So, I'm at the point where I need to start looking at cars to get. I want a cheap, safe, enviormently friendly car. I know it's an oxymoron, but I would also like a bigger car, like a mini-SUV because most of my friends are drunks and I need to be able to pick them up when they're about to go cause havoic in the streets. It needs to be cheap because I have to pay for it with my own money and I don't currently have a job. It doesn't need to be a new car, I'm fine with used or older models. I want it to be safe, because of obvious reasons... and I want something better for the enviroment because driving a car is bad enough for the enviroment, I don't need to make it worse by getting a Hummer. I know this is asking for a lot, and there probably isn't a car that matches all of my critics, but does anyone have any ideas? Thank you!!
i have no clue which cars are the best to ride, but I would be suprised if you couldn't find a website on this somewhere
hernia gauge and park train multiple units, battery or other stored energy powered and solar recharged. =^^= .../\...
i hear the jeep patriot gets superb economy from its diesel engine.. dont just look at tailpipe emissions, the baulk of a cars emissions are from manufacture, so something with large flat panels (like the jeep) take far less energy to press than the more complicated panels of something like a toyota prius. its also worth noting the service life of the vehicle, the jeep will last 300,000 miles IF properly maintained the prius is good for 100,000 (by toyotas admission) one problem with cars is peoples attitude to them, they see a 10 year old 100,000 mile car as worthless, so dont maintain it. this accelerates wear, and thus increases emissions prematurely service your car according to the manufacturers guidelines, treat it like a new car all the time, and you can get a much longer service life that you might expect. its also true that the service life of the engine is directly related to its size, bigger engines are less stressed and lower revving (and DONT always pollute more) thus lasting longer. 300,000 is quite possible, i had a chevy astro with 211,000 on the clock, and it ran like a swiss watch, and flew through the emissions test with ease..
well, it is not gonna be easy to find a car like that. You can look for hybrid cars, they use less fuel and they are less polluting; Look here look for cars wich use biofuel. here is another website that might be useful; www.bio-beetle.com I'm doing a reaserch about bio-cars, I'll let you know about every new detail I find. take car and keep caring about nature. peace.
Well.. I know this isn't the sort of car you are looking for.. but I thought I'd just post it anyway.. Mini Coopers are great. I had one for about 3 years (then my sister wrecked it and it went bye bye) it was the best car I ever had. It got about 35 miles to the gallon. Would zip around town... It would go and do things those big boaty, gas guzzling SUV's couldn't. Ahh how I miss my little cooper..... :-(
Diesel's a good way to go, in the sense that they tend to get good mileage, and you can run bio-diesel or convert the engine to run on vegetable oil. Hybrids are great for mileage and the environment, but you won't find one cheap, and I'm skeptical about the potential long term disposal issues with the batteries.
Hybrids are actually worse for the environment because they are so high tech. Complex. Many more different kinds minerals are required, which have to be mined and smelted and refined and transported. Many more production stages are involved, and then all of this has to be transported to the factory where it is all assembled into a car. The environmental damage has just been distributed to many, widely seperated places instead of coming out of the tailpipe. The energy that seems to have been saved by their fuel efficiency is used up by everything that happened before the end user ever saw the car. You are certainly right about those batteries, MellowYellow. Check out the mines and factories involved in their production and disposal if you want to gag. Cars are just incredibly destructive in ways that have nothing to do with emissions. Just to start the process of making steel you need an iron ore mine, a coal mine, and a limestone quarry. Littelfoot
hybreds aren't WORSE then gas guzzlers, but have you considered an electric bicycle, or one of those adult pedal cars? finding something that's legal to drive where you have to drive it might limit your options more then any other single factor. otherwise, real alternative tecnologies are available off the shelf, just not shrink wrapped with familiar brand names. (and generally, in the 'some assembly required' catigory) =^^= .../\...
I'm very excited to say that a car that runs on AIR has been produced. Yes, that's right, "AIR"!!! What's the catch, you say? Well, it doesn't just suck and breathe from the air around it on its own, the air has to be compressed into its tank at a filling station, or at your own home by an electric compressor. The production of the car is well on its war and it is about to be available on the open market. Here's the link...... Yes, I'm so excited......... www.theaircar.com
There will be an Earth-friendly car just about the time there is a peaceful weapon of mass destruction. Using compressed air to run a motor is how the tools at most modern garages have worked for decades. This is silly. And less efficient than using the fuel that is being used to compress the air to directly run an internal combustion engine. But this way the pollution is done out of sight somewhere so that the people in their 4-wheeled planet-killers can pretend that they are environmentalists. Just like the all the mines and factories and power plants needed to make those cars, and all of THEIR destruction and pollution are tastefully out of sight somewhere. NIMBY Littlefoot
And here I was thinking hydrogen. You gotta be skeptical about alternative fuel source technologies. As Littlefoot points out, you could merely be displacing the problem.
Hello Mellow Yellow. You are right to be suspicious of the hydrogen hype. One of the main reasons is that it takes freshwater to make it. And freshwater shortages are a very big problem around the world and are going to get worse. There are going to be wars over freshwater sources. Google the subject and you get millions of hits. The problem that Atlanta, Georgia, USA is having is just the one picked up by the American Media. It's the tip of a huge iceberg. Littlefoot
the best 'car' is a very narrow gauge multiple unit railway car that runs on stored energy. yes, compressed air IS one very good way of STORING energy used in propulsion, which, like the giant flywheel concept of the perry people mover, avoids most of the environmental problems associated with storage batteries. my primary point though, is that nothing that runs on rubber tyres on pavement is a sufficiently real sustainable alternative when the amount of realestate consumed by roadway construction is taken into consideration. nor of course is anything that burns anything, as almost reguardless of what is being burned or how, excessive combustion is one of the two main components of the problem. hydrogen, which does of course burn clean, is no real solution for all of the reasons mentioned and many others. charging from a power grid fed by combustion also "defers the problem", but the power grid also, could be fed by A COMBINATION OF non-combustive means. =^^= .../\...
Sound ideas, thenmax An even better idea would be to get it off the ground. Airships would be much more efficient, fuelwise, and require a lot less in the way of materials and labor because they don't require tracks, which are roads, basically. To be truly environmentally friendly, the tracks for your system would need to be elevated. Because you don't have to modify the terrain to build elevated tracks, they are as efficient to build as those along the ground. And it would be better to run the trains using simple internal combustion engines that ran on gasified wood grown for the purpose in coppices along there routes (or other organic, sustainable, low tech fuels). By eliminating the need to transport the fuel you would save an incredible amount of work and materials and energy. The simpler technology would provide similar savings. LIttlefoot
Littlefoot, the owner of this company has deeply considered human ecology when setting up plants. It is not highly mechanized, and his intentions are to open small factories "where" the cars are sold to create jobs, and reduce shipping distances. I do agree with you. Any time someting is manufactured, pollution happens, and the natural world is harmed by mining for resources. Yes, air compressors are not efficient. The efficiency of the fossil fuel powered automobile is 26%. The efficiency of "total electric" cars is in the neighborhood of 64%, considering an electric motor efficiency of 80%, and a battery efficiency of 90%. Less green house gases would be produced per mile of travel with a "total electric" car when comparing it to fossil fuel powered cars. Since France runs on nuclear power, switcing to compressed air cars in such a country would allow a driver to drive without producing greenhouse gases. Look, I'm considering car-free living. I'd love to be able to walk or ride a recumbent bicycle to every destination.
RawAndNatural wrote: "Littlefoot, the owner of this company has deeply considered human ecology when setting up plants." What utter nonsense. Reminds me of insanities like giving a Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore for environmentalism, and giving the Weyerhauser Corporations a "green" rating, which a leading so-called 'environmental' organization has done in the recent past. "I do agree with you. Any time someting is manufactured, pollution happens, and the natural world is harmed by mining for resources." Indeed. "Look, I'm considering car-free living." The System makes that almost impossible, by design. They force you walk alongside roads and allow speeding bicycles on the walking paths, thus insuring that the experience is unpleasant in the extreme. Cars, and everything involved with them, are a huge part of the economy. And they are a huge part of the environmental crisis. No true environmentalist owns a car or uses one regularly. Littlefoot
The air ship idea is cool, but that would be a challenge to make it safe and reliable for the massive numbers of people who would use it. I agree minimizing the infrastructure requirements for the tracks would be the ultimate design goal. Environmental impact and materials are the most tangible factors, but there are other considerations like regulation and public safety. It's too bad the railways were displaced by the automobile revolution in the US. Ya think those people had any idea of the problems we'd be facing today as a result? Now if we could change the layout of our society, that would help. I'm not a big city guy, but the one thing I like about the city is the lack of needing a car. If we could somehow live together in smaller self sufficient communities, with woods all around us, and convenient, accessible, and safe public transportation that would allow us to travel with our stuff (camping/climbing gear, bikes, kayaks, toys, tools, working supplies, etc.) to areas of interest, we'd have something. Reducing or eliminating the need for transportation for daily activities like commuting, recreation, and shopping would be a huge factor, and the answer is to have all that stuff within walking distance of home. Obviously, this can't happen over night, but if we had some sort of master plan or road map, that would be a start. At least it would make me more optimistic.
Mellow Yellow wrote: "The air ship idea is cool, but that would be a challenge to make it safe and reliable for the massive numbers of people who would use it." Hey MY. Check out the safety record of airships when they regularly carried passengers across the Atlantic Ocean. It was a lot better than that of the automobile and better than heavier-than-air craft. The Hindenburg disaster, which was a lot less of a disaster than it would have been if the craft had been an airplane, was a fluke and much misunderstood: http://www.dwv-info.de/e/publications/2000/hbe.pdf "I agree minimizing the infrastructure requirements for the tracks would be the ultimate design goal. Environmental impact and materials are the most tangible factors, but there are other considerations like regulation and public safety." See above. "It's too bad the railways were displaced by the automobile revolution in the US. Ya think those people had any idea of the problems we'd be facing today as a result?" Probably not. The thing is, that cars make a lot more jobs and a lot more investment income. They are extraordinarily inefficient. Using a 4000 pound vehicle to move a 150 pound person around is stupid. "Now if we could change the layout of our society, that would help. I'm not a big city guy, but the one thing I like about the city is the lack of needing a car. If we could somehow live together in smaller self sufficient communities, with woods all around us, and convenient, accessible, and safe public transportation that would allow us to travel with our stuff (camping/climbing gear, bikes, kayaks, toys, tools, working supplies, etc.) to areas of interest, we'd have something. Reducing or eliminating the need for transportation for daily activities like commuting, recreation, and shopping would be a huge factor, and the answer is to have all that stuff within walking distance of home." "Obviously, this can't happen over night, but if we had some sort of master plan or road map, that would be a start. At least it would make me more optimistic." Couldn't agree with you more. That master plan involves the rebuilding of civilzation from scratch. The end of industry and capitalism. I hope that you understand that these ideas are seditious in the extreme. Littlefoot
