Time to give SUV drivers a break? 5

[jmw]

In an article in Novembers "What Car?"; "how green is your car?" (

http://www.whatcar.com/news-special-report.aspx?NA=222582)

According to CNW's table of 96 cars sold in the UK, the Honda Civic Hybrid finished 73rd and the Toyota Prius 74th, .......the Range Rover Sport finished higher in the list. Top of the table was the Jeep Wrangler ........

This is based on a "dust to dust" analysis which measure the "carbon footprint" for the car and takes into account not only the fuel use and CO2 emissions but the energy costs of production and end of life costs.

Of course, the report mentions the different manufactruing technologies involved so we should anticipate improvements as the hybrid car technologies improve (super capacitors? see thread769-165886) but will it improve enough?

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[UcfSE]

SUV's and trucks should come equipped with a government mandated snow plow attachment. That way any pedestrians will be deflected instead of run over. Problem solved.

 

[jmw]

There is a point that the article illustrates which is that it is bad policy to make decisions based on incomplete information.

Choosing a Prius because it is "green" based only on fuel use and emissions is, in this case, wrong. Adding in the energy used to manufacture and maintain the car, parts replacement etc. the total lifetime energy and emissions are higher than for a conventional vehicle.

We can hope that as it becomes more mainstream that these costs will be reduced and deliver a real advantage.

But is hope the right word? surely there should be some realistic expectation?

Is there a realistic expectation that in the next few years the technology or electri motors, batterries etc will deliver a real environmental advantage?

If not, then the hybrid car is exploiting the good intentions of those who biuy it believing they are being responsible.



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[GregLocock]

OK, I'll try again.

Most SUVs, now, are designed by asking people who buy SUVs, or who would like to buy an SUV, what they want to see in that design.

If these potential customers rated 'pedestrian friendly crash behaviour' highly, then we'd put it in. But, they don't. So, we either put it in because we are nice people, and so make the car more expensive than its competition, so we sell fewer of them, and end up out of a job, or we don't put pedestrian safety features in, so the car is cheaper, so we'll sell more of them, and we make a profit.





Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

jmw has made a really good point here. What this article tells us is that too many people are making car choices based on incomplete information. I'm not sure if I trust this report 100%, although I certainly buy the point about hybrids costing more energy in the end.

GregLocock,

Don't you feel an obligation to the general public, either as an engineer or as a citizen, to design vehicles that use every reasonable safety measure? Admitted this is way outside my field, but wouldn't leaving the the "roo-guard" off actually cost less money anyways?

 

[epoisses]

Bruno, I would think that civil responsibility is with the citizen that buys and uses the car! Besides, if someone wants a roo-guard he will buy one and put it on the car anyway.

Greg is absolutely right. If this is a problem that has to be solved (??) then the solution should be driven by the government, not by the car manufacturers.

And the solution should preferably address the root cause of the problem (unsafe pedestrian Xings? unadapted speed limits?) rather just reduce the pedestrian's number of broken bones by a couple percent.

 

[UcfSE]

Wouldn't the root cause fall on the irresponsible pedesrian or the irresponsible driver? Not everything is the government's responsibility.

 

[corus]

'roo' guards are vitally important to the people of the UK who never know when a stray kangaroo might wander into the road. I'd say it's better to be prepared, and if people want elephant guards, then build 'em too. You never know when a circus is coming to town.
Personally I like the satnav's that reassuringly remind those who drive 4x4s (SUVs) in the UK to 'remain in the right hand lane..' Bless 'em.

corus

 

[casseopeia]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t those guards on the front of the vehicle meant to protect the DRIVER? They aren’t there to keep the hapless pedestrian or 4-legged creature from being run over. Contact between moving vehicle and animal usually results in a win for the vehicle. So the concept of the guard is to minimize damage to the vehicle and deflect the mortally wounded away from the windscreen, thereby reducing the possibility that the driver is injured and looses control.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[Ashereng]

I think on the Australian land trains, the "roo guards" probably do protect the train and driver.

On most SUV's, I think they are just for show.

I don't know whether they add more injury when a person is hit be a SUV with them on and quite frankly, I don't think it matters much - getting hit by the SUV is probably enough problem by itself.

Do SUV kill more people? Like the NRA says, "People Kill People". Unfortunately, we can't legistlate accidents away.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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[LittleWheels]

The automotive blokes will know more about this but don't most aftermarket roobars (for cars, etc) have a requirement not to modify the impact transmitted to the the vehicle? I remember reading an article about an aftermarket roobar supplier and they had to model their designs to avoid significantly changing the impact forces transmitted to the vehicle. AFAIR, the problem is that vehicle and component stiffness affects crashworthiness and airbag deployment. Most roobars could be termed 'nudge bars', allowing touch-parking at the supermarket, seemingly often necessary with big vehicles and small parking places.

Road trains are a different matter. Their roobars (or camel-filters) are quite efficient in avoiding damage to the vehicle, only requiring hosing out afterwards. Between dusk and dawn, I prefer to sit behind a "big 'un" when driving in rural areas.

There is plenty of data showing that roobars and larger vehicles adversely affect pedestrian mortality during crashes.

 

[GregLocock]

Roo guards do hurt pedestrians, quite significantly. We sell one that is designed to be pedestrian friendly, inevitably it costs more than a piece of old pipe welded to the chassis.





Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[SomptingGuy]

The argument I hear a lot and don't like is that people have better visibility and feel safer in an SUV ... compared with those in other vehicles. So let's all drive around in 6" high 10 ton tanks and we'll all be happy.

 

[0707]

Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV)

 

[EddyC]

I've had several near accidents because of SUVs that blocked the view of other vehicles (I drive a car). While I think that we are all for personal choice rather than government regulation, we have to remember that one person's freedom can be another's oppression.

 

[moltenmetal]

Oooohhh, that tired old tripe: "Guns don't kill people- people kill people"!

Guns allow people to kill other people at a distance. They allow little people to kill big people. They allow one person to kill many in a short period of time. True, you can kill someone with a pointed stick or a rock- with some extreme skill and favourable winds, you can even do it from a distance- but let's get real! Technology affects outcomes!

As to the notion that you should be able to have whatever you can afford, and everyone else should butt out- that's all well and good as long as you satisfy two criteria:

1) You pay the full cost of what you are consuming, and
2) Your consumption doesn't impose costs on others that are not covered in the price you pay

Given current fuel pricing, and the utter absence of any monetary "cost" to dumping the products of combustion into the same atmosphere that all of us must breathe, neither of these criteria are being satisfied. That makes YOUR choice of vehicle MY business because it imposes costs on me and my family that we cannot avoid.

Fossil fuel consumption imposes innumerable costs on third parties not directly associated with the transaction.

Nothing would make me happier than to make these choices utterly individual again by making people pay, in some measure, the true, full and fair cost of their consumption. But until that day, I'll be putting in my own two cents worth in regard to other people's ill-considered choices.

Clearly it is also essential to not merely focus on the fuel consumption of a vehicle: production, maintenance and "retirement" costs in terms of energy need also be considered carefully. Forget about hydrogen-powered fuelcells for these reasons, for instance. But we need not only compare vehicle to vehicle- we must compare mode of transportation to mode of transportation. Regardless how you power it, lugging a few tonnes of steel around with you everywhere you go is an energetically stupid way to get around.

 

[Ashereng]

So....I take it you take the bus/train/bicycle/walk and eschew using a "car"?



"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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[LittleWheels]

Ashereng, some of us do. I chose my job and home location partially based on access by public transport and cycling.

Our family has two "cars" that together total less than 100km per week. Fuel prices don't bother me much.

 

[KENAT]

I thought real Roo bars had been banned in the UK and now they had to be pedestrian friendly (ie made of softer plastic materials but still looking like the real thing).

Also on the energy front one thing to think about. Most of the energy used to manufacture the vehicle can probably come from a range of sources including renewable etc which don't add some of the 'pollutants' to the atmosphere and could probably be a ‘national source’. The fuel burned by the vehicle will almost certainly be primarily oil based using internal combustion and hence will generate those pollutants as well as quite likely coming from another country.

So if you could guarantee that most of the energy made to make the car was renewable then surely it would go back to being ‘eco friendly’ and if from ‘national sources’ would limit foreign dependence.

Seems like none of these discussions are as simple as might first seem.

Personally I think that there are probably enough convincing reasons to want to reduce the use of oil. Hence I don’t particularly want an SUV and wouldn’t shed a tear if they decided to tax them more heavily. However it’s a bit unfair to single SUVs out, many other larger/higher performance vehicles should probably get their fair share based on the energy reasoning.

By the way the size thing doesn’t cut it for me. I’ve know a number of rather tall, reasonably sized people that drove minis (the original one not the German ‘midi’).

 

[UcfSE]

There's a difference between knowing rather reasonably sized people and being a big man.

 

[epoisses]

To get back to the title of the thread... why don't we give SUV drivers a break? They already pay through their noses for their car (ever changed 4 tires on your SUV?).

If we really think we should _ban_ things that other people do which we think are stupid from energy point of view, then let's just give everyone the right to fly only 3 times a year, heat their house only 3 months a year and let's most of all ban older cars that do not have a catalytic convertor, because those are the real polluters...