Does anyone else hate Hummer owners?

You seem to be missing the point that at this point in time people should be acting responsibly with respect to environmental issues. It is very frustrating when there are people trying to make an effort in lifestyle changes such as cycling to work, growing as much of their own vegetables that they can, buying locally manufactered goods as much as possible, restricting their own journeys by air travel etc etc that there is still a large percentage of people who just don't give a shit. This selfish behaviour is largely repsonsible for most of the world's problems.

Metaphorically speaking, these people should be taken out with a rocket propelled grenade. In real life however, as I stated before, these devices are only used by people in poor countries to defend themselves from people from rich countries who come to invade them and control their natural resources such as oil so people in rich countries can drive drive big cars like hummers.

What is almost irresponsible is people like yourself and others who try to justify this sort of behaviour. There seems to be a feeling that if someone is just using a little bit of elctricity to heat their water or use their computer then they are just as bad as someone driving 100 yards down the road in a hummer just to go to pick up the kids from school or someone who uses a jetski for kicks on their holidays. This is B.S. as one type of behavour is just completely irresponsible and antisocial. So no, as many other posters have pointed out just because someone is able to afford a hummer does not mean that they have have the moral right to do so.

Charles Barkely wrote:

Jim Fiore,

You need some new sources of info. Literally almost every post I see from you has some sort of misinformation in it (or specualtion that you present as fact). The batteries in hybrid cars do not last the life of the car.

I am curious what you hate more --

The suburbs

SUVs

People who have children

"Big Oil"

Wal Mart

People who go to church

The latest cause celebre that makes you feel righteous

Chuckie, please supply data that contradicts what I said about battery life versus your assertion that I am wrong ("that you present as fact"). Here's some info directly from Toyota's FAQ page regarding hybrid batteries: (from

)

"The Prius battery (and the battery-power management system) has been designed to maximize battery life. In part this is done by keeping the battery at an optimum charge level - never fully draining it and never fully recharging it. As a result, the Prius battery leads a pretty easy life. We have lab data showing the equivalent of 180,000 miles with no deterioration and expect it to last the life of the vehicle. We also expect battery technology to continue to improve: the second-generation model battery is 15% smaller, 25% lighter, and has 35% more specific power than the first. This is true of price as well. Between the 2003 and 2004 models, service battery costs came down 36% and we expect them to continue to drop so that by the time replacements may be needed it won't be a much of an issue. Since the car went on sale in 2000, Toyota has not replaced a single battery for wear and tear.

Toyota has a comprehensive battery recycling program in place and has been recycling nickel-metal hydride batteries since the RAV4 Electric Vehicle was introduced in 1998. Every part of the battery, from the precious metals to the plastic, plates, steel case and the wiring, is recycled. To ensure that batteries come back to Toyota, each battery has a phone number on it to call for recycling information and dealers are paid a $200 "bounty" for each battery. "

By the way, Toyota's warranty on the electrical portion (which covers the batteries) is eight years. Do you really think they'd do that if they didn't have reliable data to show that the batteries would last?

Now, regarding your other comments, why you would think I hate "People who have children" or "People who go to church" is beyond me. Just because I made some comments that you don't like doesn't make me a baby-eating ogre.

Mickster, as an engineer I am very familiar with the concept of total life cycle cost. It's a very important concept that many people ignore and one that is not always easy to compute (especially for something relatively complicated to manufacture). I am sorry but I am skeptical of some of the specific conclusions presentd by the article you posted. I did a little scouting around regarding CNW, the source of the article. They are not an engineering firm. Their expertise is in marketing. At no place on their site could I find anything about the methodology they used for this report nor specific data. Indeed, there's very little info regading the company itself. Sorry, but I don't take the word of a shadowy source as gospel.

In any case, you made a specific claim regarding batteries which I addressed directly, and which the article you posted does not (they roll it all together, so it may well be that they've made some assumptions about battery life, vehicle life, cost of recycling, cost of delivery, etc. which are not consistent and which may obscure elements of hybrid technology due to the large number of variables).

JimFiore

I definitely appreciate your skepticism and ability to search for the scientific and statistical backing of such claims in the article. A good debate indeed, and hope both everyone ends up making a decision on energy/environment using rational, engineering-based data instead of the opinion of "the hot young blonde on tv". Although I must admit the latter is a helluva lot more fun.

Mickster

bluebutton wrote:

check your sources, if everyone in the US drove hummers, our oil consumption would be less than 1% different. we use oil for a lot of other things then just fueling our cars. I am not a fan of them, but i don't care if anyone drives them. How about full-size pick-up trucks? There are a lot more of them out there that get the same gas mileage as a Hummer, but no one seems to worry about that...

Also i bet you drive a 10 year old corolla, and the new Hummer, despite using more gas, has better emissions then that car do to stricter standards over the years.

You check YOUR sources. You just threw out a ton of conjecture without backing up any of it.

If your fat ass can not fit in a regular car than your not only driving up the price of gas your really driving up the price of Health Insurance!

i appreciate the tone of this discusssion (at least the last few posts).

i'd like to add that even if this CNW group if reputable, and if we assume that the data is literally accurate, i still think that it's unfairly inflating the energy cost of owning a hydbrid. why do i think this? because it sounds like they are taking the energy costs related to developing the car - seemingly including things like the energy cost of an engineer getting to work or the energy cost of having the lights on in a building while said engineer works - and then apportioning those costs to each vehicle eventually sold.

well, if you do that, the number of that model of vehicle sold is going to be pretty important. fewer vehicles sold, more developmental "energy cost" for each one. over time, as more such vehicles are sold, the per-unit energy cost will decline.

such a methodology is especially unfair to a relatively radical new technology. there are years of research built into each hybrid vehicle. large dollar and energy costs in R&D.

in contrast, a car that has been around forever, based on a similar previous model, is going to have little in the way of developmental costs, either in terms of dollars or energy.

in sum, it's disingenuous to pretend like the energy cost per hybrid car should include the current pro rata energy cost without taking into account future sales projections. if hybrid engines completely replace full gasoline engines in all passenger cars, then hybrid cars will almost definitely have lower overall energy costs than gasoline engines. what you are seeing in the numbers in the article are the high costs of developing a new product.

I bought a Hummer for my wife.

I don't want her getting killed by some smart-ass kid speeding in his crappy car.

My wife uses to carpool tons of kids around town.

I use it on weekends to go to Lowes and buy stuff for the yard.

I could care less of your sorry-ass cares.

My wife and kids are safe, and that is what is important.

She barely drives above 25 miles an hour.

We would never travel in that thing.

I put more gas in my Honda than she puts in her Hummer on a monthly basis.

Hate on that

I think Texas LEOs were reading this thread, because here is their response.

http://www.autoblog.com/2006/05/11/texas-law-enforcement-issued-700-hp-hummer/

Is that Buford T. Justice I see standing next to the vehicle?

Look at that cop!!!

What a bad-ass, I respect him.

you bring up a good point in your mini-rant. many who drive fuel-efficient cars do not drive them in a fuel efficient manner. accelerating too quickly, braking too hard, and generally going too fast.

i'll admit that when i drive, that type of selfish energy-usage, especially the speed part, is difficult or impossible for me to give up.

then again, if i'm not going to give that up, it's better that i'm in a relatively fuel efficient vehicle.

i guess my point is that if an SUV driver drives his/her vehicle in a fuel efficient way and limits the mileage, it's possible that the overall fuel usage and perhaps overall pollution generated by driving, is lower than that for some drivers of more efficient cars.

Very good points indeed.

Just this morning I filled up my Acura Integra, then drove 30 miles to work in traffic. Lots of irresponsible (but fun) braking, skidding, accelerating, peeling out, etc. The trip took an hour.

However, I coulda' walked 600 yards to the train station, took the 35 minute choo-choo ride, and took a free bus to the doorstep of my work all in 1 hour and 5 minutes.

So much for being a steward to the environment.

does anyone actually know anyone who owns a Hummer?

Its a common misconception that you save fuel by being gentle with the gas pedal when accelerating. Thats not to say that accelerate slowly doesn't save gas, just that the whole "press the gas pedal like there is an egg under it" thing they taught you in drivers ed. is wrong. The most fuel efficient means of accelerating from a stop to cruising speed is with wide open throttle (WOT) and short shifts.

For a given vehicle (fixed gearing and engine displacement) rate of fuel consumption is almost entirely determined by engine RPM. To minimize fuel consumption a driver needs to limit engine RPM. This is acomplished via the short shifts. Since the power band of most modern cars peaks around 3500-4500 RPM or more, short shifting will infact result in slower acceleration than would winding out the engine in each gear.

So yes it is fuel efficient to accelerate slowly from a stop. However going easy on the throttle while accelerating is not an fuel efficient way to accomplish this. The reason is parasitic loss. Every engine will have to do some work to overcome parasitic losses due to internal engine friction, the driving of accessory belts (especially a supercharged cars or ones running the AC at full blast), exhaust gas back pressure (especially true for turbocharged cars). The proportion of fuel consumption dedicated to overcoming these parasitic losses is lowest at WOT. For example at half throttle you may be using 5% of all the fuel injected into the engine to overcome these losses, while at WOT you are only using 1% and the rest is going toward accelerating the vehicle.

So in summary: To save gas buy a manual transmission, naturally aspirated car with a low displacement engine. When driving that car mash the throttle to accelerate, shift into your highest gear as soon as possible, and keep engine RPMS low at cruising speed. And be patient.

Well, no.

But isn't wild extrapolation fun?

The Hansons own a hummer..

Hate Me, I own a Hummer wrote:

I bought a Hummer for my wife.

I don't want her getting killed by some smart-ass kid speeding in his crappy car. ...

Hate on that

Sorry, but I don't hate you. What you have done, however, is exhibit a classic logical error. Suppose everyone bought their wives a Hummer to avoid getting killed. (For now I will ignore the claim as to whether or not she really is safer in a general sense, although I will admit that she's probably safer in the Hummer if she gets hit head-on by an old Buick Skylark than if she was driving a Prius. That, of course, is only a small piece of the puzzle.) Anyway, if everyone did what you did, we'd all be LESS safe because collisions would involve far greater masses in general, with correspondingly higher forces (pity the poor pedestrian). It's like the guy who thinks that standing up at a concert is a dandy idea because then he can see over everyone's head. If everyone does it, though, everyone gets stuck with a worse view (until some brilliant guy stands on his chair, which causes everyone to stand on their chairs, and so on.) See, this is where the argument about being responsive to the society in general comes in. I can't hate anyone for trying to protect their loved ones but we have to be logical and extensive about it. An SUV "arms race" is not a viable solution for protecting drivers and passengers.

LeVee James wrote:

Hummer owners driver Hummers because of a need. Some of drivers don't fit into little cars or they have lots of friends who need a ride. It's not like they steal the gas.

In Texas we have that problem here too. It's called "short man's syndrone". In Texas we have an excess of blowhards with Hummers and supersized SUV's who support W. Bush but were never in the military. Hummers allow wimps to compensate for their self-perceived lack of manliness. An interesting marketing success. Actually it's pathetic when you think about it.

Yes Jim, but for now, my wife is safe...

Until all of the Johnny 18-year-olds can learn to drive under 60 mph through town, I would rather my wife and children be in the Hummer...

I am 100% positive that my wife poses little to no risk as a driver, as she is the world's most cautious driver. She gets scared driving over 40 mph.

I am speaking in relative hyperbole, I am aware of this, but you get my point.