Maybe I'm rationalizing, but lately I've convinced myself that driving an old car is not unlike recycling. WHile the Prius crowd gives me the finger, I'm left wondering just how much ebergy and resources (petroleum and otherwise) are used int he actual manufacturing of said Prius. Hear me out... If it takes X gallons of oil/petroleum and Y amount of energy to build a hybrid car--before it even hits the pavement--then how long would you have to drive it before you "zero out" and your gas savings really begin? For example, lets say I drive an old big block TBird that gets 10 mpg. Since I bought it used, I could argue that the manufacturing resources of the TBird are zero. If I buy a new hybrid, I'm already "in the hole" as far as energy use. Does that make sense? I really wish I could find some hard numbers on this just to satisfy my curiousity. I'd like to say to those who attack me for driving a classic, "you have to drive that little car for 8 years before your 'resource use' balances out and begins to surpass my TBird." Bored at work? Why, yes...yes I am.
That's A good ? I'd be interested to know the answer to that myself...... If for no other reason then to help me rationalize driving my old car more...LOL
I once read that manufacture accounted for about 1/3 of a car's energy use in its life cycle. If that's so, hmmmm...my roadster has gone a little over 30,000 miles in 74 years, so it has probably survived 5 or 6 average car lifetimes and used way fewer than average resources per year...so it's WAY over on the positive side of whatever ledger you could keep... Do a little searching on the CNN news site--they have published some analyses of hybrid economics via business week, I think. Fairly lightweight stuff, but it will get you started thinking through some numbers and give you some ideas for seeking out more info.
During an unrelated search on the EPA's site, I found that they consider the "useful life" of a motorcycle to be 5 years. I can't seem to find the useful life figure for new cars. But assuming it's the same--or even double--I can only ask, "what the heck?" Pay tens of thousands of dollars for 5, maybe 10 years of use? Like Bruce, we can log a lot more miles and years of use out of a classic. That's why I've been wondering about this whole issue. Thanks for the heads up Bruce. I'll go looking for the info you suggested. Man, if that "1/3 rule" is accurate, that's a strong case for driving a classic. Or at the very least, driving a used car old enough to have made it past the "useful life" period. Elsewhere I read that when it comes to the environmental concerns, it's not so much what TYPES of cars are out there (Hummer vs. hybrid), but how MANY cars are out there.
Given the amount of plastic used in a Prius, I'd think there'd be a ton of pollution involved in building the damn thing. We, as americans, are generally stupid about cars. I know plenty of people who make car payments that rival their mortgage payment and wonder where I get money for tools and project cars. Well, to start with, I don't send some bank $600 every month for the right to have their car depreciate at record rates in my driveway...
another argument that not many people seem to bring up is that fact that the batteries in those hybrids are made out of highly toxic materials and not exactly enviromentally friendly when they have reached then end of theyre life and have to be disposed of. although i dont need another reason to drive an old car, i will take one just for arguments sake.
I was listening to NPR the other day (talk radio) and the topic was those hybrid cars. Appearantly some of the hybrid trucks get a whopping 18 mpg. WTF!?!?!? My Fairlane gets 18mpg. Guess I'm environmentally friendly! Hybrids are stupid. Its just all smoke and mirrors to fool the idiotic public. Hot rods= recycling? YES. I agree. It makes total sense to me. Honestly the car industry lost its flavor after the late 60's. Think about it...when was the last time a new car made you excited? I hear tell that the older fellas actually got all excited when a new car came out. I've never experienced it. If the system made sense, the car companies would have stopped making cars in like '69 and everyone would just take care of what they had and kept improving it in their backyards and garages. I mean, has there been any actual improvements to the original designs? NO. Its still the same old gasoline engine no matter what induction system and crappy electronics you slap on it. My 2cents.
Hybrid 4wd silverado with a 5.3. Kinda defeats the purpose don't it? I saw a insight that was rearended (where the batteries and gizmos hide) It didn't hold up too well. knocked the skirts clean off.
There was skate trip article in Thrasher Magazine a while back. Group of skaters went to Cuba of all places. Anyway, one of the skaters commented that it was "like time just stopped in the 60s. There were all these old 50s and 60s cars that looked liked they were new."
Hybrids aren't the answer for most applications. Hybrids account for muniscule sales in Europe, cos we've already got diesels, which are even more economical, faster, are more fun to drive and cheaper than a hybrid. And diesels have cleaned up their act too. Both my cars have particulate filters. My BMW 320d has now got about 1000 miles on it and the exhaust tailpipe is still shiney metal inside. I.e. NO-SOOT. Hybrids are gay.
as far as price goes there is little to no savings in buying a hybrid. a honda civic bases at 6g's lower than the hybrid version with the same options. Im assuming you would have to drive about 6-7 years to at least zero out your savings at the pump. And from an environmental stan point, tere are more systems in the hybrid that take more time to produce. I am sure there are some good hard facts to help your argument.
Bottom line. Seems to me that our classics have paid for themselves both economicly and environmently and those slabsided battery chargers will never catch up. Bob
According to the IRS, the useful life of a commercial truck (or computer, or forklift, etc. ) is 5 years. Why do I still have to pay sales tax on a +5 year old car? It shouldn't even have a value.
By that logic, you ought to give me some money to dispose of your old ford, right? I'll be down in the morning...
I agree. It's not only the number of cars though. It's also how often they are used. Driving somewhere within walking distance, for example. Part of that problem is the move towards big-box developments and urban sprawl. In many cases it's becoming next to impossible to get around in a major centre without a car. Cuba does indeed have an abundance of vintage iron. The U.S. cut ties with Cuba around '59 or so (I think), hence there are no American cars newer than that. They can't replace them so they keep them on the road. And I agree that hybrids are not the solution. They're a stopgap measure at best, an appeal to the guilt of the mass consumer. My used Honda gets better mileage than an Escape Hybrid and costs less to buy, maintain, and insure. Hot rods = recycling. Definitely. After all, how much vintage iron has been salvaged by HAMBers that would otherwise disintegrate and leach heavy metals into the groundwater?
RE: the recycling aspect of Hot Rods For those cars that are essentially as they rolled off the line way back, the old car is comprised of almost 100% recyclable or biodegradable materials. A large amount of the oil used in auto industry as a whole goes into the manufacture of plastics. How much plastic do we have in our hot rods? Not much at all.
I've got a '73 Mercedes 220D that I want to use every day this summer. I've heard they can get 32 mph on diesel. And that is in 1973. I wonder why US automakers haven't made virtually any diesels except big trucks? I have to disagree about the Hybrid Silverado though. That's the only one I'd ever want. I could give a shit about the gas mileage, the cool part of that truck is that you can run the gas engine to turn the electric part, turning your truck into a giant gas generator. They even have 110 outlets built right into the box. Add an onboard air system to that truck like the 4x4 Jeep guys use, and you've got yourself a mobile shop. Would be sweet for junkyarding and any kind of contractor type stuff.
Yes, hot rods are recycling. I have heard that the amount of resources and energy to produce a car is approximately equal to that which the car uses during it's normal lifetime. So that makes even more compelling argument for driving an old car and not a new car. You have to remember that most people that drive hybrids are doing it for image reasons and not for the false technical basis of saving the earth. They want to appear to be environmentally conscious and concerned for mother earth. Environmentalism is like a religion to those people. My religion will be old steel, big engines, gas, oil, burning rubber and hanging on for the wild ride of a hot rod.
ok so I'm gonna cut weld grind paint etc.to build a hotrod same as the factory .stuff is going to get shipped by truck etc.before my ride is done.am i realy saving Energy Don't know truth is I don't care can't be using as much energy as they are and I'm a lot more careful about the enviorment while going it and I'm not going to try and scrap YOUR old car for emissions credit !! Melt down that pruis and make me a new fendr for my a should be a better use of the saME AMOUNT OF STEEL
Blame GM for poisoning the market for diesel cars. And that Merc 220D will be real slow, but it should top 40 mpg on the highway (no lie). For LOT less money, get yourself an ambulance alternator (Leece-Neville) and an air compressor from a diesel truck, and you have what you just described. Cosmo
Heard a thing on the radio a while back that said (from memory, so forgive me if it sounds a little odd)..... The average cost of a Hybrid is approx $5-7000 more than the 'regular' version of the same vehicle (I believe it was the Honda Civic they were talking about) To get the saving in fuel & enviroment health, you would need to drive said vehicle about 100 miles a day....5 days a week....for 5 years to break even Screw that....my '04 Hyundai Elantra commuter does almost 40mpg anyway (70 miles a day, 5 days a week commute round trip)....and them hybrids eat tires in about 25000 miles....and some of the earlier ones needed Extra Load tires too....(work in a tire shop, you soon learn whats good & bad on tire wear)
I reckon we are the great re-cyclers, very little "new" stuff goes into our cars and rebuilding is much less engery/reasource using then diging up the ore, smelting, casting etc...... On the Diesel track didn't Audi just outright win the 24 hour at Seabring (sp), least there was a story about it in my paper this morning. Audi are sayingthey want to do the same with diesel as they did with 4wd back in the early 80's show it aint just for trucks anymore.
Got thining about this and crunched some numbers outof curiusity. HOnda makes a Civic and a Hybrid Civic (might as well be as apples to apples as I can). To keep things simple I went base price to base price. Base Civic is $18.460 and the Hybrid Civic is $22,150. So it's $3690 more. The EPA fuel ratings are 30/38 for the Civic and 49/51 for the Hybrid. That averages to 34 and 49.5 respectivly. If a gallon of gas is $2.559 the Civic will cost $25,987 (including the price of car and gas only) to travel 100,000 miles at 34 mpg. The Hybrid will cost $27,320 to travel the same 100,000 miles at the same $2.559 per gallon getiting 49.5 mpg. So it looks like it costs more to travel the same distance with the extra cost of the car figured in.
The thing i dont get is all those people who drive electric cars say their helping the enviorment by doing so, But where do you think that electricity comes from and how do you think they get the coal to the power plant, by truck and where do those trucks come from, and how do you think they get the coal out of the ground, with tractors and where do you think those tractors come from, and where the hell do you think the trucks and tractors come from a factory. Damn it i hate hippies.... No i need to go shoot something.
The economics gal on GMA did a little diddy on Hy-Brids a few months back. She obviously didn't compare Hy-Brids to any of our old hoopties but did compare them to a comperably equipped car only not a hy-Brid. Even with the difference in fuel consumption that there was no way to offset the difference in price over the natural life of both vehicles. So her conclusion was that the only reason you would own a Hy-Brid was to save the planet. It was also pointed out recently that the only advantage to a Hy-Brid was if all you ever did was around town driveing. Now as far as recycleing is concerned, it costs a ton to make anything new and useful out of our scrap parts. Reclaiming used metal and glass is an expensive process. But we can take the same old scraps of metal and glass and for a small percentage of the cost to recycle we can have a running and driveing vehicle. So I guess in a sense we can call ourselves recyclers. That is of course if you need to justify your existance.
There used to be a break point figured back in the late 70's early 80's that if you got the full 10 years and beyond 100 k miles (with todays reliability I bet that's hard to believe now) you saved the effort of building 5 cars. Also if the USA had to contend with another world war as big as #2 we would need 20 million functional cars in the civillian pool.
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