NOTE: THE LAST OPTION SHOULD HAVE READ:
"haven't heard com, better MPG good, smaller cars bad."


Better MPG?

Car companies will soon be pushed to offer better MPG and at a progressive increasing rate.

These companies (not all, but some) have been pushing radio (perhaps also TV?) commercials informing listeners that they will not be able to comply with said mandates. According to these companies, A disadvantage of being 'forced' (I use that word lightly) of increasing MPG will (according to these companies) decrease the availability of bigger vehicle sizes and safety options.

I want to make it quite clear that the amount of gasoline a vehicle uses has no bearing on vehicle size or amount of safety equipment.

I firmly believe that if a car company must sacrifice vehicle size and/or it's saftey equipment, then it's really a plain failure (perhaps research and development) of the said firm to produce *a product* that consumers want.

I for one will not be bullied into thinking that I can't have a car with good fuel mileage and no safety. There will be a market for these cars and someone will have to produce it. If there ever was a time to produce a car then now will be it because the big automakers will be abandoning their reason for existence.

Show your opinion, take this poll and rant on. :-) Note, read carefully the poll options. Put your thinking cap on. You are after all an educated consumer aren't you? ;-)

This is a part 1 of a multi-part poll.

 

I think the regulations are good for two reasons:
1) consumers don't give a crap enough to abandon their gas guzzlers
2) forcing car companies into compliance will force them to innovate

 

In Europe (and the rest of the world basically) they have smaller and more efficient cars in general. You would think there would be body parts in the streets, and blood running in the gutters. There isn't.

I guess the lack of safety argument is crap.

 

I think forcing mpg is crap. I don't believe in significant, catastrophic, human-caused global warming. I do believe in market forces. I believe that as a resource becomes scarce and expensive (oil), only then will other alternatives become economically and practically viable. I think by forcing carmakers to make cars customers have proven they do not want, you are making a show of doing something, but are really trying to APPEAR to do something while doing nothing, so as to not piss off your voter base.

If you REALLY want to drive down oil useage, make OIL more expensive. Everything else is just pissing in the wind and moderately retarded. But if you want to END oil useage, just let us use the shit up as fast as possible, and then we'll think of something better. Humans are smart like that.

 

its all crap. there are more cars added on the roads each day. any mpg increase is offset by the increase

 

[QUOTE=vader1,Jun 18 2007, 07:39 AM] In Europe (and the rest of the world basically)

 

I agree with the assessment of 'Excursions' on the road.

Not exactly safe.

All the more reason to bring on the $6/gal gas!

Ha-ha

 

I feel a greater degree of safety in my smaller, more nimble cars that allow me to brake and handle better to avoid wrecks in the first place. I also believe that the market should be the determining factor on this issue, not the government.

 

You've got to be kidding.

 

We didn't have airbags, seatbelts, or ABS without government regulation requiring such. Why should fuel economy be any different? Government regulations are the driving factor for changes in the auto industry.