Carbon Tax, Cars and The way Forward

SirFooK'nG

SirFooK'nG

Executive Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2009
Messages
8,693
Reaction score
840
Location
Durbs / Pinetown
I often sit and ponder over how much corruption there is throughout the world. Not your ordinary run of the mill corruption, not even the slightly bigger stuff like our "Arms Deal". But big stuff, like oil companies, car manufacturers and governments.

Lets face it, as a species, us humans have really F@#$% up. We have totally polluted our planet, I doubt it will ever recover. And the now "save face" policy world wide is going to be a "carbon tax" which essentially we all will pay for. Why not we all contributed to the downfall of our planet.

Yet nobody worldwide could even contemplate a simple interim solution to cutting down of green house gasses by making a world wide ban on cars with engine capacities greater than 2.0l.- and i'm only talking about passenger cars. Not mini busses, trucks or Diesel powered trucks or bakkies.

A 2.0l car is more than enough power/performance for average joe. Forget about competing with the Jones', we are talking about helping out mankind and the planet! I mean look at what Subaru can squeeze from a 2.0l motor, its astounding. Lets drop all the big V6 and V8 motors, come on wake up, its already too late!!!

But i go back to the corruption, and in the back of my mind i know that the whole american presidency for the last 20 years was run and owned by oil. Sell oil, make big bucks, pay car manufacturers pushing petrol driven engines... One nicely oiled .. uhh "oil machine". sigh....

Maybe this global economy must collapse completely, this will force our hand to play a different game...
 
IRG said:
I often sit and ponder over how much corruption there is throughout the world. Not your ordinary run of the mill corruption, not even the slightly bigger stuff like our "Arms Deal". But big stuff, like oil companies, car manufacturers and governments.

Lets face it, as a species, us humans have really F@#$% up. We have totally polluted our planet, I doubt it will ever recover. And the now "save face" policy world wide is going to be a "carbon tax" which essentially we all will pay for. Why not we all contributed to the downfall of our planet.

Yet nobody worldwide could even contemplate a simple interim solution to cutting down of green house gasses by making a world wide ban on cars with engine capacities greater than 2.0l.- and i'm only talking about passenger cars. Not mini busses, trucks or Diesel powered trucks or bakkies.

A 2.0l car is more than enough power/performance for average joe. Forget about competing with the Jones', we are talking about helping out mankind and the planet! I mean look at what Subaru can squeeze from a 2.0l motor, its astounding. Lets drop all the big V6 and V8 motors, come on wake up, its already too late!!!

But i go back to the corruption, and in the back of my mind i know that the whole american presidency for the last 20 years was run and owned by oil. Sell oil, make big bucks, pay car manufacturers pushing petrol driven engines... One nicely oiled .. uhh "oil machine". sigh....

Maybe this global economy must collapse completely, this will force our hand to play a different game...
Click to expand...

Problem is, you could get 400kW from a 2.0l motor and it would chow more petrol than a 6.0l V8. I think it would be better to put a fuel consumption cap on all vehicles. e.g no passenger cars may consume more than 8.0l/100km in the urban cycle.
 
While we're at it, maybe we should put a cap on how much people eat, how much toilet paper you use at one time, how long you can spend in the shower, how much electricity you can use in one day....
 
xrapidx said:
While we're at it, maybe we should put a cap on how much people eat, how much toilet paper you use at one time, how long you can spend in the shower, how much electricity you can use in one day....
Click to expand...

For what reason would a car need to consume more than 8.0l/100km?
 
BlueCollar said:
For what reason would a car need to consume more than 8.0l/100km?
Click to expand...

Probably the same reason an obese person eats 10 MacMeals at a time?

The same reason I can have a 30min shower.

The same reason people like double ply toilet paper.

The same reason people leave there PC's on all day.

Personal choice.
 
xrapidx said:
Probably the same reason an obese person eats 10 MacMeals at a time?

The same reason I can have a 30min shower.

The same reason people like double ply toilet paper.

The same reason people leave there PC's on all day.

Personal choice.
Click to expand...

Ah, all the reasons that are going to **** things up for our kids and grand kids. I guess selfishness knows no bounds.

The point is that necessity is the mother of all invention. Already Porsche is getting about 10l/100km with the Cayman. Applying pressure via policy would result in performance cars that aren't massive gas guzzlers.
 
BlueCollar said:
The point is that necessity is the mother of all invention. Already Porsche is getting about 10l/100km with the Cayman. Applying pressure via policy would result in performance cars that aren't massive gas guzzlers.
Click to expand...

This is when the car is driven economically, so it defeats the point of having a performance car then. :confused: You cannot tap the maximum out of the Cayman and still het 10l/100km.
 
Slootvreter said:
This is when the car is driven economically, so it defeats the point of having a performance car then. :confused: You cannot tap the maximum out of the Cayman and still het 10l/100km.
Click to expand...

That's the official combined cycle figure. It's still 70% or so better than the official combined cycle figure of a Jaguar XK-R. Drive either of those cars hard and the consumption would go up, but the Porsche would still have much better consumption. My point is that if motor manufacturers were forced to meet certain fuel consumption targets, they would eventually manage to still meet whatever performance requirements their customers wanted, as well as meeting the consumption targets. Current ICE cars are very inefficient, and there are still large improvements to be made in terms of efficiency without sacrificing performance.

Also, could somebody remind me of when a vehicle should be doing 200km/h+ on public roads? If you're late for work is a 4 second 0-100km/h time gonna get you there quicker when sitting in traffic?
 
BlueCollar said:
That's the official combined cycle figure. It's still 70% or so better than the official combined cycle figure of a Jaguar XK-R. Drive either of those cars hard and the consumption would go up, but the Porsche would still have much better consumption. My point is that if motor manufacturers were forced to meet certain fuel consumption targets, they would eventually manage to still meet whatever performance requirements their customers wanted, as well as meeting the consumption targets. Current ICE cars are very inefficient, and there are still large improvements to be made in terms of efficiency without sacrificing performance.

Also, could somebody remind me of when a vehicle should be doing 200km/h+ on public roads? If you're late for work is a 4 second 0-100km/h time gonna get you there quicker when sitting in traffic?
Click to expand...

The official combined cycle, meaning open road and town driving, not performance driving, which the car is known for. I understand your argument, but with fuel economy you will certainly sacrifice performance, which is where they waste their time building a performance engine when a normal 1800cc would have done the trick.
 
Slootvreter said:
The official combined cycle, meaning open road and town driving, not performance driving, which the car is known for. I understand your argument, but with fuel economy you will certainly sacrifice performance, which is where they waste their time building a performance engine when a normal 1800cc would have done the trick.
Click to expand...

Well yes. Frankly I don't feel that there's a place on public roads for brutal performance machines. That being said it's highly unlikely that we'd end up in a situation where fast cars were banned. It is likely though, that fast cars will be required to consume less fuel.
 
BlueCollar said:
Well yes. Frankly I don't feel that there's a place on public roads for brutal performance machines. That being said it's highly unlikely that we'd end up in a situation where fast cars were banned. It is likely though, that fast cars will be required to consume less fuel.
Click to expand...

Modern cars have catalytic converters, and in ZA it is actually legal to remove them if they start giving trouble because they are so bloody expensive to replace.

Another solution (which of course will be impossible to implement here), is to ban cars that smoke excessively. Like those old V6 Cortinas and Cressidas. This is done in the US AFAIK.
 
While IRG picks on cars, the issue here is excess.

All the fun things are bad for you.

At the end of the day, a bigger/heavier car WILL use more energy than a smaller one. Yet just about every car revision seems to be bigger than it's previous generation. They sometimes do manage to shake off a few kg's at least.

If efficiency is the ONLY way forward, things like Gordon Murray's T25 should be all that's allowed on the road. And for general commuting to and from work, that's pretty much all that 90% of the population needs.

Most people cannot afford two cars though, heck many can't afford the parking for two cars, even if they can afford a car! The actual key towards much of our travel needs is mass transit systems, not personal transport. Yet then you'll have to sacrifice some your personal freedom.

Everything has a cost, and our excesses are often what makes us human.
 
Slootvreter said:
Modern cars have catalytic converters, and in ZA it is actually legal to remove them if they start giving trouble because they are so bloody expensive to replace.

Another solution (which of course will be impossible to implement here), is to ban cars that smoke excessively. Like those old V6 Cortinas and Cressidas. This is done in the US AFAIK.
Click to expand...

And taxi's.

Just a note, I had my catalytic converter removed in Feb because it was all clogged up, I was quoted near R10,000 (IIRC) for a new one... if you care so much for the environment, I'd gladly put it back at your expense.
 
xrapidx said:
And taxi's.

Just a note, I had my catalytic converter removed in Feb because it was all clogged up, I was quoted near R10,000 (IIRC) for a new one... if you care so much for the environment, I'd gladly put it back at your expense.
Click to expand...

I'm responsible for me, and you're responsible for you. :D
 
xrapidx said:
And taxi's.

Just a note, I had my catalytic converter removed in Feb because it was all clogged up, I was quoted near R10,000 (IIRC) for a new one... if you care so much for the environment, I'd gladly put it back at your expense.
Click to expand...

I know, they are ridiculously expensive! AFAIK in the US you are not allowed to remove it from your car. And don't worry, I wasn't the one who started this thread about the environment! ;)
 
Slootvreter said:
I know, they are ridiculously expensive! AFAIK in the US you are not allowed to remove it from your car. And don't worry, I wasn't the one who started this thread about the environment! ;)
Click to expand...

I know - wasn't refering to you w.r.t. replacement :p

In the US you're only allowed to take them out at the track... damn strict over there....
 
xrapidx said:
I know - wasn't refering to you w.r.t. replacement :p

In the US you're only allowed to take them out at the track... damn strict over there....
Click to expand...

I don't think you're even allowed to put on a free flow exhaust in some states.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X