Union Car or Socialist Car?

[theLeeHarvey]

I personally don't care about the politics behind a vehicles manufacturer. What I am concerned with is how that vehicle will perform and how well it will last over time so that I am not wasting my hard earned cash. In my experience American cars tend to be inferior to those manufactured by companies originating in other countries in regards to lifespan. Of all the cars I've owned, Japanese(3) and German(1) vehicles have had the longest lifespans and required the least amount of extraneous maintenance (anything other than your routine maintenance requirements all vehicles have). For example, while I was living in Okinawa I acquired an 80's era Nissan Bluebird with 300,000+ miles on it. I drove that vehicle hard for 8 months and never had a problem with it, heck it ran like a champ right into the junkyard, lol. I can't say that for any of the American made cars I've owned or even of any that somebody I know has owned.

 

I love my country, don't get me wrong, but American car companies suck. My theory is that they purposefully engineer vehicles to start breaking down around 80,000-100,000 miles in order to increase their profits in the long run through repairs and replacement parts, things it costs them a couple bucks to make yet they sell to us the consumers at grossly inflated costs. That's just my opinion though.

 

Oh and Vagrant, no offense, but couldn't you try to flex your intellect without sounding so combative? I agree with a lot of what you said, but I don't think an attack on the OP was really called for was it? Let him have his ideas, so what if they aren't the same as yours or mine.

[Monarch_Anor]

I personally don't care about the politics behind a vehicles manufacturer. What I am concerned with is how that vehicle will perform and how well it will last over time so that I am not wasting my hard earned cash. In my experience American cars tend to be inferior to those manufactured by companies originating in other countries in regards to lifespan. Of all the cars I've owned, Japanese(3) and German(1) vehicles have had the longest lifespans and required the least amount of extraneous maintenance (anything other than your routine maintenance requirements all vehicles have). For example, while I was living in Okinawa I acquired an 80's era Nissan Bluebird with 300,000+ miles on it. I drove that vehicle hard for 8 months and never had a problem with it, heck it ran like a champ right into the junkyard, lol. I can't say that for any of the American made cars I've owned or even of any that somebody I know has owned.

 

I love my country, don't get me wrong, but American car companies suck. My theory is that they purposefully engineer vehicles to start breaking down around 80,000-100,000 miles in order to increase their profits in the long run through repairs and replacement parts, things it costs them a couple bucks to make yet they sell to us the consumers at grossly inflated costs. That's just my opinion though.

 

Oh and Vagrant, no offense, but couldn't you try to flex your intellect without sounding so combative? I agree with a lot of what you said, but I don't think an attack on the OP was really called for was it? Let him have his ideas, so what if they aren't the same as yours or mine.

 

I agree... and its basically what I said before (at least the first paragraph), but apparently they have "low crash test ratings".

[Rixirite]

When I labelled "Union Car" and "Socialist car" I was merely nicknaming them after the magnitude of thier manufacturing in regards of Labor unions who build the car, or the government putting high value added tax on each car part, to companies recieving handouts, etc. I am not saying that a Chevrolet 2007 Pickup is a union truck (Otherwise it would stop it's own engine and go on strike.) or that a Volvo is a Socialist car.

 

I just wanted to clarify myself as some seem to misunderstand me.

[Herculine]

I did not vote because I believe public transportation and bicycles are the way to go if we all want to be able to breathe in the decades to come, and the whole fuel/oil thing is just WAY out of hand.

[Rixirite]

Herculine, Public transport and bikes are impractical for the world's need of transportation. I hear some scientists that were on a show on the Discovery Channel are finding a new way to scrub Carbon Dioxide into clean air. If that technology grows at a magnitude of world use and operation then that eliminates the need to restrict ourselves of transportation and freedom of movement. To deprive ourselves of everyday life isn't worth it.

[RebelOConner]

Herculine, Public transport and bikes are impractical for the world's need of transportation. I hear some scientists that were on a show on the Discovery Channel are finding a new way to scrub Carbon Dioxide into clean air. If that technology grows at a magnitude of world use and operation then that eliminates the need to restrict ourselves of transportation and freedom of movement. To deprive ourselves of everyday life isn't worth it.

 

what is the most important: freedoom of movement or environmental protection?

if i must restrict myself to permit to next generations to live better, i'll do without hesitation.

 

i don't want to offence you, Rixirite, but your view about how the world works is totally wrong.

[Vagrant0]

I hear some scientists that were on a show on the Discovery Channel are finding a new way to scrub Carbon Dioxide into clean air.

Yeah... it's called planting a tree. That idea is actually about 15-20 years old, there was even an episode of Seaquest DSV which featured the destruction of such a device (yeah, that old). The reality of such a breakthrough is that it is just totally impractical in the grander scope since more CO2 would be released in research and production of such a facility than the facility would be able to clean up, once you factor in all the operating and transportation costs. Nevermind the problem of trying to figure out where to build it and how to power it in a way that it ends up doing anything. Even a smaller unit, about the size of a small industrial air conditioner, and powered by the sun would not be nearly as efficient as something as simple as a rooftop garden that occupies the same space. It's one of those cases of trying to engineer better than nature, and just simply coming up short. Only the biotech solutions, like those involving the use of blue-green algae even come close.

 

The other reality is that global warming is only part of the problem, and arguably doesn't exist in the context that people have been trying to pass off for the last 40 years. The other part of the problem is that oil supplies are not infinite, cannot be replaced, and have been one of the leading causes behind the current economic depression. You can't power trucks and cargo ships on solar power, or ethanol. And Bio-diesel is only a practical solution for a small part of the demand. While I would agree that bicycle and public transportation is not a method which is practical in many parts of the world (mostly the US), adopting it where it is practical should be encouraged whenever possible.

[Rixirite]

I hear some scientists that were on a show on the Discovery Channel are finding a new way to scrub Carbon Dioxide into clean air.

Yeah... it's called planting a tree.

 

 

False. the show was talking about a scientist who make a Carbon Dioxide scrubbing MACHINE to take CO2 and turn it into air. Also, I care about future generations, what I don't like is how something like "Save the planet" is turned into a political government powerhouse that allows them to make all kinds of restriction on the people.

 

It's like saying "Ok, there is a lot of crime so we are going to put cameras all over the United States" even though those cameras don't stop crimes, they just catch the person commiting the crime. It's like saying "We are going to take away the right to bear arms to stop gun shooting." Even though that doesn't stop shooting because people will just get guns from the Black Market. Sure, the police could crack down on the black market and stop gangs from illegally owning guns but instead they implement laws that don't work. It is as simple as that. It is also true we are going to another Ice age, and yes it is accelerated by the CO2 emissions but there is no stopping it, only slowing it down but the planet cannot function without automotive transport, there is no way with the way things operate in the world. Also, I agree our oil supply is becomming scarce I would buy an electic car if I had to, but for now I would rather buy something I could feel comfortable in.

[dezdimona]

I see the Hydrogine fuel cell as the wave of the future..once "big oil" steps aside that is!

[jaysus]

electric cars need somin to produce electricity ;)

 

a famous architect called frey otto created a calculation which calculates the actual bio mass put into the creation of stuff and found out that even public transportation like trains use way more energy in total than personal cars with fossil fuel...

 

point is that we basicly have the tech to create electricity and so on without pumping crap in our atmosphere,

for !example! (just one of many) could we easily put some hot air reactors in the sahara which could power the whole world...

they basicly work like a tent with a chimney, the hot air below the tent rises and propelles a generator inside the chimney... no pollution at all created... well ok maybe a tuareg caravan shouldnt cross underneath such a super tent lol

 

apart form that is the whole debate about climate change looked at in a totally wrong way... it gets cooler and it also gets hotter, it simply depends of which area we speak, areas which are utterly polluted become colder as less sunrays reach it, areas with less pollution raise in temprature as there is nothing stopping the sun rays from getting in... this creates the problem of bloody natural catastrophies in those regions which are the border between clean and polluted air, tsunamis for example or typhoons which are more or less created by heavy differences in air temprature...

due to us polluting the world heavier than nature intended us to do we simply multiply this effect e.g. 1degree tem difference equals a tiny typhoon, but 3degree equal a devastating one...

 

one should also realize that we "civilized" (lol kiss my bum) people of the west simply could afford our standard of living in the past centuries because we extorted the 3rd world, or at least those places we deemd inferior to us... wtf do you think all those africans cross the atlantic in a perilous journey to live in european prisons? because they would bloody starve in their home countries because we (our fishing fleets) for example emptied the sea which provided them with food since millenias (by 2050 commercial fishing willglobally be over anyway... no fish left... go to sweden to witness it first hand for example)

those highly praised capitalistic companies destroyed parts of the world and still do without us eying it all the time and thus can make profit, if theyd live fair and the way god (or nature or whoever) intended that wouldnt be possible...

 

abolish the current banking system (it has a reason interest rates are forbidden in the koran, its suicide economic wise), distribute ressources equally and use even the lat bit of tech we have to make that possible... it is possible without doubt but the problem lays within the current power structure that exists basicly since roman times which shovels every last grain of corn and living into the mouth of some few powerful individuals which simply hesitate to give away some power to give planet earth a future, our whole doing is directed at building a bloody huge spaceship and leave the planet soon or we are doomed, sadly those in power are to busy shuffeling money around instead of simply doing stuff...

 

im basicly sick of all this half arsed chit chat about how bad the world is but noone who has the power does the slightest bit to change it...

 

ok might have gone a bit off topic :D

but thats one of the points one needs to understand before making descicions like what car to buy, cause there is basicly no car you can buy if you want to concious about it, you can atm only go for looks, power and safety... sad but true

even those hybrid cars every one is wet for now are crap, those batteries are worse production- and litterwise than a bit of burned fuel...

only alternative atm is to build a huge solar plant on your home's roof, a coreheat generator in your cellar and a warmthrecovery unit in your sewagesystem and then use these to power an electric car...

(solar power receivers are vastly advanced by now btw, they really create power in comparision to those in use a decade ago - home imporvement can go further, in germany we have some buildings yet which actually create a surplus of energy simply by using all tech available to recover and harvest whatever there is)