MY TIPS - to INCREASE your GAS MILAGE

[SemiMan]

Contrary to the first post, cleaning or replacing your air intake filter will not improve your mileage if you have a car made in the last 10+ years. You may even get better mileage with a dirty filter. All a clean filter will give you is more peak horsepower.

Did anyone mention synthetic? Dyno tests usually show 1-2% more peak horsepower, but no idea if that really makes a difference in real world horsepower. I run it for reduced engine wear and reduced change intervals.

Hate to be political, but perhaps we need to be investing more in battery technology. I know that is not the panacea to a solution, but we really need to explore every option in this area as who knows what will shake out. While we all hate government involvement, electricity prices tend to have a lot less volatility than gas prices. Price per unit of usable energy is lower too. .... side note, that Chevy Volt does not seem like such a bad idea now.

I find the high prices of gas taking the fun out of driving.

Semiman

 

[ElectronGuru]

For many, not really an option to move closer to work. Job might be $#!%. Paycheck only. No room for promotion. Might get laid off soon after moving. Even if the job is a decent one, family obligations might not allow simply moving closer. Spouse might not want to leave. If you're single but signed a lease, makes no sense to break it just to move a bit closer.

Totally get you. I've spent the most of my life being car dependent. New car, new job, new housing all fall into the category of personal long term solutions, little you can do this year. New/portable jobs are rare, theres a year left on a lease/loan, and even when options are available, the expense of moving and/or new home loan requires long intervals. This is made more challenging in that most US housing built in the last 60 years (90% of whats in the west) is specifically designed to be car dependent. With our individual and collective choices, we have built ourselves into a corner.

Even if gas persisted at $20/G, it would take another 60 years to begin to balance against that structural inertia. But that isn't even the real challenge. We've not built our country like this because of cars. We've done so because of what cars do for us. Say you're starting a family and can pay 3k/mo for a small flat in town with parking for one car and not even a shared court to play in and dangerous parks. Compare that to 2k/mo for a single family detached on quarter acre, with personal playground and good schools and 1k/mo in commenting expenses. Everything goes great until gas goes from 3 to 6 a gallon and 3k becomes 4k. This is what Californians are facing right now.

 

[jtr1962]

Even if gas persisted at $20/G, it would take another 60 years to begin to balance against that structural inertia. But that isn't even the real challenge. We've not built our country like this because of cars. We've done so because of what cars do for us. Say you're starting a family and can pay 3k/mo for a small flat in town with parking for one car and not even a shared court to play in and dangerous parks. Compare that to 2k/mo for a single family detached on quarter acre, with personal playground and good schools and 1k/mo in commenting expenses. Everything goes great until gas goes from 3 to 6 a gallon and 3k becomes 4k. This is what Californians are facing right now.

I'm not so sure it will take 60 years to readjust to the new reality of higher energy costs. Remember that it took us less than 50 years to get to the mess we're in now. Already with higher gas prices demand for public transit is exceeding supply in many places. And the cities are showing net growth while many exurbs are being abandoned. The problem in a nutshell is in the last 50 years we built as if we were going to have cheap energy forever. It's not just that we became overly car dependent, but also that we built huge McMansions in suburban subdivisions. Now we're realizing we just can't afford to maintain the status quo. You hit the nail on the head of suddenly going from $3K a month to $6K. In the short term there's very little you can do. It's the decisions people make down the road which will make a difference. Do I take that job 5 miles away which I can bike to even though it pays $10K less than a job 35 miles away? Do I buy a smaller, but still adequate, home which has lower operating expenses? If I'm still car dependent, do I buy an electric car when my gas car needs to be replaced? All of these decisions can mean the difference between being comfortable versus not being able to make it. We can either voluntarily start using our resources more sensibly, or let shortages/price spikes do it for us. Either way, there's going to be fewer resources spread among more people.

 

[SemiMan]

I agree with ElectronGuru here. In the short term the impact of higher gas might be mitigated by changing driving habits slightly, doing things like coasting to red lights and driving slower. In the long run this issue isn't going anywhere. With China and India industrializing, demand for oil will only go up, whether the oil is used to make plastics or burned as fuel. The long term price trends are therefore up, way up actually. Had the economy fully recovered, I've little doubt we would be seeing $7 a gallon gas prices. At some point we as a nation are going to have to reduce our dependency on oil-based transportation in particular, and mechanized transportation in general. This will mean the preferred solution will be to live within walking or biking distance of jobs if no local rail transit exists, or living/working within walking/biking distance of train stations if it does. Rail will be the king of mechanized transport in the 21st century for the simple reason no other technology comes close in terms of using the least energy, land, and labor to move a ton of cargo. All three will be relevant because all three will be either expensive or in short supply in the future. This is why even if electric cars become mainstream, which I feel they will, sprawling communities just aren't sustainable either economically or resource-wise except maybe for the wealthy few. The basic issue is the infrastructure costs more per capita, but the residents aren't really willing or even able to pay these costs. And the larger issue is that personal automobiles as a means of transport are grossly inefficient in terms of land use, energy use, resource use, and even time.

For now anyone with a very long car commute would do well to see if they can either get a job closer to home, or move closer to work. Even better would be relocating to places where you can live without a car. If demand for such places increased, then more would be built. In many cases it's simply a matter of reviving existing city centers. Granted, housing in many transit-oriented communities is more expensive, but factor in the annual cost of owning a car or two or three. Also factor in the hours spent in traffic. And consider that the same job in a city will often pay more than in the suburbs. In the end you might find that moving is feasible.

I highly recommend reading blogs and websites pertaining to living a car-free lifestyle for inspiration. That's really going to be the only way going forward to cope with increasing oil prices.

In developed countries, population growth is light ... with the real possibility of stagnancy beyond immigration.

Oil will get expensive and/or run out ... this is true, but I am more concerned with climate impact of the industrialization of more of the world.

I really do not think the personal care will go out of style though. The average car as 4000 pounds of metal .... that will definitely change.

In many countries, there is far too much established "suburbia" which is highly likely to be abandoned. While in an ever escalating oil market it may be easy to think of this as something that must go away, the reality is that we are humans like and rise to challenges. It's an enormous economic market and one for which solutions will arrive. Do our fat democracies at least in North America have the political fortitude to make the right steps? .... that is the bigger question.

Today we could build thorium cycle nuclear reactors that are extremely safe and we have enough thorium to power the world for well over the next 100's of years. Cost of electricity would be higher than today, but as a "fuel" for transportation, still cheaper than today's gas by far.

I think viability of a tolerable battery, i.e. 300km range is within the next 20 years if not less.

So while 4000lbs of metal will disappear for the most part, commuter cars weighing a 1000lbs and able to carry 4 people will be common.

Intelligent vehicle highway systems and automated driving will become the norm for highways enabling 2-3x the traffic density with no increase in highway construction.

The exact time frame of this is debatable and their will be some grief along the way, but it will happen. At least in North America, we have enough oil reserves, as difficult as they are to get at, for at least the next 50 years.

Semiman

 

[StarHalo]

The Green Wars are just starting in the car industry; the aforementioned Mazda 3 Skyactiv gets 40 mpg @ 76 mph, the four-cylinder Mustang and Camaro are returning, the new Ford Fusion will be four-cylinder-only, and Ford is reintroducing the three-cylinder engine (61 cubic inches making 148 lb-ft of torque!)

 

[jtr1962]

Today we could build thorium cycle nuclear reactors that are extremely safe and we have enough thorium to power the world for well over the next 100's of years. Cost of electricity would be higher than today, but as a "fuel" for transportation, still cheaper than today's gas by far.

I think viability of a tolerable battery, i.e. 300km range is within the next 20 years if not less.

So while 4000lbs of metal will disappear for the most part, commuter cars weighing a 1000lbs and able to carry 4 people will be common.

Intelligent vehicle highway systems and automated driving will become the norm for highways enabling 2-3x the traffic density with no increase in highway construction.

The exact time frame of this is debatable and their will be some grief along the way, but it will happen. At least in North America, we have enough oil reserves, as difficult as they are to get at, for at least the next 50 years.

I also feel the personal car won't disappear, but will probably evolve into a small, battery-powered "errand" machine suitable for shopping and getting to work/school, and most definitely self-driven. Even though I feel we'll soon have electric cars with 300+ km range, long distance car travel I think will be pretty much dead, mostly replaced in the short term by high-speed rail, in the long term possibly by maglevs in evacuated tubes. The idea in all cases is as you said-to go from using oil as transport fuel to using electricity. That in my opinion is the only way any type of lifestyle dependent upon mechanized transport will survive. In many cities we already have established transport networks based on electricity-namely subways and railroads.

I also think it's imperative to conserve as much oil as possible because the need for plastics and other materials derived from oil isn't going anywhere.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

I did a little research on what I think is the real reason why gas prices are so high. Yes, we had some refineries shut down and an oil pipeline shut down. Yes, BP is shutting down many of the Arco's in California (They are being replaced with USA Gas). Yes, BP is getting out of the oil refining business in California and Texas (half of their oil refining capacity countrywide) and using their resources to get oil out of the ground in Canada (moving their business toward the Keystone Pipeline). And all this is happening when summer grade fuel supplies are dwindling and winter grade gas is required to be produced. All of these things are bad and contributing to the price skyrocketing. However, there is one larger factor that no one is talking about. It's not that BP is leaving the state that is the biggest problem. It's why BP is leaving the state that's the problem. Part of it is that BP is fed up with the bureaucracy and environmental regulations in California. The largest problem has to do with the environmental regulations in California making it impossible for oil refineries to make a profit. The places that oil comes from for California are running out of light and sweet crude oil. Many of the oil refineries are only capable of making gas from light and sweet crude oil. This is causing reduced output as light and sweet crude oil runs out. The BP refinery that BP is selling is capable of making gasoline from lousy grades of oil but requires expensive upgrades to make the gas. With the little profits they receive from refining the oil now, it isn't worth it to them to invest in the upgrades, especially with Cap and Trade beginning soon in California. This problem isn't going to get any better. BP is abandoning a sinking ship. This is a warning of things to come. As the supply of light and sweet crude runs dry, California will run out of gas as the refineries that can produce gas from poor grades of oil will leave the state since there is no incentive to invest in upgrades without profit potential. The only relief will be if new supplies of light and sweet crude oil are found by drilling elsewhere, if regulations cease to exist allowing us to purchase gas that is not California's special blend, or if oil companies find a way to make the upgrades and continued business in California profitable. In short, we're screwed for the long term, not just until Thanksgiving like news stations are telling us. I honestly don't see any real relief in sight unless we get some serious changes. Electricity prices make electric cars a lousy solution as well. We have a tiered system. My home is already at the highest tier. Monthly electric bills are already up to $400 with gas appliances and heating. The state lets energy companies pay practically nothing back for solar to homeowners (it isn't worth the investment). I don't see any real solutions near term.

 

[Monocrom]

I also feel the personal car won't disappear, but will probably evolve into a small, battery-powered "errand" machine suitable for shopping and getting to work/school, and most definitely self-driven.

Not gonna happen. For a variety of reasons. Some good, some not so good. An example of the latter being the insurance industry. They're not going to give up the lucrative, legal, racket of providing insurance to drivers who are legally required to have it. (A retired insurance adjuster once admitted to me that the insurance industry is indeed a racket. Just happens to be a legalized one.) Cars that drive themselves? Well, can't hold the vehicle owner responsible anymore for accidents that take place. After all, he wasn't the driver. Who do you hold responsible? Why, it's the car-makers of course! If self-driven cars are ever created, watch their demise after the very first lawsuit against Ford, GM, or Toyota, etc. after the first self-driven car crashes into someone or something. So that's the car-makers who will also lobby Congress too to make sure cars are never self-driven.

Also, unless you live in Britain where driving regulations are overly complicated for no reason at all; it's not that hard to learn to drive a car. It's just not. I'll even go so far as to say it's easy for the vast majority of folks.

 

[jtr1962]

Not gonna happen. For a variety of reasons. Some good, some not so good. An example of the latter being the insurance industry. They're not going to give up the lucrative, legal, racket of providing insurance to drivers who are legally required to have it. (A retired insurance adjuster once admitted to me that the insurance industry is indeed a racket. Just happens to be a legalized one.) Cars that drive themselves? Well, can't hold the vehicle owner responsible anymore for accidents that take place. After all, he wasn't the driver. Who do you hold responsible? Why, it's the car-makers of course! If self-driven cars are ever created, watch their demise after the very first lawsuit against Ford, GM, or Toyota, etc. after the first self-driven car crashes into someone or something. So that's the car-makers who will also lobby Congress too to make sure cars are never self-driven.

I'm not so sure about that. Elevators used to have operators and then they became automated. There have been some fatalities due to failures, but nobody has ever suggested we go back to elevator operators. There is one compelling reason here for self-driven cars-the fact that most humans *can't* safely operate one. Sure, it's easy as you say to learn to move a car. It's well beyond the capability of most people to safely operate one on roads with other vehicles and pedestrians and cyclists. Most people just don't have the coordination, level of judgement, or spatial ability to do so. Why do I say this? Well, 35,000 deaths and 2 million injuries a year from collisions in the US alone is why. We wouldn't tolerate this level of carnage with plane travel or train travel, yet for now we tolerate it for car travel.

There is a great reason why self-driven cars will happen, and it's that the costs of not automating cars greatly exceed the costs of automating them. Liability is a non issue here. Even if automakers are held liable for the deaths caused by automated cars at the current going rate (say about $2 million per life), that will be a drop in the bucket to their bottom line. I'd be surprised if there were more than a handful of deaths annually due to issues with self-driven cars. Don't forget these systems won't be implemented until they're thoroughly tested in the real world. I could put another angle on it. Suppose there was a class-action lawsuit against the automakers right now for the carnage their vehicles cause? That's actually fairly plausible because many car commercials depict cars driven in an illegal and dangerous manner, with only a small disclaimer "car driven on closed course by professional driver". My guess is the automakers would lose big time because they've done little to prevent their vehicles from being operated in a dangerous manner. Certainly they could have done things like use GPS and speed limit data to limit acceleration rates on city streets (to prevent drag racing on streets with pedestrians), and also to limit speeds to the posted speed limit at all times. None of this would even have required any extra hardware. Most cars already have GPS navigation which could be tied into the engine controls to limit speeds and acceleration rates. My larger point is that going to self-driven cars might actually shield automakers from liability because I suspect they won't be able to hide forever behind the fact that how the vehicle is operated is out of their control. To some extent they're complicit in this already just by building cars which have top speeds and acceleration rates well beyond what the average driver can handle.

On the insurance industry, I think this is the one thing which will get the general public to embrace automated cars. Some may not like no longer being able to drive because they enjoy it. The carrot though will be that auto insurance will be a thing of the past. The auto makers and possibly service stations would end up facing liability if something happened, not the individual driver. I suspect that once automated cars are widespread, accidents will be so rare that they will make the national news.

Remember an underlying reason for the trend towards automated driving is the increasing number of driver distractions. Evidently enough people would prefer to text or web surf instead of drive because that's what they're already doing. At least with self-driven cars they can do this without placing others in danger. There are also tons of other advantages. You can do away with traffic lights. You can run closer together at much higher speeds on expressways. The value of all these things far exceeds any potential liability issues.

 

[Monocrom]

Sorry, I can't agree about "most humans can't safely operate [a motor vehicle]."

That's an incredibly general statement. That's your belief. And that's perfectly fine. Mine is that they can, but that many don't take driving seriously. It's not a question of physical or mental limitations. Such as hand / eye coordination, or being tall enough to reach the pedals. Some of us take driving seriously. Others have way the wrong mindset / attitude. The ones who text & drive, for example. Or those who eat & drive. Apply make-up while driving. Shave while driving . . .

Problem isn't their ability at all, it's their wrong-headed mentality.

The main issue once again is money. The insurance industry isn't going to give up their legalized racket that allows them to figuratively print money. No way are they going to make as much money insuring the various car-makers for self-driven vehicles as they would the sheer staggering number of private civilians who need to drive in order to get to work. No way are the various car brands going to have their profit margins greatly reduced by having to buy a new type of insurance for self-driven cars. Then, there are the enviromentalists who will also be petitioning Congress. After all, they're not going to support a ton of self-driven cars clogging up the highways when each of those car owners could be "self-driven" on a public bus along with a ton of other such car owners.

So that's at least 3 huge groups that will flood Congress with lobbyists. All lobbying against self-driven cars. Also, in the incredibly unlikely event that these groups are ignored. After the very first malfunction of a self-driven car in which a person gets killed, that's it! They're getting yanked off the roads.

 

[blasterman]

I work in the tech industry as a contractor, and as much as I see the whining and complaining about fuel costs I still have seen nothing but resistance from drivers to get away from *real* problems such as commuter mentality. We want to work over there, but we want to live way over there, and then call a vehicle that gets 25mpg as 'fuel efficient'.

I was over in the UK before in 1998, and recall the average fuel efficiency of vehicles as a mean was still better than in the U.S today in so called 'green minded' areas. I simply cannot believe the size of bumpkin trucks, sedans and SUVs passing me like I'm standing still while I'm doing 77mph everyday to work. I have to ask again how expensive does gas have to get before I.Qs increase enough in the U.S to realize that a two ton vehicle with one passenger in it and not hauling freight does not entitle you to complain about gas mileage.

I was interviewing for an engineering job some months ago for a very well run company, and for the first time recalled being asked in the interview about how long my commute was. Hallelujah I thought. Companies are starting to figure out that long commutes *do* affect productivity and they are taking this into account when hiring for certain positions. As it was, I was on th inside of the loop, and we both exchanged compliments about their interviewing process and myself being one of the few candidates who saw this as a positive.

 

[Monocrom]

I was interviewing for an engineering job some months ago for a very well run company, and for the first time recalled being asked in the interview about how long my commute was. Hallelujah I thought. Companies are starting to figure out that long commutes *do* affect productivity and they are taking this into account when hiring for certain positions. As it was, I was on th inside of the loop, and we both exchanged compliments about their interviewing process and myself being one of the few candidates who saw this as a positive.

Sounds more like hard-working individuals who don't mind waking up early and coming to work on time will get passed over for the job. There are far better indicators of what type of employee an applicant will be, in terms of productivity, than how far away they live. In 2006, I started a job that required me to take a bus and two different subway trains to get to the client's site. Not even a remotely easy commute. I did it everyday for the next few years. Number of times I was late? Once.

Commute time is at the bottom of the list for what type of work-performance one can expect out of a potential employee.

 

[jtr1962]

Sorry, I can't agree about "most humans can't safely operate [a motor vehicle]."

That's an incredibly general statement. That's your belief. And that's perfectly fine. Mine is that they can, but that many don't take driving seriously. It's not a question of physical or mental limitations. Such as hand / eye coordination, or being tall enough to reach the pedals. Some of us take driving seriously. Others have way the wrong mindset / attitude. The ones who text & drive, for example. Or those who eat & drive. Apply make-up while driving. Shave while driving . . .

Problem isn't their ability at all, it's their wrong-headed mentality.

All the examples you gave fall into the category of "lacking judgement". No amount of training can probably fix that, especially when far too many people regard their car as an extension of their living room. There was actually a time when driving was taken seriously and most drivers took pride in being able to drive well. That was before we as a society decided it was a good idea to make driving nearly universal. Whenever you make anything universal, the end result is that it's dumbed down.

Also, a growing number of people are either on drugs or just physically older. In both cases, the resulting increase in reflex time definitely impairs safety. Regardless, the numbers speak for themselves. I don't care even if a majority can drive safely if they applied themselves. Fact is they don't, and I'm only seeing things getting worse. For example, this year there was actually an increase in the number of pedestrian/cyclist injuries in NYC at the hands of motor vehicles.

The main issue once again is money. The insurance industry isn't going to give up their legalized racket that allows them to figuratively print money. No way are they going to make as much money insuring the various car-makers for self-driven vehicles as they would the sheer staggering number of private civilians who need to drive in order to get to work. No way are the various car brands going to have their profit margins greatly reduced by having to buy a new type of insurance for self-driven cars. Then, there are the enviromentalists who will also be petitioning Congress. After all, they're not going to support a ton of self-driven cars clogging up the highways when each of those car owners could be "self-driven" on a public bus along with a ton of other such car owners.

So that's at least 3 huge groups that will flood Congress with lobbyists. All lobbying against self-driven cars. Also, in the incredibly unlikely event that these groups are ignored. After the very first malfunction of a self-driven car in which a person gets killed, that's it! They're getting yanked off the roads.

I think you're wrong here. First off, the insurance industry isn't particularly well-liked. Do you really think they'll have much luck getting self-driven cars banned solely on the basis that it will affect their profit margins? No lawmaker who wants to get reelected is going to vote in favor of the insurance industry, no matter how much they get in campaign contributions. Look what happened with SOPA. Despite all the lobbying, the will of the general public prevailed. Remember also that the only reason the insurance industry makes these massive profits is because we have laws requiring auto insurance. Those laws could be repealed at any time, self-driven cars or not. In fact, on many levels I feel people would drive better if they were personally liable.

Second, my educated guess is the resulting liability to the automakers for self-driven vehicles will be so low that they'll include it in their expenses rather than have insurance for it. A dozen deaths a year at a few million each is peanuts to any automaker. I'm also sure after a few years the system would be refined to the point of near zero accidents. It's really not hard to safely drive a car by computer so long as all the other cars are also driven by computer. If there were any issues, they would most likely occur during the time when you had a mix of human and computer controlled vehicles on the same roads. Once everything is automated, the path any vehicle takes would be boringly predictable.

Third, why would environmentalists or other like-minded groups lobby against self-driven cars when the alternative is human-driven cars which use more energy, then use yet more resources when they cause carnage? All those collisions mean emergency vehicles use huge amounts of fuel getting victims to hospitals. And what about the huge amounts of fuel burned by highway patrol (which is yet another expensive thing robocars will do away with)? Sure, a self-driven bus might be better, but I'm not seeing why environmentalists would lobby against something which will only save lives and energy. If anything, environmentalists will tend to lobby against roads, period, in favor of rail. In fact, many are already doing exactly that.

I'm really having trouble though with the last statement. We're not a society that just gives up. You really think the very first malfunction of a self-driven car will cause all of them to be yanked? Heck, a while back a laptop battery exploded and killed someone. Nobody suggested pulling everything with lithium-ion batteries off the shelves. Like I said, I honestly feel sooner or later there will be more liability issues if we don't take the human out of the loop. Humans are actually great at creative tasks. Here I feel no machine can ever replace us. For rout, repetitive tasks like driving or assembling parts, machines can do the same job far faster and better and safer than humans ever could.

 

[jtr1962]

I was interviewing for an engineering job some months ago for a very well run company, and for the first time recalled being asked in the interview about how long my commute was. Hallelujah I thought. Companies are starting to figure out that long commutes *do* affect productivity and they are taking this into account when hiring for certain positions. As it was, I was on th inside of the loop, and we both exchanged compliments about their interviewing process and myself being one of the few candidates who saw this as a positive.

It's actually refreshing to hear companies are actually starting to think like this. I spent the last five semesters of college commuting from Eastern Queens to Princeton. It took 2 hours on a good day. After I graduated, I said never again. The fact that it took so much out of me (and this was just sitting on trains, not driving) at that young an age tells me there's no way anyone who has a 2 hour each way commute is going to be at their best. That goes double if they're piloting a vehicle for those 2 hours. If any candidates who live far away get passed over by the company, to me that's doing them a favor even if they might not mind the commute. Over the years a long commute has to impact your health. I know I was burned out by the time college was over.

What I'm really surprised doesn't exist is some kind of national jobs database. Suppose a company could say that we have people doing these jobs in this location. Every other company does the same. You might find many pairs of employees doing similar work who can greatly reduce their commute by voluntarily switching jobs. Imagine now what happens if this database allows millions of people to greatly shorten their commutes by exchanging jobs.

Keeping more with the original theme of this thread, what about making more use of telecommuting for jobs which don't really require a physical presence? How about passing some tax incentives for companies which allow more employees to telecommute? That seems like it would work well.

 

[Monocrom]

Driving, for many, is a necessity. Accidents do happen. No denying that. Yet the vast majority of folks who do drive, do so on a daily basis without issues or accidents at all. If the situation was indeed one of "most" drivers getting into accidents, insurance rates would be so outrageously high that cars would once again simply become toys that the rich could only afford. Originally due to the cost of cars before Henry Ford introduced the Model T. Now, due to cost of insurance from daily, horrific, accidents caused by most of the general public. That hasn't happened. The vast majority of drivers aren't dying (or killing) on a routine basis due to motoring.

Doesn't matter if the insurance industry is well-liked or not. They have money. That translates into lawyers and lobbyists. Politics is a dirty game made up mostly of influence and favors.

The insurance industry loves fender-benders. They love minor mistakes made by drivers. No one hurt, vehicle drivable, insurance premiums through the roof! That's the concept behind "No fault" insurance policies. No one gets blamed. So both drivers involved in an accident get their premiums increased, not just one. Not just the one who was actually responsible or mostly responsible. The insurance industry isn't going to give up that cash cow in exchange for what (ideally) will be far fewer minor accidents from self-driven vehicles.

The Green Camp doesn't want cars at all. Self-driven vehicles isn't a good alternative, for them.

Look at blimps. They were once thought of as the future of trans-continental travel. The future! Advanced, high-class, luxury, air-travel. Took one horrific tragedy for them to vanish off the face of the Earth. Perhaps the very first accident won't do it with self-driven vehicles. (Unless it's truly horrific or involves the death of a child.) But it's a realistic outlook. There's another issue. We're both assuming that self-driven vehicles will have reached the point of being reliable once they are introduced to the public. Rarely are technologically new innovations without bugs, issues, and general teething problems. So, accidents would be a genuine concern.

 

[jtr1962]

Look at blimps. They were once thought of as the future of trans-continental travel. The future! Advanced, high-class, luxury, air-travel. Took one horrific tragedy for them to vanish off the face of the Earth. Perhaps the very first accident won't do it with self-driven vehicles. (Unless it's truly horrific or involves the death of a child.) But it's a realistic outlook. There's another issue. We're both assuming that self-driven vehicles will have reached the point of being reliable once they are introduced to the public. Rarely are technologically new innovations without bugs, issues, and general teething problems. So, accidents would be a genuine concern.

Blimps might have caught on, despite the Hindenburg disaster, had aeroplanes not gotten faster and cheaper. That's really what killed off the blimp. It became a solution in search of a problem. Remember in the US blimps used non-flammable helium which Germany didn't have access too.

I can't say whether or not self-driven vehicles would be trouble free from day one. I feel that in today's lawsuit-prone environment they will have the hell tested out of them before being sold to the general public, which is as it should be. The problem here is that you're acting as if the status quo is just fine. You even call collisions "accidents", as if they just happen on their own. Studies show the opposite-namely that nearly all collisions are the result of human error of some kind. Anyway, I'm astounded that we as a society accept 35,000 annual deaths and 2 million injuries, just in the US alone. If we have the technology to seriously reduce these numbers, even if it isn't perfect, we should use it.

 

[ElectronGuru]

I'm not so sure it will take 60 years to readjust to the new reality of higher energy costs. Remember that it took us less than 50 years to get to the mess we're in now. Already with higher gas prices demand for public transit is exceeding supply in many places. And the cities are showing net growth while many exurbs are being abandoned. The problem in a nutshell is in the last 50 years we built as if we were going to have cheap energy forever.

There's an important east/west difference at play. Most of the east coast was built out before WWII, with areas of expansion smaller and less influential. Places that still are can be updated and reinhabited. In the west and the area I'm most familiar with (socal), 30m people live in an area configured almost entirely post WWII. Picture a massive Long Island, a solid 100sq/mi blanket of curvilinear streets, broken only by freeways The only indication you've even left one city and entered another is the wording on the offramp signs. Its impossible to install trains and bus service (to anywhere near most front doors) would be horrifically impractical. Changing it would require dozing the whole super lot and abandoning it (land worth trillions) would require moving half way to Vegas. There simply isn't enough 'old town' for enough people to move into.

This is a warning of things to come. As the supply of light and sweet crude runs dry, California will run out of gas as the refineries that can produce gas from poor grades of oil will leave the state since there is no incentive to invest in upgrades without profit potential.

If I'm understanding your description: there are several companies, all producing gas to CA standards. Some are running out of source LSC and are not able to pass production cost increases from using normal crude to customers, who would then start buying from companies who still (for now) have sources of LSC. But when they too run out of LSC, no companies will have the lower cost advantage and all retail prices will go up, covering the increased cost of new equipment.

California has several remarkable abilities. One of them is squandering huge advantages/opportunities (that other states would kill for), but another is providing previews of things to come, for the rest of the country. What we are seeing is the early signs of declining oil supplies. These will eventually show up elsewhere. In the mean time, this short term crisis will pass and this thread will again grow quiet.

 

[gadget_lover]

Easiest way to cut your fuel costs is to avoid driving. There are many ways to do that. All of these are frequently done. Each will cut your gas costs 20%

Telecommute once a week.

Work 4 days at 10 hours a day or even 3 days at 13.5 hours each.

Car pool twice a week (you drive once, they drive once).


When you do drive, you can improve your mileage with easy tricks like;
Coast to the stop sign.
Coast to the red traffic signal.
Accelerate slowly and smoothly.
Find out what speed gives you the best mileage around town. Frequently right around 43 gives great mileage. Do the same for the freeway. Very few cars are as efficient at 65 or 75 as they are at 55.
Don't carry extra weight in the car. It takes energy to accelerate a pound of anything, even as light as school books.

If you are replacing the car anyway, look at higher gas mileage cars. If you only drive 10 miles a week it does not matter too much what you drive. If you drive 100 it does.

Match the car (assuming you are buying one) to your driving. An electric car is a great choice if you can take advantage of it's strengths. Same with a hybrid. I love my hybrid but if you only drive a few miles at a time, you don't get the full benefit of the system.

Daniel

 

[jtr1962]

Work 4 days at 10 hours a day or even 3 days at 13.5 hours each.

I've been saying this for years. Besides the obvious savings in commuting costs/time, you always have either 3-day or 4-day weekends. Actually, to me the 3-day work week makes the most sense, the theory being once you work 8 hours, the day is pretty much shot anyway. Might as well just stay there another 5 or so hours and get 2 extra days a week off. I also think this is healthier from a lifestyle standpoint. 5 days on, 2 days off is a drag any way you look at it. 3 days on, 4 days off gives you plenty of time for yourself.

 

[Fresh Light]

I'd like to add that on my car, coasting in gear does not use fuel, while shifting into neutral forces the engine to burn fuel to idle. I drive a vw jetta tdi with modifications to the intake/exhaust, computer tuning, turbo, injectors allowing for a maximum output of 175 hp and 290 ftlbs of tq. The tank when completely full to the brim will hold 15.9 gallons. Without running it empty on a single tank I've driven 910 miles, which equates to 57.2mpg if I had ran it to empty. Most of that trip was at 60 but sometimes up to 80 as a max. Driving to work 40 miles and back I regularly get 46-50. Filled it tonight and only 45mpg, a little dissapointing. I can't stress enough how little I try to get 45 mpg, I regularly rip the onramps and drive for fun.

A friend just bought a new passat 6 sp. He is getting 55mpg on all highway trips at 75. This car set the mileage record for a single tank, somewhere around 1400 or so miles. I may get one of these as the next car, but I'm really liking having no payments.