Most of these vehicles are nearing 2 tons or heavier, simple physics dictates that the heavier car will protrude into the body of a smaller car.
Taking smaller cars and their fuel efficient occupants prematurely off the roads is not very good for fuel economy.
I don't want to die. Simple as that. If it were up to me we would all be driving around in plastic bubbles shaped like raindrops. But apparently having a death machine on the road is somehow cool and fashionable now.
The longer we keep ecomodders on the road the better it is for the environment.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1804166
Things have infact gotten so insane here that I'm thinking about
wearing an open face helmet while driving (so airbags are unaffected), and getting my passenger to do so too.
An ecomodder at their wedding in 2025?
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/02/3d-printed-car/
http://green.autoblog.com/2013/11/27...llons-of-fuel/
http://www.caranddriver.com/features...ations-feature
Quote:
Hidden within this web of rules are a number of subtleties. For example, the nominal 54.5-mpg requirement represents a certain reduction in the tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide. The actual mpg requirement will be more like 49.6, with the rest of the greenhouse-gas reduction coming from a change to higher-efficiency air-conditioning systems using more environmentally friendly refrigerant.
The manufacturers will also get mpg credits for adopting efficient technologies that often show no effect on the official test cycles. These include active grille shutters, electric heat pumps, stop-start systems, high-efficiency lights, and solar roof panels. The credit for such items could amount to about 3 mpg if several are used or even more if a manufacturer provides data to justify it.
Then there’s extra credit for electric, plug-in hybrid, and fuel-cell vehicles. These machines already garner very high CAFE ratings, as they use little or no gasoline, but to encourage their sales, the government will factor each sale of an electric vehicle by 2.0 in model year 2017. In other words, if you sell 10,000 electric vehicles—either battery powered or fuel cell—they will be counted as 20,000 when calculating that company’s fleet fuel economy. This factor will phase down to a multiplier of 1.5 by 2021. For plug-in hybrids, the factor will start at 1.6 in 2017 and phase down to 1.3 in 2021.
Recognizing that full-size pickups have been slow to adopt hybrid technology, there will be separate incentives for “mild” and “strong” hybrid trucks if they are sold in sufficient quantity. There will also be credit for natural-gas–powered vehicles to match their reduction in greenhouse gases. Conversely, for CAFE purposes, oil burners are not penalized for the higher carbon content of diesel fuel.
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By the looks of things the truck is a thing of the past:
Quote:
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If these standards remain in place, expect to see some degree of hybridization eventually spread through at least half of the fleet. Even though the regulations are footprint based, the formulas still encourage some downsizing, and we’d expect to see some of that as well. Finally, when it comes to large luxury cars, weight savings will be a must. Expect the S-class of the future to be constructed largely of aluminum, with enhanced weight savings coming from carbon-fiber parts such as hoods, trunklids and roof panels. Or it might be as radical as the Mercedes F125 concept.
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Very soon, sometime maybe in this century, maybe next decade, this forum will discard the small/light truck menace and everybody will be driving plastic raindrop shaped vehicles as light as a feather.
know how I know? There is going to be a gradual shift towards lighter and lighter cars. Eventually the small/light trucks will be phased out on the roadways not only because of fuel economy concerns but also emissions and safety concerns.
The Walmart truck, made from carbon fiber, light as a feather, strong as steel, you probably cannot afford carbon fiber, neither can I, so I guess we will just have to gradually phase out those cars made from steel and bring in cars made from plastic.
Its probably going to happen, there has been a shift towards more and more plastic in cars as time goes on, eventually we will probably all be driving them, as the old steel cars go to the garbage dump.
Oops, another fatailty on the roads, its one of those steel cars again, what a menace they are, why can't the people just go out and buy a car made from plastic or carbon fiber?. My goodness look at all of that blood, I guess you cannot crash a light truck into a car made from plastic and expect to walk away from it, the occupants have a tendency to go splat you know... like eggs on the sidewalk.
This is a forum founded firmly in science. Throw a large steel ball bearing at a brick wall some time and see what happens to the brick wall. Try the same thing but made from plastic. One is going to crack the bricks because it has more kinetic energy and mass than the hollowed out plastic one.
http://www.plastics-car.com/Blog/Lig...to-Makers.html
If you own a raised small/light truck and lower it so its safer not only do you gain fuel economy but you will increase safety for other road users.