Michael Moore: Goodbye, GM

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Hail Michael Moore!

[Ban Hammer 13,345]

What a car made by "The People's Auto Factory" may look like:

ah the trabi.....

[almaty 19]

commies for Christ rejoice!

[joelunchbox 0]

May I correct something here?

Planned obsolesence is not having something fall apart after a few years.

It is, offering updated models and then convincing people that they need a "new" car, even when their old one is perfectly fine.

That thought process resulted in the Tri-Five chevys, possibly the nicest looking three year span of autos ever. Not to mention the chevelles, novas, etc that didn't change under their skin but got updated each year or two.

If everyone likes driving a bar of soap looking import, good for you.

I hope GM/Chrysler/Ford come back and put the hurt on the (by and large) so boring I could puke imports.

Oh, I drive a Saturn Ion (just got 33 mpg in mixed driving for todays fillup)

and it is pretty fast too.

[EstebanTrabajos 7]

commies for Christ rejoice!

is that sister Len in the middle?

[Ban Hammer 13,345]

commies for Christ rejoice!

is that sister Len in the middle?

not hot enough.

[Texanadian 10]

I'm all excited about the recommendation for another $2 in gas tax. Can I get an Amen?!

No!

The simple matter is that buses are already highly subsidized by taxpayers. The average per user cost to ride a bus is $4-8 (depending on how full it is). Yet the average rider pays a dollar. Think about when gas was $4/gallon last year. Can you imagine getting $3 back for every gallon you put in your car? New York City has the least taxpayer subsidized transportation system. But subway users there still pay less than 70% of the full cost to run the subway. All other cities are worse. Denver for example, the riders only pay 20% of the transportation cost. The taxpayers pay the rest.

Light rail (aka street trains) are a disaster. They take up space that could be used by cars, thus making the rest of us burn more fuel. They're slow. And they use more pollution per mile than a car does. (they run at night when the trains are mostly empty. Same thing during non rush hour times (10AM to 2PM) They're also surprisingly heavy. About 4x as heavy as a bus). Heavy rail (skytrains and subways) are a much better idea. They're not slowed down by road traffic and don't have to worry about accidents. But subways and skytrains are immensely more expensive to build than light rail.

I like the idea of the bullet train. But Japan has a huge population in a tiny land mass. Makes great sense. Same way with most of Europe. But the US has vast amounts of land where little population lives. Driven through Montana lately?

The other problem with electric rail systems is where does the power come from? If it's hydro powered like the skytrain in Vancouver. No problem. If it's powered by nuclear, then it would be clean too. But lots of the north-eastern US states are powered by coal. So in essence you're trading the car engine which is efficient (only powered when being used) and instead putting down a coal powered 100,000 pound light rail system that spends most of it's time running empty or at the very least not full.

Tossing aside gasoline vs coal and going strictly on weight. A 100,000 lb rail car weighs as much as 33 vehicles. So if the rail car is running with 33 people inside, it's only breaking even on passenger weight per mile. But how much of the day is it spent going back and forth with only 5 people in it? And this is all assuming 1 person per car.

Want to save energy? Take the car

[Texanadian 10]

I am all for solar. I wish it was cheaper. Texas with solar powered air conditioners would be a much cheaper place to live. At least air conditioning is heat pump technology (very efficient). The northern states need to get rid of their heating oil, electric furnaces, baseboards, and open fireplaces. Stick to heat pumps, natural gas, and wood stoves.