decrease? Yes. Did prices go up? Hell, no. Prices dropped, rebates became the norm, and 0% financing deals were put in place. The average domestic car sold in 4Q01 and 2002 had a few thousand $$ of incentives, i.e. price reductions, layered on top. That's what happens when demand goes down - prices do as well.

Let's take another example - the restaurant business. Everything I've heard tells me that restaurants in many cities have been suffering for the last few years. Do they respond by raising prices? Nope, they lower them.

Don't make too much of OPEC and it's very limited power. First, there's a lot of non-OPEC oil out there - Mexico, Russia, North Sea, US, etc., as well as any number of cheaters inside OPEC - they will individually exceed their quotas which benefits them individually, but only if everyone else doesn't exceed theirs. The incentives for breaking production discipline for any individual market participant by overproducing quotas are extremely high, which undermines the market price.

Petroleum is an industry which creates an essentially fungible product - crude oil - where the marginal price of the last barrel of oil sets the spot price for all. It also has very high fixed costs (drilling rigs, refineries, etc.), encouraging production at any price above the marginal cost to produce each incremental barrel. To date, the Saudis have been the swing producer due to a) having the greatest capacity, and b) having the lowest cost of production. They also have enormous debts that need servicing. They will keep producing even if the price goes down to $15, just as they did in the past. They make money at that price, though some others don't, and since they set the price they'll keep it there.

As an aside, this is one theory behind the US invasion of Iraq. Iraq has the second largest reserves in the world after Saudi, and has been seriously underproducing in the last 12 years. If you add just a couple of million barrels a day to the spot market, a matter of 1 or 2% of total, you can drop the price down by a lot more than 1-2%. The U.S. could use this either to drop the price of oil, which benefits consumers, the economy, etc., or as a lever to hold over the heads of the Saudis to ensure their compliance in issues such as the war on Al Qaeda. The U.S. doesn't have to own or "steal" the oil or its proceeds to make either of these scenarios happen, it just has to strongly influence the level of production in post-Saddam Iraq.

I think that's what I said Dave. Oil demand goes down, prices go down, OPEC lowers production which increases demand, oil prices go back up. If non-OPEC nations try to capitalize on decreased oil production it starts the vicious cycle again.

Noted.

I think the factors involved in driving demand in homes are similiar to those driving the demand for new automobiles. Money is relatively cheap these and lending institutions are finding more creative ways to stretch that dollar. Productivity has also increased due to layoffs and plant closings which has made cars even cheaper to produce. The question is how will the auto industry maintain its momentum?

I don't see the general reduction in restaurant prices like you do. The average restaurant margins run 2-4%. For a restaurant which does a million bucks a year in sales this is only 20-40k, or $50-100 a day. It's easier and cheaper to add an extra table, sell a few coffees, kick them out earlier, hawk some dessert, and get rid of American Express. The last option works best. :)

Polite ???
 

Eric writes:

heyhey, let's be reasonable and polite okay?
==================================================

Sorry, you're talking to the wrong guy. Polite hand holding is not my style, not when someone is questioning my life choices.

Eric further writes

when your wife's yukon allows the occupants a better view of the road it obstructs the views of everyone on the road behind you. that's a pain! especially considering you don't NEED that SUV.

==================================================

Wrong on two counts. First of all, if my SUV blocks your view, then get a different vehicle or move around me. Think about all the vans out there, all the panel trucks (used by UPS and hte likes) all the big rigs (I used ot commute on the I-5 in Los Angeles, it was wall to wall big rigs, now talk about obstructing view???). Are we going to get rid of all of them so that you can have an unobstructed view of the road? Where is it written that I have to drive a smaller vehicle so that you can see the road better? Does that mean that when I go to the movies I have to sit on the back row so that height-challenged persons can get a better view of the screen? That's utter non-sense.

And YES I do NEED that SUV. Try carrying a family of six, plus their gear, and (sometimes) their freinds and THERI gear in one Prius? Or even in a 300TE, which I also happen to own? Where do YOU get off tellign me that I DON'T need an SUV? My family has been driving Suburbans before they became the fashion rage.

Eric also writes:

but.. you're right.. everyone has the right to buy one..
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As long as you can afford to buy it, maintain it and gas it. At least that's one point we can both agree on.

Eric finally writes:


you say it's nothing less nothing more... it's a lot more... it's a waste of energy... driving an SUV instead of a car releases 20lbs of carbon dioxide PER MILE, contributes to smog, and wastes energy equivalent to leaving a refrigerator door WIDE open for 6 years every year you own and drive it.

==================================================

That's hogwash. My Yukon runs cleaner than my 420SEL. NOX levels on the 420SEL are higher than in the Yukon. Check it out. NOX, and not carbon dioxide, is the BIG source of toxic pollution. You and I exhale carbon dioxide with every breath that we take. Maybe we should outlaw big, fat people because they exhale more CO2

It is interesting that you should mention carbon dioxide. In California, the left-leaning, Democrati-led legislature is in the process of enacting a special greenhouse gas tax on SUVs. The theory being, as you beliee yourself, that carbon dioxide contributes to the ALLEGED global warming.

Well, well, a local radio station did a little expose on the Californa legislature. See, here in California, us taxpayers subsidize the private vehicles driven by our legislators. It turns out to be, that the most rabid, anti-SUV, pro-tax Dems drive big SUVs themselves. SUVs paid for by the taxpayers. Talk about hypocrasy!!!

Look Eric, in a perfect world, we would all be as wealthy as ashman's family seems to be. Then we would have a big-mother diesel truck to haul our boats, a SUV to go to Costco or Home Depot, a fast SLK to go to work, a nice S500 for longer family trips, a UNIMOG to go camping, a tiny mini-Benz (I saw one of those A-Class Benzes on the road the other day) to drive down to the corner store and pick up sushi for dinner.

But we don't all have that kind of money, so we make the best choices that we can. Most Americans who buy SUVs are probably making the same kinds of choices that I did. Hell, I'd love it if my Yukon had the same gas mileage as a Prius, with the same hauling power that it currently has. When they come up with one like that, then I will buy 6, one for each member of my familuy.

So why don't we just leave at this. Driving an SUV is a matter of choice. And thank God that in America, we are still able to make those choices.

no need to get angry, eric was just pointing out some things. You can go on as much as you want about UPS trucks and the like, but the fact remains that they generally stay on the right side of the highway, whereas SUV's like to stay in the passing lane to use their big gas guzzling engines. I'm not saying that my car is any easier on the environment, but if you look at SUV's compared to other modern cars, lots of them are wastefull. Why get a tahoe with a 5.7L V8 when all you're going to use it for is hauling kids? Why not get a minivan with a V6 or I4? My dad has a tahoe, but so far, all we use it for is hauling stuff (moved us from the bay area, my bro out of LA, my friend from encinitas, etc.) I'm not saying your yukon is a waste of space or gas, I'm just saying if it's just being used to drive people and some stuff around, it's a little excessive.

about the remark about ashman and how it would be nice to have that money, why not get a minivan with a V6? It would get realativley good gas mileage, you could fold/remove seats for those trips to costco or home depot, great for hauling people, peppy for those quick runs for sushi, and reasonably comfortable for a family trip. You don't have to have a different car for every need.

paul,
I edited my post to say "modern" instead of "normal" as that was what I intended to say. Sometimes I write faster than I think and have to go back and edit.