Recent Comments:
GM asks Detroit and Michigan for tax breaks for Volt production {Autoblog Green}
Jun 3rd 2008 3:11PM GM pays taxes? I'd expect that they already have so many "tax breaks" that there's nothing left for them to pay.
At least, that's the way it works here in Canada. I think corporations pay all of about 10% of all taxes collected by the government. But it doesn't sound like it's too far off down there either.
US Gov't: A gallon of gas will cost $3.50 before June {Autoblog Green}
Jan 10th 2008 12:36AM Watch me care. It's already *$4.20* a gallon here.
Oh, and has anyone really changed their driving habits? Well, for a few weeks they did (some even held out for a month or two), but then they went right back to their cars.
Video: LA Times test rides Aptera electric car {Autoblog Green}
Jan 6th 2008 7:34PM John Rowell:
And what's wrong with that?
Pointing at the most polluting companies, the Chinese way {Autoblog Green}
Jan 4th 2008 3:03AM Mmm. Yes, but another important concept in China is that there's no shame in *doing* something, but rather in getting *caught*.
I also noticed that the "recyclers" that provide zero protection to their workers, subjecting them to severe heavy metal poisoning aren't on this list. Somehow I suspect that any one of them pollutes more than Toyota.
Big Ad Agency predicts "Blue" will replace "Green" as the color of environmentalism {Autoblog Green}
Dec 31st 2007 12:02AM Well, that's good. Because no car, no matter how fuel efficient (or even electric) is good for the environment. Perhaps less harmful to the environment than the last iteration, but certainly *not* good for it.
Cracking the physics of traffic jams {Autoblog Green}
Dec 26th 2007 12:57AM Um, yes, this is old news. The solution is not to brake so damn hard in the first place. If you try to keep things moving (even just crawling along) then those waves stop and traffic flow picks up again. And again, all it takes is a single driver to fix the problem. Instead of accelerating as hard a you can and braking as hard as you can, just keep creeping forward for as long as you can. It's just that simple.
Does the Heritage Foundation misstate results of a CAFE-safety study? {Autoblog Green}
Dec 12th 2007 12:19AM Dad said:
"I can tell you that the folks I served with are proud of what we have done and what we are doing."
Excellent. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to what the Army is doing in Iraq, because it's as clear as mud to me.
What I've been told, is that the *reason* we went there was because, ah, Osama Bin Laden was there. Or maybe it was because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. So we invaded a country which hadn't actually attacked anyone in some 10 years, toppled the government that had somehow kept its own population from killing each other for some 30+ years (despite deep sectarian hatred which is now becoming pretty obvious), and then tried to act as police officers when the inevitable civil war broke out. But, ah, apparently there weren't any weapons of mass destruction, and Osama wasn't there.
Which is funny, because we *know* that Pakistan has weapons of mass destruction. Their tests were quite public. And Osama Bin Laden is much more likely to be there. And they're currently being led by a military dictatorship that's violently suppressing dissent and democratic threats to its power. Why didn't we invade them?
Now, I can't blame any of that on you. You were just sent there at the behest of your superiors. I'm sure that the soldiers there are very proud of the accomplishments they've made, keeping one part of the population from exterminating the other. But they wouldn't actually need to do that job if they weren't even there in the first place.
Which brings us back to "Why are we there?" Personally, I don't think it's oil. Its price has gone up by at least 30% anyway, so if anything we've made matters worse that way.
High fuel prices trigger record diesel market share in UK {Autoblog Green}
Dec 9th 2007 6:17PM Snakesausage said:
"Do they know something that we don't??"
Apparently, they know that the way towards encouraging the public to use less fuel is to place a 250% tax on fuel.
I don't understand where you got lost on "$8 a gallon for gas". That kind of talk would make most Americans either wet their pants, or set fire to Congress and shoot Congressmen as the run from the building. And possibly both.
Mistakes in the Mythbusters' episode on fuel economy devices {Autoblog Green}
Dec 8th 2007 12:46AM Oh my god.
You obviously haven't actually watched this episode on TV. It's no wonder people are going around debunking Mythbusters' shows left and right. People think that the videos posted to YouTube are the entire story.
NO!
About 30 seconds, maybe a *minute* after this segment, they tried running the car longer. And guess what happened?
If you're actually familiar with the problems of running hydrogen in a plain-old gasoline engine, you already know the answer. The engine started to pre-ignite. In other words, it was backfiring right through the carburetor, because hydrogen burns at a lower temperature than gasoline, and as a result the improperly-timed engine would experience ignition well before the compression stroke was done. The experiment naturally came to an end, and Jamie said with much chagrin "Well, I guess that doesn't work".
But hey, if you can *shorten* the video by a few seconds and post it to YouTube, you can prove that hydrogen can run a standard gas engine without modification, and then put on your tinfoil hat, because it's conspiracy theory time! Because this is a *great* way to wind up the net kooks!
EVS23: Photo gallery of T-Rex electric "motorcycles" {Autoblog Green}
Dec 4th 2007 11:09PM I know you Americans don't follow such things as what your currency is worth compared to others, but XE.com says that a Canadian dollar is worth $0.986 US today.
Which makes $50,000 CAD equal more than $49,000 USD.
Last week the damage was even more though... an American buying a T-Rex Lightning would have had to shell out more dollars than Canadians.
