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EU's green drive could put £3,300 on a car
dailymail.co.uk — An EU-commissioned report claims the proposals could add an average of £2,500 to the price of a car. But motor manufacturers claim the cost could be as high as £3,300.
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- lowandslow, on 10/12/2007, -26/+16It would be interesting to watch the people in the U.S. change their minds about global warming if the price of a car went up three grand. But then again most people still think recycling is a good idea.
- RadicalRon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17£3,300 would be close to $6,500 at the current exchange rate.
http://www.xe.com - bigdavediode, on 10/12/2007, -10/+32In the exact same vein, google for old editorials about how mandating seat belts will make cars unaffordably expensive.
- hiPpymIck, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1the manufacturers might also be sulking..
"The launch of "Act on CO2" was scheduled for yesterday [21feb]with an event in the Horse Guards Parade in London. But the event, involving car makers providing display models, was called off...
....Privately, however, automotive industry sources were furious at the last minute delay.
"It's a shambles. We were meant to have a month's notice about the data. In fact we had a day-and-a-half. It's a real mess," said one insider."
(...the website wasnt ready)
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2018404,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=29 - CBTF, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13And why, I ask, isn't recycling a "good" idea?
- elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -10/+17cbtf, lowandslow thinks he's really smart because he can repeat what Penn and Teller told him in an episode of *****.
- LaughingMan11, on 10/12/2007, -11/+9The average price of a car has been going up gradually over the last 20 years because of many of the comfort items that we've gotten used to and have become standard. Power doors, power windows, radio, CD player, safety features like seat belts, airbags, traction control.
The price of the technologies that will get us to substantially reducing greenhouse gas will come down in time, but I don't foresee price being a huge factor in making people forget about global warming.
Save a few grand today, but what are the costs to generations to come? - 4NDr01D, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5good maybe the auto industry should stop building unreliable, faulty, products that break and depreciate at an astounding rate.
- RadicalRon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6@bigdavediode
You could also google "global freezing" and see what interesting stuff pops up. - bigdavediode, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Radical:
>You could also google "global freezing" and see what interesting stuff pops up.
Okay, I did, and there were zero scientific magazines listed. Zero peer reviewed publications. One fake news publication "World Net Daily", a Wikipedia article, and a 1975 article from Newsweek (where all this BS came from -- one article in Newsweek, not exactly science!) - 15charmaxwtf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@cbtf
Some recycling is more expensive and waste disposal is nationalised so people can not see the real cost, they can not make rational decisions on what to throw away.
For example, if it cost someone more to throw away plastic then the packaging manufacturers could switch to biodegradable plastics. People would prefer to buy biodegradable stuff because it would be cheaper to throw it away. If waste disposal is nationalised people cannot see the costs so it does not matter to them what they are throwing out. - 15charmaxwtf, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@4nDr01D
Perhaps you should buy cars from a more reliable manufacturer :P - designer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Global warming is not real.
- RadicalRon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17£3,300 would be close to $6,500 at the current exchange rate.
- cyberdork, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15And i'm pretty sure that £2,000 of that will be pure profit for the manufacturer.
- Sep11insidejob, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2As long as there is a tax break for buying such cars it should even up.
- Bhima, on 10/12/2007, -8/+4This is a fair bit of exaggeration and discounts the various tax breaks an other incentives these cars qualify for.
- Monkeyget, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15I call ***** on this. I have a brand new car and it already emits 130g/km (the limit for 2012).
Sure the motor 'only' has 90hp and bigger car pollute more but when you see that manufacturers have set themselves a limit of 140g/km I don't see what might cost 3,300 pounds to gain 10g- HP844182, on 10/12/2007, -18/+11"only" 90? Can you even get it up to highway speeds? I'd fear for my life in a car with that little power.
- wrenchone, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5It would cost that much because engines would need to be redesigned. You can't just slap a filter on the exhaust pipe and call it good.
The engine internals need to be redesigned to be lighter and have less friction resistance. Air intakes needs to be designed to better breathing, with more filter on incoming air. Exhaust systems need to have catalytic converters installed, and to allow more exhaust gas to be returned to the engine to be re-burned.
Your car meets the emissions requirements because as you said, it's a 90hp motor, in a car probably designed for two people, and never meant to leave a city. It means emissions just by being small. Bigger cars need bigger engines to transport more people and to reach highway speeds safely. It's these bigger engines that need the special treatments, and thus cost more. - LaughingMan11, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14hp : there used to be a day where a 90 hp car was more than sufficient for everything. When did that turn into "fear for ones life?"
My dad owned a 1983 Honda Civic five speed. The 1.3 L engine puts out a grand total of 53 hp, yet it was perfectly fine, and we drove it even through the turn of the century. The reason? It was a small car. You don't need HUGE amounts of power if your weight is kept way down.
I think people have entirely the wrong idea about horsepower in this country. How many horsepower do you really NEED on average? How much is just for extreme cases where you're accelerating more than you need to be? - bludo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19My car has 75 hp and it drives very fine ... oh wait, it isn't designed like a brick and it doesn't weight 2 tonnes.
btw, europe is full of small 1.3l 50 hp cars - HP844182, on 10/12/2007, -15/+5Well I guess when your entire country is roughly the size of Texas, you don't need to travel much.
- miek, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14hp: I don't know how ignorant you're trying to be, but I drive a 54hp car that gets up to 175km/h, which translated into mph is roughly 110. And if my memory serves me correctly, in the US the maximum highway speed is 80.
So my car that according to you is "not for a large amount of travelling" can go over the US highway speed limit by 37,5 percent. I'm wondering how fast you need to drive to 'feel safe'. - bigdavediode, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5hp:
>"only" 90? Can you even get it up to highway speeds? I'd fear for my life in a car with that little power.
You're an idiot, it's not the speed, it's the power to weight ratio. My car has 40.2 horsepower and it can do 140. Can your car do 140? - HP844182, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Umm...yes. Yes it can.
What the hell do you have? A motorcycle? - bigdavediode, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1hp -- I have a lighter car, and it's a diesel with a turbocharger. Might actually have closer to 50 hp, now. Goes vroom vroom real fast.
- chris9902, on 10/12/2007, -11/+8Maybe now more people will use our 'fantastic' over-priced public transport?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6391633.stm- nawitus, on 10/12/2007, -7/+13Trains are far more safer than private transportation.
- DoodlesMcPooh, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8Trouble is with trains we always have a massive crash every few years in the UK which puts people off.
The latest one was on Friday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6391633.stm - LaughingMan11, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14How many people crash and kill themselves on the highways every day in the world?
It may be scary when something big like a plane or a train crashes and kills people, but statistically speaking, driving a car is the most dangerous form of transportation you can use.
Not immediately intuitive, but it's true. - evolseven, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I think its a matter of control though, I know that I prefer driving mostly because I feel in control. I have some amount of control as to whether I crash and die, whereas in a train or plane I have no control as to what happens. I feel the same way when someone else is driving and I am a passenger.
- OggVorbis, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3"Trains are far more safer (sic) than private transportation."
Not with terrorists running around, they're not. - Kelmon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Train is a great way to travel if you can use it. Travelling by car is much slower and irritating but it does give you more flexibility. As a general rule I'll use the train whenever it is practical to do so, particularly for any trips over a reasonable distance or going into a city.
- wageslave1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1OggVorbis 17 hours ago
"Trains are far more safer (sic) than private transportation."
Not with terrorists running around, they're not.
There have been "terrorists" since the beginning of time. Violence for the purpose of politics == terrorism. America invading Iraq is a terrorist act.
Further, what your talking about (w/r/t terrorists) is asymmetrical warfare. Look it up. Its the last available tactics when your opposition vastly out-arms you. The UK rightly called the American Revolutionaries "Terrorists" during the US revolution. The Revolutionary army did plenty of raping and pillaging of innocent (enemy) civilians -- look it up.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedomfighter is true.
All that said, your point "Not with terrorists running around, they're not." Somewhere near 50,000 people die every year in automobile accidents in the USA alone (not to mention the numbers maimed and injured).
So, you are 100% completely incorrect.
- bishop, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11One point that seems to never be mentioned is that India and China will soon be the biggest CO2 producer in the world.
The Europeans are incurring great cost for something that will have no effect on the climate!
Why the madness and the hysteria?- LaughingMan11, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13China will soon have stricter CO2 standards than the US and Europe because it is in their interest to preserve their resources and improve their air quality as well.
And just because your country or region isn't the biggest polluter on the planet doesn't mean you get a pass on reducing greenhouse gases. This MUST be a global effort to reduce pollution if we are to get through this as a civilization.
Furthermore, increasing EU fuel economy standards will mean that european car manufacturers will be pushed to make better cars with the technology necessary to sell globally. They will have fuel economy for the european standards as a priority, but will also keep Europe's manufacturers competitive worldwide . - Revan01, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Thats what they said about the EU as well... which isn't really working as well as they contend...
- Kelmon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Lead by example. We can hardly ask other countries to restrict their own output if we do nothing ourselves. It's attitudes like this that mean that nothing will be done.
- LaughingMan11, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13China will soon have stricter CO2 standards than the US and Europe because it is in their interest to preserve their resources and improve their air quality as well.
- rpelayo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17The Daily Mail is a rag. It's sole purpose is to incite the public into immediate hatred of any article it writes. It always goes out of it's way to misquote any document or source it interviews. And it's especially anti-EU. Monkeyget called ***** before me, that's the only reason I'm not calling it here.
- PixelVision, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Bingo! The whole duration of the Iraq war so far, the Daily Mail has been saying British troops shouldn't be there and are being put to waste. The day after the PM announced that troops were leaving Iraq a front page headline on the Mail said that Blair was cutting n running. It's ridiculously absurd and is not worth the paper it's printed on.
- Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8Manufacturers have bitched about every state mandated improvement since the muffler, and lo and behold, they make plenty of money and sell plenty of cars. And lo and behold, cars are much safer and better than they used to be. Contrary to the Conservative Manifesto, regulation can sometimes improve the world.
- RadicalRon, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1And that's why Ford and GM are swimming in money.
- bigdavediode, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5No, they're poor because they build ***** SUVs and car boats. Bigger is better has been their stock in trade, and now they're hurting, just like in the 1970's.
- FearAndLoathing, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Every Penny Fed Car, that's the answer.
- HsoKinees, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4i wonder how this will affect cars being sold on eBay?
- RadicalRon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1If you're in the US, it will depend on how much each state would require to retrofit in order to bring the vehicle up to code. Cars made prior to 1975 will probably remain exempt, but no guarantee on that.
California, land of banned leaf blowers and lawnmowers, will lead the way (keep in mind, this was the state that considered putting diapers on cows 30-some years ago because of the predicted 'global freezing' that was being caused by an increase of 'greenhouse gases' whenever cows farted or dropped a load).*
A similar kind off nuttiness will determine the retrofit mandate. It will not be cheap and there will be few government handouts to subsidize the costs associated with retrofitting. Fortunately for the rest of the country, the other states, except for maybe Oregon, will not adopt or enact the type of Draconian measures California surely will.
This will most definitely be interesting to watch as it unfolds - and how soon and severe the Law of Unintended Consequences comes into play.
* this foolishness played a part in California being called the Land of Fruits and Nuts. It also led to Jerry Brown getting tagged by the media as "Governor Moonbeam" after he took office. - bigdavediode, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Radicalron:
>California, land of banned leaf blowers and lawnmowers, will lead the way (keep in mind, this was the state that considered putting diapers on cows 30-some years ago because of the predicted 'global freezing' that was being caused by an increase of 'greenhouse gases' whenever cows farted or dropped a load).*
Wow, Radicalron, when did the state debate this so we can look at the legislative process for this bill? Oh right, you're full of *****.
- RadicalRon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1If you're in the US, it will depend on how much each state would require to retrofit in order to bring the vehicle up to code. Cars made prior to 1975 will probably remain exempt, but no guarantee on that.
- CarzorStelatis, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7The cost of making cars less environmentally destructive might seem high. But the Stern Report (commissioned by the UK government) determined that doing nothing to combat global warming will cost at least ten times as much in the long run as taking the necessary measures now.
- RadicalRon, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Science in the Colonies, *calls ****** as the lefties like to invoke
http://www.oism.org/pproject/
As does Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece - bigdavediode, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5RadicalRon:
>Frederick Seitz
Holy ***** you're stupid. He's a former tobacco lobbyist and physicist, not a climatologist. Why not just believe my ass grease? Look, it's brown and chunky and it's telling you to believe something about the climate.
>Nigel Calder
And this guy isn't even a scientist, forget even being a climatologist, but a tv show writer! What is wrong with you!? 983 climatologists agree under peer reviewed conditions that global warming is occuring, none dissented, and you're finding tv sitcom writers, science writers and tobacco lobbyists to believe. F'ing snap out of it.
- RadicalRon, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Science in the Colonies, *calls ****** as the lefties like to invoke
- HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Given that CO2 comes inexorably from burning gasoline in air, I don't see how it would cost anything to limit it. All it means is that car makers will have to make less powerful engines, which should actually be cheaper to make than bigger ones.
Of course, people won't like being pushing ot smaller engined cars. - amightywind, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1What is the 120g C/km about, except economic suicide? What benefit will such levels achieve?
- THX1212, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Meanwhile, Green Business News says Goracle-style carbon trading schemes just don't pan out:
http://green.itweek.co.uk/2007/02/emission_tradin.html
http://green.itweek.co.uk/2007/02/why_carbon_pric.html
http://green.itweek.co.uk/2006/10/firms_urged_to_.html
I guess that is going to be one mighty big carbon footprint our former vice-president has left, carbon offsets aside. The failure of these schemes once again demonstrates the fact that liberals don't understand economics.
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