5.02.2006

A Smart Car; a SmartCar























About a year ago I somehow ended up on the Mercedes-Benz web site. Not sure how I got there, but I wound up looking at a car called the “SmartCar”. It is designed in a joint venture between MB and Swatch.
Pretty cool little car. For a little car. It is a regular gasoline powered car, that gets 60 miles to the gallon. It's upside over a hybrid is that you don't have to replace $5000 worth of battery in five years. That's the dirty little secret they don't tell you unless you ask. the downside is this: imagine getting hit in this car by one of the two-ton battering rams GM is selling onto the road right now. Nuff said.

Vehicles that big should only be available to Agricultural buyers, etc. 99% of those huge SUVs never even leave the pavement. It's no wonder we are seeing gas prices like we are - when you are getting single-digits-to-the-gallon mileage, there are bound to be shortages at times. The irrevocable law of supply and demand calls for the price/value of ANY commodity to go up when there is less of it to be had. It's frankly our responsibility to demand less of the stuff, by being responsible in what we buy to drive. The American Ego is certainly alive and well in this regard.

At the time I thought, no way will that SmartCar ever get imported over here, much too small for our roads. Nobody will have the sense to buy it, even though it's selling well elsewhere. It outsells the mini cooper in Canada right now, among other "it" cars. I thought nothing of it until a day or two ago when I saw a web site www.fuh2.com which I found rather humorous, brought to my attention by SarahBellum

There are literally THOUSANDS of pictures of people flipping the bird at Hummers.

Anyway, I had a good chuckle at that and then thought about a previous post I stuck up here regarding things that pretty much just piss me off - My Class Action Suits – I noted that I would like Cummins Turbo Diesel engines to be off city streets. At least out of the hands of the little commuter weenies falling in the "little boys under 28/not a student" category, who stop at red lights then gun it off the line just to produce the cloud of soot and smoke, and have a good laugh at the guy who just got his car filled through the open window… that’s a really great guy who does that.

2 comments:

That One Guy said...

Similar conversation over here.

That One Guy said...

To your point: Diesel costs 40 cents more per gallon right now than regular grade gasoline

Against your point: An oil change on a diesel is easy to do yourself (I used to have a diesel MB), pull the plug, change the filter, refill.

Additionally, diesel engines are made to run to about 500,000 miles, and rarely have troubles - they're pretty bullet-proof, never overheat, etc.

my $0.02