Scientists conceive SUV that could get 36 m.p.g.

[Pale Blue Dot]

At a news conference at Penn's Landing, the Union of Concerned Scientists presented a blueprint of the Guardian, a vehicle that the group said would get up to 36 miles per gallon - a 71 percent improvement over the Ford Explorer it is based on.

The modifications - all using available technology - would cost more up front but would pay for themselves after five years, said David Friedman, a mechanical engineer who codesigned the Guardian.

<snip>

A leading automotive trade group dismissed the report as repackaged ideas that either are impractical or have been largely rejected by consumers as too expensive.

"It's our contention that consumers know best what they need for their families in a vehicle," said Eron Shosteck, spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/6788628.htm

:grr:

[LeftHander]

1. In Showrooms for 2015 model year....

<eom>

[LifeDuringWartime]

2. ha

toyota will be putting their hybrid technology into all of their vehicles soon, even SUVs. that means low as hell emissions and high mpg. :)

www.toyota.com

[AP]

3. Honda has a hybrid passport coming out that gets 35-40 mpg

This article makes it seem like only the fantasy of a future-age science can achieve this remarkalbe feat, and that sensible people dispute that it can ever be achieved.

We're not talking Jules Verne, here. This isn't far-fetched. The big three should be ashamed that they're not making hybrid SUVs today.

[realFedUp]

19. I'm buying

Make it and they will buy.

[Terran]

23. me too

I would love to have a hybrid SUV, but heretofore had considered it unlikely to happen for many years.

[Atlant]

25. A hybrid Lexus RX300 is "in the pipeline"...

The new Prius's hybrid package* was designed to support a
second electric motor/generator SPECIFICALLY so that
this same powertrain could be built into an AWD vehicle.
The rear drive is purely electric with no transfer case
or driveshaft involved.

Atlant


* "Hybrid Synergy Drive" in Marketingspeak

[papau]

4. Posted at Du in Energy Forum - link below

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=1247

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/cars_and_suvs/page.cfm?pageID=1249

http://www.ucsusa.org/publication.cfm?publicationID=658 http://www.ucsusa.org/publication.cfm?publicationID=659



The UCS off the shelf component design is called the Guardian and for $29,935 for the base model ($735 more expensive than the 2002 Ford Explorer XLT, the model on which the Guardian was based, but getting 27.8 miles per gallon rather than Ford’s 21.2 mph) comes with a unibody steel frame, a stronger, crumple-resistant roof, seat belts that cinch automatically in a rollover, lower bumpers to protect other drivers in a crash, and a seat-belt reminder that emits a noise until all passengers are belted. It also has a six-cylinder, fuel-efficient engine. The more expensive model, the Guardian XSE (cost nearly $3,000 more than the Explorer, but getting 36.3 miles per gallon compared to the Explorer’s rated 21.2 miles per gallon), has electronic stability control to reduce the threat of rollovers and side curtain air bags for all passengers. A six-speed automatic transmission helps the engine run more efficiently.

NET –NET:
A major improvement in safety, and a major decrease in gas usage that recovers the extra cost many times over..

[0007]

5. Yeah but,

Top cruising speed is 36 mph. (just kidding)

[Atlant]

7. RE: "Top crusing speed of 36 MPH"...

> Yeah but, top cruising speed is 36 mph. (just kidding)

I realize you were joking, but each morning I sit in my
commuter bus on I-93 South into Boston and watch SUV after
SUV go by headed for Boston with with exactly one person in
each vehicle.

These people would be very pleased if they were going 36
MPH instead of fifteen, five, or zero, but they are sure
that travelling alone at five miles per hour beats car-
pooling or public transportation at 65 MPH.*

They also seem unaffected by the fact that most of the
roll-over accidents are SUVs that turned topsy-turvy.

Some people just don't seem able to put 1 and 1 together.

Atlant


*Which is the speed we'd ALL achieve if only the roads
were a little bit less crowded.

[AndyTiedye]

24. A Good Argument for taking Public Transport into Boston -- a better one...

...is not having to deal with Boston drivers! (I used to live in that area, so I'm entitled to bash them).

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Just tell me

Where and when I can buy one. As long as the price is within an acceptable range, I'd buy one tomorrow.

[Atlant]

8. As mentioned above, watch for the Japanese hybrid SUVs. (NT)

[ozone_man]

9. They can probably make pigs fly too.

But why. The concept of trying to make a giant 5,000 lb. SUV more efficient is flawed IMO. Not to discourage advances in fuel efficiency by any means, but it is not addressing the fundamental disease that we have about driving these big monster machines. We live in a consumer society where bigger is better, sky is the limit, etc. Bigger problem is at that end. Now, if you really have 3 or 4 kids, etc. then maybe you have justification for owning one of these things, but I think most just like to drive around by themselves, 1 or 2 people in huge vehicles. The 70's had it right with little cars, after oil embargo. Now we just have a war, when it looks like we need more oil.

[Enraged_Ape]

10. You are right, ozone_man

This is the automotive equivalent of the low-tar cigarette.

[sybylla]

11. The era of little cars was the 80's

and SUV owners have a right to lower mpg as well. If you think that keeping the MPG high will keep people from buying these things you don't understand why people buy SUV's in the first place.

Besides, SUV's won't magically go away. They are the perfect vehicle for many businesses as they can haul odd sized and sometimes heavy loads as well as gobs of people. And I imagine that businesses put far more miles on their SUV's every day than any commuter. Think about all the oil and air we can save if lower MPG were a possiblity.

[ozone_man]

15. Late 70's and 80's. My 1976 Datsun 38MPG IIRC.

They sort of gave up on fuel efficiency research it seems. All kinds of loop holes on SUV efficiency requirements.

Not trying to take away from valid uses, such as business, big families, etc., just expressing my feeling about average user. All victims of the advertising that shows these things on top of a mountain somewhere. They have set their hooks deep into the consumer and are now reeling them in. Average American will go to war to protect their SUVs. But this (oil) has been directing ME policy since WWI and before.

[sybylla]

17. Is this a statement about the average user?

>The concept of trying to make a giant 5,000 lb. SUV more efficient is flawed IMO.<

This is what I was addressing. I think it is inherently flawed not to try to make these "giants" more fuel efficient. I don't care who's driving them. One issue, the mentality that puts commuters in these kinds of vehicles, is social and the other, the need to reduce emissions and fuel consumption is environmental. Sometimes you have to get off the soapbox and support making things better, even if it is not the way you would prefer to get it done.

And while foreign manufacturers were making smaller vehicles decades before we did here, they weren't a big thing on the roads (except perhaps in places like California where the crunch hit hard early) until the very late 70's and early 80's. I owned a 78 Starfire Firenza, the smallest car GM made at the time and it had an eight cylinder and got about 20 - 24 MPG, which was great for an eight cylinder at the time. Bought it in late '79 and the dealer tried to convince me that it was a six because of the energy crunch. I and my SO knew better. Other American manufactures each made small vehicle or two, but they were rarely as small as the foreign cars.

[ozone_man]

21. Certainly any work on fuel efficiency is well worth it,

since it can be applied to other small vehicles. My point was that the problem should not be thought of in the confining context of making SUVs more efficient, but rather to reduce the number of SUVs. Maybe put an efficiency tax on them.

"I think it is inherently flawed not to try to make these "giants" more fuel efficient".

Efficiency legislation is strange. Attacking the problem this way reminds me of the way midwest coal burning electrical plants can buy the right to pollute from other more efficient plants instead of installing state of the art scrubber technology. This was apparently done to make the energy efficiency more attractive to the industry. Yes it reduces the overall pollution, but still allows these dirty coal burning plants to keep going. We get the acid rain in the NE that kills lakes, etc.

[Atlant]

12. You'll notice that "their" SUV isn't a 5,000 behemoth

> They can probably make pigs fly too. But why. The concept of trying to
> make a giant 5,000 lb. SUV more efficient is flawed IMO.

You'll notice that "their" SUV isn't a 5,000 behemoth. One significant
change indicating that is that their SUV proposes to use "unit-body"
construction, not body-on-frame. That one change alone signifies the
design direction that they're taking (which sounds to me a lot more
like "SUV styling on a minivan platform" than slightly-tweaked Ford
Explorer).

People "want" SUVs. So sell them "SUVs" and just we will know the
secret that they're realling driving reworked mini-vans.

Atlant

[Superfly]

13. Too bad a Ford Explorer

is a piece of shit after only 1 year...

"pay for themselves after five years"

[Atlant]

14. Do you have one of those cute little decals...

Do you have one of those cute little decals that shows
the little boy pissing on the Ford logo, too?

Atlant

[Superfly]

16. No, why?

I love my SUV.

[Atlant]

18. You seem to have an exagerated dislike for Ford.

You seem to have an exagerated dislike for Ford.

Even my Dodge Caravan (which is a legally-adjudged POS)
is still running at T+7 years and 130K miles.

Atlant

[Superfly]

22. No, not really, I just can't stand them.

They're built for shit.

[JohnyCanuck]

20. When I see energy/conservation issues etc. being discussed

in the media, I've followed up by sending this email.

I was wondering if anyone at (insert name of media here) knew about the theory of Peak Oil. According to the Peak Oil theorists world oil production is shortly about to peak (i.e. estimates range from peak occurring right now to within the next 10 to 20 years). The implications are that peak production can only last a few years and once passed all the easily accessible oil will have been used up, and it will take increasing effort, money and energy inputs to recover less and less oil. Natural gas is also considered to be pretty close to peak now as well.

The geologists, energy consultants etc. who are concerned about Peak Oil and the consequences of our lack of planning for such an occurrence are convinced that non-conventional oil and gas recovery or alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, bio-mass, hydrogen etc. will not even come even close to providing our heavily industrialised and oil dependent developed western economies a replacement for the concentrated and relatively cheap source of energy found in conventional oil and natural gas.

The economic consequences to the industrialised world are likely to be staggering to say the least. One of the most prominent promoters of the Peak Oil theory is. Colin Campbell PhD a retired geologist and oil industry executive and energy consultant. Another prominent individual who has expressed his concerns that Peak Oil will be upon us shortly and we will be totally unprepared to face the consequences is Mathew Simmons, an energy related investment banker (his firm controls 56 billion in assets) and a member of Cheney's 2001 energy task force.

On May 27 2003, Simmons addressed a conference (see link below) at the French Petroleum Institute convened by the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) In his address he stated:

>>.....Most serious scientists worry that the world will peak in oil supply. But most assume that this day of reckoning is still years away. Many also assume that non-conventional oil will carry us through several additional decades. They were right to ring the alarm bell. But they too might also be too optimistic. Non-conventional oil unfortunately is too non-conventional. Light oil is easy to produce and convert into usable energy. Heavy oil is hard to produce and extremely energy intensive and very hard to grow rapidly. It turns out the United States of America has nine fields left that still produce over 100,000 barrels a day. And three of the nine have turned out to be located in California and on average are 103 years old. The reason these fields are still there is that they're very heavy oil. And heavy oil can last forever but it's very hard to get out of the ground. And it takes a remarkable amount of energy to convert heavy oil into usable energy.

Five years ago I barely had thought about the question of, "What does peaking mean and when might it occur?" I was intending at the time though to study the concept of depletion and the phenomenon that field after field was tending to peak fast and decline at rates that were unheard of before. The uh, uh, I think basically that now, that peaking of oil will never be accurately predicted until after the fact. But the event will occur, and my analysis is leaning me more by the month, the worry that peaking is at hand; not years away. If it turns out I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. But if I'm right, the unforeseen consequences are devastating<<

In an Oct 23 , 2002 interview (see link below) Dr. Colin Campbell responded to a question on whether alternative energy sources such as Tar Sands etc. would provide a solution. This was Dr. Campbell's response.

>>Campbell: Of course there is a range of alternatives from wind, sun, tide, nuclear, etc. but today they contribute only a very small percentage, and do not come close to matching the oil of the past in terms of cost or convenience. No doubt production from tar sands and heavy oils can be stepped up in the future but it is painfully slow and expensive, carrying also environmental costs. It will help ameliorate the decline but has minimal impact on peak. The simple solution is to use less. We are extremely wasteful energy users. But it involves a fundamental change of attitude and the rejection of classical economic principles, which were built on endless growth in a world of limitless resources. Those days are over, exacerbated by the soaring population, itself now set to decline partly from energy shortage.<<

If you are not yet familiar with this topic, I sincerely hope that you will at least review the evidence presented at the various links I have listed below. If the Peak Oil theory is valid, humanity is going to be faced with some critical choices in the not too distant future . It's important that the public be made aware of just how critically dependent on oil and natural gas we are and what the penalties for us as a society are likely to be if we refuse to face the probability that the age of cheap energy will shortly be over.

Here's a list of links to various speeches, articles and interview discussing Peak Oil/Gas.

For a quick summary of Peak Oil and it's implications see this transcript of an Oct 23, 2002 interview with geologist and retired oil industry consultant and executive Colin Campbell PhD.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102302_campbell.html

Lecture by Dr. Colin Campbell at University of Clausthal (Real Player video)
http://www.rz.tu-clausthal.de/realvideo/event/peak-oil.ram

Lecture notes for above Campbell presentation:
http://energycrisis.org/de/lecture.html

Transcript of address by investment banker Mathew Simmons presented to the ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil) meeting at the French Petroleum Institute. May 27, 2003
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/061203_simmons.html

Lecture by Julian Darley "US Natural Gas: When Crunch Becomes Crisis" presented June 17, 2003 to the enter for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC (Requires Real Player)
http://ram.postcarbon.org/RAM/2003/06/JulianDarley.DC-CSIS.NatGasCrisis.2003-06-17.P1.ram

Discussing oil depletion, natural gas, gov't reaction and ramifications an interview with Dr, Colin Campbell
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/INTERVIEWS/COLIN.CAMPBELL/

www.postcarbon.org
www.hubbertpeak.com

Regards and best wishes

[AndyTiedye]

26. Why Are You Driving a TRUCK?

That's what we should ask people who are driving a huge, empty SUV.

For those into conspicuous consumption, the thing should be having the right-sized car for every occasion. The SUV is for hauling lots of stuff, or driving in the outback.
The well-equipped consumer should certainly have something that handles better, is easier to park and burns less fuel for around town.