Sorry, I meant if for example I drive a hybrid, gas becomes a lesser per gallon amount than someone driving a H2. A sliding scale of pay more or less, your car is classified here, you pay this much per gallon. I think that would get some people away from the H2's. I do understand some people use SUVs and H2s and smaller cars will not work for them. It's more the people who don't need it that use it for status.

 

The driver of an H2 already pays FIVE TIMES AS MUCH per mile just in fuel costs alone as a typical hybrid owner. They're paying twice as much (or more) for their tires, brake pads, rotors, basic maintainence on that 8-cyl engine versus the 4-cyl engines in most hybrids, not to mention an H2 costs more than twice as much to purchase in the first place. Absolutely everything possible costs more or WAY more on a large SUV than a hybrid. You know what? People still buy them. Cost does not discourage their purchase, so your logic that increasing the cost a little more will discourage use flies in the face of reality where we see they already gladly pay far more to drive large SUV's.

 

Then somehow the public perception of land barges has to be made unattractive to the public. Something that makes status and approval not worthwhile.

 

Well that's the biggest problem. Many people choose to buy vehicles like that exclusively because of their counter-culture status. 24" chrome wheels, spinners, excessive chrome and 7 LCD's playing movies and XBOX games in the vehicle while blasting music with very much R-rated lyrics that can be heard from 200 feet away is the socially irresponsible image they want to project. They want you to look at them with contempt and disdain, so if anything, the fact that huge SUV's are socially and environmentally irresponsible enhances their allure to a huge buying segment.

I've said it in probably a dozen threads but the surest way to make such vehicles extinct is not to make them hard for the end consumer to buy, it's to make it hard for the producer to make. Raise CAFE to 30 miles per gallon across the board and raise the GVWR exemption to 12,000 pounds from the current 8500 pounds. Suddenly the huge profits associated with most SUV's will evaporate to government sanctions. No one can buy it if the manufacturer refuses to produce such a vehicle.

 

Hi All:

___Possibly mentioned in this thread a few pages back, gas may be closer to $2.00 - $2.50 per by Christmas then $4.00 or $5.00. Rita did some damage to at least 1 refinery yet prices are equal or below what they were pre-Katrina/pre-Rita. Oil is closer to $60 then $70 and I think you will see a little more ease. Longer term, this will not hold but I believe OPEC is beginning to worry that the US will begin to tap their oil shale reserves at these prices in the not-to-distant future. Once you start pushing $70.00 per BBl, there are alternatives that are far less expensive and far better for our environment … Oil Shale, Tar Sands, and Coal to Gas are not three of the better for the environment I was speaking of but they are alternatives.

___In regards to SUV’s and Full size P/U trucks … At least someone is making a profit which does grease the skids of a whole bunch of US based employees. Is this wrong for the environment and our balance of trade? You bet it is but that will not matter because most shrug off the recent price spike as hurricane related (it was not just hurricane related by any extent) instead of something much bigger that they do not yet understand.

___I will probably place the MDX on the market or trade this winter when gasoline settles into a trough but I believe that trough will be somewhat temporary. At least I hope we see that trough this coming winter.

___The US car purchasing consumer endured $0.50 per and there was a cry for conservation. It endured $1.00 per and the same went out. Only when gasoline shortages actually came to pass, then you saw the sub-compacts purchased in droves. $2.00 in recent years hardly a blink. Now $3.00 per and there appears to be a small turn in automobile purchasing priorities. With that, I am still seeing speeds out on the highway pick right back up again It is going to take actual gasoline shortages, not just prices to really turn things around and god knows I know of nobody that wants to see that come again. What do you think a Sequoia, Excursion, Yukon XL, or H2 driver is going to do when there are 30 sub-compacts, compacts, mid-size, hybrid and diesel automobiles sitting in line for fuel and 1 of these big monsters pulls up into the same line? That individual will be lucky not to get shot!

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

 

I know they do, but if they are paying more still, maybe some will re-consider. And it saves people who choose to use less because they spend lesser amounts as well.

 

Unfortunately, I think the SUV crowd will probably believe the following two myths right up to the bitter end:
-- SUVs are "safer".
-- SUVs demonstrate wealth and success.

For the debunking part:
-- Every time I see a CHiPs-style multi-car pileup, there's always at least one or two SUVs in the mix, and they look like crushed soda cans. Most SUVs don't actually have good crash statistics at all!
-- I work in a retail store in a bad neighborhood. All the low-end welfare-class hoodlums are driving SUVs these days; typically KIA or Hyundai land-yachts with lots of dents, a crappy stereo blasting RAP to full blast, and tinted windows so that they can shoot cops when they get pulled over for expired tags and expired insurance. Yeah, the SUVs around here really say "success" and "high society". [NOT!]

Until these atitudes change, the SUV crowd would probably choose to not feed their children rather than buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle.