When I first saw this in a twitter thread a week or two ago, the guy pointed out the stupidity of it. To paraphrase, "Great environmentalism, now I have to call a tow truck that gets 4 miles to...
When I first saw this in a twitter thread a week or two ago, the guy pointed out the stupidity of it. To paraphrase, "Great environmentalism, now I have to call a tow truck that gets 4 miles to the gallon to come down and deal with it."
Not everyone that drives a giant SUV is looking for a status symbol. My friend has a Chevy Suburban, 4 kids, goes skiing, pulls a camper, pulls a work trailer, etc.
This is just vandalism and they should be caught and fined.
I do not believe it makes anyone think about their impact on the climate. It just makes them immediately angry at climate activists and thus less likely to take our climate crisis seriously.
stunts like these force people to think about their impact on the climate.
I do not believe it makes anyone think about their impact on the climate. It just makes them immediately angry at climate activists and thus less likely to take our climate crisis seriously.
I agree, moving people to change is more effective if you aren't making them feel attacked. Even if the goal is solely to change the larger conversation, it's not a great idea to inject more...
I agree, moving people to change is more effective if you aren't making them feel attacked.
Even if the goal is solely to change the larger conversation, it's not a great idea to inject more anger.
If there's a place for radical activism and vigilantism, it's not against your fellow 99%, it's against multinational corporations.
I don't think I agree here. Echoing what @Weldawadyathink said, there are many factors to owning a vehicle. I drive a medium sized SUV and if someone let the air out of my tires on this reasoning...
I don't think I agree here. Echoing what @Weldawadyathink said, there are many factors to owning a vehicle. I drive a medium sized SUV and if someone let the air out of my tires on this reasoning I'd be pretty pissed off. Mostly because I'm well aware of the urgency of climate change and fought hard to bring awareness and action to issues involving land subsidence, sea-level rise, salt-water intrusion into groundwater, chemical runoff, potential oil pipeline access, and the benefits of local food systems. Climate change is complicated. When I interviewed neighboring community members that were impacted by hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, they were crystal clear that the only reason they talked to me was because I was from the area. Convincing people to act on climate change, especially when a community's relationship with the land is nuanced and difficult, requires local grass-roots organization and some empathy. In my experience, this kind of behavior (tire deflating) would NOT be productive in the areas that are most pressed by climate change. I think this particular flavor of activism is divisive and counterproductive and really distracts from the main issues. These drivers aren't the problem. Just to name a couple, oil and gas and large-scale farming operations are where we need to target our efforts, not some random driver in the city.
I generally agree with your outlook on activism here, but I also think this in particular is so focused on individual consumer choice that it, uh, falls flat. The climate disaster we're in the...
I generally agree with your outlook on activism here, but I also think this in particular is so focused on individual consumer choice that it, uh, falls flat. The climate disaster we're in the middle of has little to do with consumer choice and fixing it will have little to do with that as well, so punishing an individual who made a choice feels a bit wrong, even if it gets the word out. It's not a matter of it "turning off the moderates" or whatever, it's a matter of it identifying the wrong source of the problem.
I'd rather see a brick through the window of a Lincoln dealer or of a congressperson in the industry's pocket. That said, this is easier to get away with and I understand that the rage has to go somewhere. I don't blame the people doing this, I just hate that their justified anger is being funneled into a misdirected kind of protest.
Do you agree that this form of activism qualifies as vigilantism? How can one justify vigilanteism in this instance without accepting vigilantism generally?
Do you agree that this form of activism qualifies as vigilantism? How can one justify vigilanteism in this instance without accepting vigilantism generally?
You're right of course...but I'd wager for the majority, it's just a minivan for people who refuse to admit they need a minivan, or a status symbol when a smaller car would be perfectly adequate....
You're right of course...but I'd wager for the majority, it's just a minivan for people who refuse to admit they need a minivan, or a status symbol when a smaller car would be perfectly adequate. Aside from towing, everything you mentioned can be handled just as well by a minivan with a roof rack...and easily gaining between 5 and 30 MPG improvement in doing so.
The one thing minivans don’t do that SUVs do is the drivetrain. I have never seen a 4wd or awd minivan. My family travel to snowy areas with chain controls many times every year. Having awd is...
The one thing minivans don’t do that SUVs do is the drivetrain. I have never seen a 4wd or awd minivan. My family travel to snowy areas with chain controls many times every year. Having awd is pretty important for safety and convenience. Most of us have Subarus (which, by the way, get 20-30 mpg, not terrible). This is a use case that certainly is filled better by a suv. I know because my mom has a minivan, and we almost always take a Subaru.
Also, I spot checked a few cars mpg ratings. My Subaru gets better mileage than the 2022 Honda Odyssey. I also checked against a Chevy suburban. While there are some trims that definitely guzzle gas, there is also one that gets 21/27 mpg. That is only 1 mpg less than the 2022 odyssey. So big car != gas guzzler necessarily.
I'm not sure how big these cars you're talking about are but 20-30mpg sounds pretty terrible to me. I once, very briefly, owned a 1984 Jaguar XJ6 which got better mileage than that (barely, it did...
I'm not sure how big these cars you're talking about are but 20-30mpg sounds pretty terrible to me.
I once, very briefly, owned a 1984 Jaguar XJ6 which got better mileage than that (barely, it did a shade over 30, but you did have to be careful with it). It was five metres long and weighed almost two tonnes.
No, it isn’t great, but it really isn’t bad. There is another factor to consider: I am not flush with cash. I bought my current car for $11,000. I got a reliable vehicle that can pack a lot for...
No, it isn’t great, but it really isn’t bad. There is another factor to consider: I am not flush with cash. I bought my current car for $11,000. I got a reliable vehicle that can pack a lot for road trips, is not subject to California chain controls, and is a high trim model. If you know of a better deal I can get with my needs, I would love to know.
This is the thing that gets missed in conversations like these. People have a variety of needs from a vehicle. Focusing on mpg to the exclusion of everything else misses so many aspects of owning a vehicle. When people vandalize vehicles that look large and low efficiency, it is extremely short sighted.
Sorry but 20-30mpg is very poor for any sort of personal car. A standard "white van" (aka Mercedes Sprinter/Ford Transit/etc) gets better mileage than that (~30-40mpg for most, albeit unloaded but...
Sorry but 20-30mpg is very poor for any sort of personal car. A standard "white van" (aka Mercedes Sprinter/Ford Transit/etc) gets better mileage than that (~30-40mpg for most, albeit unloaded but that's a 3.5 tonne kerb weight before you start filling it up!).
My last ICE car was £6000, did 50-70mpg, had five very spacious seats, the largest boot volume of any car on the market and was pretty stacked with goodies. I drove it over muddy fields, up and down snowy mountain roads, and in all weathers just fine. It didn't look very cool, it wasn't very fun - but it moved stuff and people around in comfort and had legs for days (a full tank would take you nearly 900 miles!).
I don't know your exact needs, the rules where you live nor the availability or cost of various types of car but I am genuinely surprised you can't find something which gets better mileage than an actual bus while still doing the things you need it to do.
I'm not sure I agree with vandalising big and heavy vehicles to make a point but I also think a lot of people could make more environmentally considerate choices about what they drive. Also please don't think the previous sentence was some kind of passive aggressive bullshit attack on you personally, because it wasn't intended as such at all - I'm thinking of the hundreds of vast SUV things driving up and down my road twice a day doing the school run because there's no way all those people need those sort of vehicles. I'm not quite sure what the optimum use case for the Nissan Juke/etc is but it's certainly not the sort of urban driving so many of them seem to do.
It sounds like you are comparing the fuel efficiency of a diesel vehicle to that of gasoline (petrol) powered cars, which are more popular over here in the colonies. The numbers are not useful in...
It sounds like you are comparing the fuel efficiency of a diesel vehicle to that of gasoline (petrol) powered cars, which are more popular over here in the colonies. The numbers are not useful in direct comparison like that. The only ICE vehicles I've seen approach that number with gasoline are hybrids, and not the sort capable of towing campers or driving in snowy mountains as is common where I live.
Looks like the actual mpg for the Sprinter is in the teens. Also, not sure where that website got 65 mpg from, because the fuelly numbers for the Skoda Supreme are also about 30 mpg.
A standard "white van" (aka Mercedes Sprinter/Ford Transit/etc) gets better mileage than that (~30-40mpg for most, albeit unloaded but that's a 3.5 tonne kerb weight before you start filling it up!).
Looks like the actual mpg for the Sprinter is in the teens. Also, not sure where that website got 65 mpg from, because the fuelly numbers for the Skoda Supreme are also about 30 mpg.
50-70 mpg? Am I going crazy or is that crazy? Looking at https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/best-worst.shtml, if you go to the excluding EVs tab, the only cars that get anywhere close to 50mpg are...
50-70 mpg? Am I going crazy or is that crazy? Looking at https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/best-worst.shtml, if you go to the excluding EVs tab, the only cars that get anywhere close to 50mpg are hybrids.
I wonder if some of this is a unit problem. UK gallons are not the same size as US gallons, so mpg isn't the same either (I'm assuming u/mat is from the UK given the cost in pounds in his earlier...
I wonder if some of this is a unit problem. UK gallons are not the same size as US gallons, so mpg isn't the same either (I'm assuming u/mat is from the UK given the cost in pounds in his earlier comment).
So 50 - 70 mpg UK gallons works out to around 40-58 US mpg.
And your 20-30 US mpg comes out to around 24 - 36 UK mpg.
So - still not totally lining up, but my understanding is that gas (petrol?) prices in the UK have been MUCH higher than US prices for a long time, so I suspect that the market there would tend toward more fuel efficient cars in general.
Ah, interesting. I had assumed that gallons in the US were the same size as gallons here. ~36mpg is still pretty bad though. On fuel prices, you know when the US were getting all ARGH about petrol...
Ah, interesting. I had assumed that gallons in the US were the same size as gallons here. ~36mpg is still pretty bad though.
On fuel prices, you know when the US were getting all ARGH about petrol hitting $10/gallon a week or so back?
I was wondering when the last time I'd seen prices that low in the UK, so I looked it up - it was 2003. We pay a lot of tax on fuel, which I'm in favour of, in part because it provides an incentive to improve efficiency.
But we have a lot of the same cars as you guys. Ford operate here. VW group sell in the US. The UK builds a lot of Japanese marques. So it's still surprising that 30mpg (US) is considered good where 36mpg (UK) is definitely pretty bad. I wonder what accounts for the difference?
I think you have your units and numbers way off. I live in California and we have pretty much the highest gas prices in the nation. It’s currently around $5.50/gal. Last I heard the national...
I think you have your units and numbers way off. I live in California and we have pretty much the highest gas prices in the nation. It’s currently around $5.50/gal. Last I heard the national average, it was in the $3 range.
And 36 mpg really isn’t bad. I drove a company Prius (really good mileage compared to the market) that only got around 35mpg, and it was a hybrid.
I have friends in the US who were posting stuff on FB about fuel hitting $10/gallon a couple of weeks ago. I think it was a few outlying filling stations, but was indicative of prices being...
I have friends in the US who were posting stuff on FB about fuel hitting $10/gallon a couple of weeks ago. I think it was a few outlying filling stations, but was indicative of prices being generally quite painfully high. I assume things have calmed down a little since then, they have here.
$5.50/gallon is 60p/litre and I have never, ever seen fuel that cheap in the UK. You guys have frighteningly cheap fuel, and we have incredibly high fuel taxes.
I found somewhere which converts US mpg/UK mpg and threw some numbers at it. A relatively new, mid-range Ford Focus, petrol not diesel (so a pretty standard family car), will get over 40mpg (US). A Hyundai Ioniq petrol/electric hybrid will get 60mpg (US). Which makes me wonder if there's something else at play here.
You must still be missing something. A gallon of gasoline != a gallon of diesel, in every aspect (emissions, energy density, pollution, price, etc). 36 mpg (in US, EPA terms, gasoline) is not far...
~36mpg is still pretty bad though.
You must still be missing something. A gallon of gasoline != a gallon of diesel, in every aspect (emissions, energy density, pollution, price, etc).
36 mpg (in US, EPA terms, gasoline) is not far from what the most efficient pure ICEs, like modern Corolla/Civic, extremely efficient CVT-equipped, sub-compact sedans from Japan get.
OK so ignoring diesels then, although I still think ICE cars are ICE cars and it's perfectly reasonable to compare slightly different flavours of fuel for them. It's all just dinosaur juice at the...
OK so ignoring diesels then, although I still think ICE cars are ICE cars and it's perfectly reasonable to compare slightly different flavours of fuel for them. It's all just dinosaur juice at the end of the day.
Anyway, I found somewhere which converts US mpg/UK mpg and threw some numbers at it. A relatively new, mid-range Ford Focus, petrol - a pretty standard family car - should get a shade over 40mpg (US) using WLTP figures. The "eco" versions with slightly smaller engines, get more like 47mpg (US). There's nothing special about the Focus, it's pretty average. No CVT or tweaked aero or anything fancy like that.
Just for comparison, stepping outside the average, a Fiat 500 TwinAir (petrol), will get 61mpg (US). But they're pretty dinky. Hella fun to drive though.
Anyway, ignoring outliers it still seems like something doesn't entirely add up and I don't know what it is.
It's not, though, because diesel is significantly worse than gasoline in emissions. "Diesel cars tend to have lower volumetric fuel consumption figures than comparable gasoline vehicles. However,...
OK so ignoring diesels then, although I still think ICE cars are ICE cars and it's perfectly reasonable to compare slightly different flavours of fuel for them. It's all just dinosaur juice at the end of the day.
It's not, though, because diesel is significantly worse than gasoline in emissions.
"Diesel cars tend to have lower volumetric fuel
consumption figures than comparable gasoline vehicles.
However, the benefit in terms of CO2 emissions is
significantly lower, as the combustion of 1 liter of diesel
fuel releases approximately 13% more CO2 than for the
same amount of gasoline fuel. Diesel engines require
fuel-intensive NOx
reduction technologies and are
heavier than their gasoline counterparts, which further
reduces the alleged CO2 benefit of diesel cars. Diesel cars
also typically are equipped with more powerful engines
and have a higher real-world CO2 emissions gap than
gasoline cars."
I think the issue here is that mpg is calculated differently between different agencies. A 2018 gas ford focus according to the EPA gets 25 mpg: https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=39611. I honestly have no idea where 40mpg would come from.
I think everyone else in the thread is using EPA numbers, while I do not know where yours are coming from but they seem substantially higher across the board.
Standardized to EPA numbers, 36 (by the EPA) is a great MPG. It's what super light sedans with extra boring but extra efficient modern engines and powertrains get.
MPG figures published in the UK and EU are based on the WLTP and from what I can tell with a quick google they tend to be slightly higher than, but usually within about 10% of, EPA figures -...
MPG figures published in the UK and EU are based on the WLTP and from what I can tell with a quick google they tend to be slightly higher than, but usually within about 10% of, EPA figures - although there does seem to be quite a bit of variation around that amount of deviation.
The Focus you link to is a large, turbocharged edition. I was looking at figures for the mid-range family-spec model (the 60mpg there is pre-WLTP tests, under WLTP it's more like 50mpg)
I think this is the closest I can get: https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/38470.shtml 2017 Ford Focus, manual, 3cyl 1L engine. According to the EPA it has a 31 combined (27-38). I think...
2017 Ford Focus, manual, 3cyl 1L engine. According to the EPA it has a 31 combined (27-38).
I think that's a good calibration of the kind of numbers people talk about earlier in the thread. The people earlier in the thread with modern SUVs that are in the 20-30s range by EPA measurement are nearing baseline Ford Focus emissions. Sure, Ford isn't exactly Toyota, and it is a 5 year old discontinued car, but still, it's a relatively modern subcompact sedan! If you were to go out mocking or slashing the tires of everything who get 20-30 MPG (per the EPA), you'd be slashing basically everyone except owners of modern Japanese compact sedans, hybrids, and electric vehicles!
I think this raises an interesting hypothetical of how this act would compare from the US to the UK/EU. A 1L Ford Focus would be, at a guess, a roughly average sized car in the UK. This is purely...
you'd be slashing basically everyone except owners of modern Japanese compact sedans, hybrids, and electric vehicles!
I think this raises an interesting hypothetical of how this act would compare from the US to the UK/EU. A 1L Ford Focus would be, at a guess, a roughly average sized car in the UK. This is purely anecdotal but I see a lot of Fiat 500 size cars around. Not sure what you'd call them, subcompact maybe? Dinky things, but lots of people drive them. I had a Fiat Panda for ten years, it was a lovely car and I could open the passenger's door from the driver's seat without really stretching.
I did find some numbers around. The average mpg for a petrol UK car is 31mpg (US) and if you only include new (2020 on) cars, that goes up to 43mpg (US). These numbers exclude diesel, hybrid and pure EV cars, so the actual on-road average for a personal vehicle here is even higher. As mentioned, diesels are very common here and while there's almost certainly some frequency illusion in my perception because I've been researching EVs recently, I do seem to see a lot of those around these days too.
In the US the average is 25mpg and for new cars only, 25.4mpg. I'm sure the US numbers are being pulled low by a relatively small number of those insane pickups which do 3 gallons to the mile or similarly disastrous mileage. But still, perceptually, that matters.
This makes me think that perhaps partly why Americans think 20-30mpg is good is because in comparison to other cars on US roads, it is pretty good. But in the UK it's below average, even when we adjust the units.
It might at least partly be due to the fact that European fuel is a higher octane. And cars sold in Europe can be optimised for this. Higher octane fuel can give you better distance per volume,...
It might at least partly be due to the fact that European fuel is a higher octane. And cars sold in Europe can be optimised for this.
Higher octane fuel can give you better distance per volume, and most likely worse distance per dollar.
Turbo diesels, apparently. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison because passenger vehicles with diesel engines are very rare in the US (sedans, wagons, etc. -- easy to find a diesel truck). It...
Turbo diesels, apparently. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison because passenger vehicles with diesel engines are very rare in the US (sedans, wagons, etc. -- easy to find a diesel truck). It seems that there is also some question about whether European test standards meet real-life expectations, though neither the EPA or the EU tests sound fully appropriate.
Turbo diesels are all I've driven, ICE-wise, for 15 years or so. So much better than petrol. Lots of torque and decent enough fuel economy to compensate for the slightly higher price of diesel....
Turbo diesels are all I've driven, ICE-wise, for 15 years or so. So much better than petrol. Lots of torque and decent enough fuel economy to compensate for the slightly higher price of diesel.
The published figure of 65mpg I would say is fairly realistic for combined cycle driving of the Skoda Superb 1.6 diesel. Less for purely urban driving, but it'll approach 70mpg on long distance. With careful driving, of course. If you just boot it everywhere it'll suck, but so will anything.
I wasn't aware America doesn't really have diesel cars. They're pretty common here.
So you got me curious what I could have gotten if I only cared about mileage. I checked my local dealership for cars less than $15k. Best mileage I could find on a car was a Volkswagen 2012 eos...
So you got me curious what I could have gotten if I only cared about mileage. I checked my local dealership for cars less than $15k. Best mileage I could find on a car was a Volkswagen 2012 eos komfort edition. It gets an epa estimated 22/33 mpg (city/highway). Note: these numbers are definitely gamed by all manufacturers, but they work decently for direct car to car comparison. My 2011 Subaru Outback gets epa 21/28 mpg. So the difference is noticeable, but it certainly is not huge. And this would have gotten me a much less useful car for my needs.
AWD was an option on the Toyota Previa in the 90s, it's why they were somewhat popular with families who lived up in the mountains where I live. As far as the snow, it's easier but it's not like...
AWD was an option on the Toyota Previa in the 90s, it's why they were somewhat popular with families who lived up in the mountains where I live.
As far as the snow, it's easier but it's not like it's impossible to drive a non-AWD/4WD vehicle up there. Hell, my stepdad loved to tell me stories about how he learned to drive in the mountains he grew up in in a giant RWD Oldsmobile Cutlass. One of the best snow-handling vehicles I've driven was a friend's late 90s Suzuki Esteem with a set of snow tires on it. Even my ex's Kia Soul was easier to drive in the snow with all-seasons than my old Ford Ranger was in 4WD mode-- we took that thing over Vail Pass in a blizzard and had no problem keeping control while still passing multiple Jeeps and Subarus creeping along.
I feel like people greatly overestimate the need for AWD/4WD in snowy areas, honestly.
I went into a bit more detail of my “need” here: https://tildes.net/~enviro/10rc/tyre_extinguishers_deflating_suv_tyres_as_a_form_of_climate_action#comment-76oc Mostly it’s because of chain...
Mostly it’s because of chain control. It is really nice to not have to chain up. CHP closes the roads long before awd+mud and snow tires (not real snow tires) will have an issue. Real snow tires on 2wd would be an option, but we would still have to chain up because of chain controls. Also, I don’t really have the ability to have an extra set of rims and tires to have summer+winter tires.
So does CHP base chain mandates on drivetrains alone, instead of tire tread depth and type? That seems a bit backwards to me, to be honest. Locally our chain rules are met by winter tires or M+S...
So does CHP base chain mandates on drivetrains alone, instead of tire tread depth and type? That seems a bit backwards to me, to be honest. Locally our chain rules are met by winter tires or M+S over a certain tread depth regardless of drivetrain, and it's only for summer tires that AWD/4WD is required.
The regulations are this (as best a quote as I can remember): Chains are required for all vehicles. 4wd/awd with snow tires are okay. Yeah, it’s a bit of a bummer. That’s why I go for the awd with...
The regulations are this (as best a quote as I can remember): Chains are required for all vehicles. 4wd/awd with snow tires are okay.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a bummer. That’s why I go for the awd with m+s tires.
I really think CHP uses their chain controls to weed out inexperienced snow drivers, not to specifically allow safer configurations. We definitely get a ton of idiots driving unsafely when it snows on echo summit, even if they would have “safe” tire/drivetrain configurations. The restrictions seem to help somewhat.
I'm not surprised they fell out of style. My parents had a Chrysler minivan circa 1996 that had AWD, but the transmission on the thing was quite terrible. With hybrid minivans hitting the scene,...
I have never seen a 4wd or awd minivan.
I'm not surprised they fell out of style. My parents had a Chrysler minivan circa 1996 that had AWD, but the transmission on the thing was quite terrible. With hybrid minivans hitting the scene, they should do AWD quite well. My old Prius (circa 2012) was an excellent handler, proving capable of handling central-PA snowy hills without chains in the winter...which is more than can be said of many of the SUV drivers I've seen. Too many think AWD is a miracle solution for driving in the snow, although I suspect you're not one of them. I watched a neighbor get an Escalade stuck in 10 inches of snow because they couldn't bother to wait 20 minutes for the plow to come through.
That said, I do quite love a Subaru, and was kind in the running for the car replacement for the reasons you mentioned.
Yeah awd is not a miracle. I wish everyone who regularly drives in snow knew this. I have heard that awd+real snow tires is a miracle, but I have never had the chance to try that. I have mud and...
Yeah awd is not a miracle. I wish everyone who regularly drives in snow knew this. I have heard that awd+real snow tires is a miracle, but I have never had the chance to try that. I have mud and snow tires on mine, which don’t really help that much in the snow.
Where it is a miracle, and what I use it for, is road closures. The road I need to drive is echo summit on highway 50. Because it is 2 lane and can get pretty dangerous even in good conditions, CHP is pretty strict with chain controls. They will sometimes start chain controls even when the road is just wet and above freezing, mostly to slow traffic. They will also close the road completely even when a good 4wd with real snow tires would make it. We don’t salt our roads. While this is great for car rusting, it is not great for traction. With plows running full bore, the road is often completely ice, since the plows can only scrape off the new snow. What awd does in this situation is get me through the chain controls without having to put on chains.
Even then, vandalism is not justified. All this does is tell people that maybe the straw men being railed against all day on Fox News might actually be real. It is entirely self-defeating.
Even then, vandalism is not justified. All this does is tell people that maybe the straw men being railed against all day on Fox News might actually be real. It is entirely self-defeating.
I recently switched to a smaller SUV, but it's a small hybrid, getting ~40 MPG. Space downgrade, but it's over double the efficiency of my old minivan. The majority of even new SUV rarely get...
I recently switched to a smaller SUV, but it's a small hybrid, getting ~40 MPG. Space downgrade, but it's over double the efficiency of my old minivan. The majority of even new SUV rarely get above 25 MPG.
My favorite thing about larger SUVs is that they've just turned into status-symbol minivans that are more likely to roll if you drive them too fast around a corner.
If you need a status-symbol, get the new all-electric Ford F150 or the Chrystler Pacifica plug-in hybrid. I need those to start hitting the used market in 5 years or so.
I was just pricing out one of these! I have a 2008 4Runner that gets driven less than 10k miles per year (I mostly bike), but I still want something to pull my travel trailer. I won’t be upgrading...
the new all-electric Ford F150
I was just pricing out one of these! I have a 2008 4Runner that gets driven less than 10k miles per year (I mostly bike), but I still want something to pull my travel trailer. I won’t be upgrading for awhile, but an all-electric vehicular will hopefully be my next!
It's funny how much your annual usage drops when you don't commute to work with a car. National average is something like 12k a year. I'm sitting at < 5k these days.
It's funny how much your annual usage drops when you don't commute to work with a car.
National average is something like 12k a year. I'm sitting at < 5k these days.
I just love how this turned to a discussion about mostly cars. some people being ashamed of their cars, some defending their cars, some shaming others for their big cars and some just comparing them
I just love how this turned to a discussion about mostly cars. some people being ashamed of their cars, some defending their cars, some shaming others for their big cars and some just comparing them
When I first saw this in a twitter thread a week or two ago, the guy pointed out the stupidity of it. To paraphrase, "Great environmentalism, now I have to call a tow truck that gets 4 miles to the gallon to come down and deal with it."
Not everyone that drives a giant SUV is looking for a status symbol. My friend has a Chevy Suburban, 4 kids, goes skiing, pulls a camper, pulls a work trailer, etc.
This is just vandalism and they should be caught and fined.
I do not believe it makes anyone think about their impact on the climate. It just makes them immediately angry at climate activists and thus less likely to take our climate crisis seriously.
I agree, moving people to change is more effective if you aren't making them feel attacked.
Even if the goal is solely to change the larger conversation, it's not a great idea to inject more anger.
If there's a place for radical activism and vigilantism, it's not against your fellow 99%, it's against multinational corporations.
Getting members of the 99% to attack eachother sounds like a great way for the 1% to avoid taking the blame for anything.
I don't think I agree here. Echoing what @Weldawadyathink said, there are many factors to owning a vehicle. I drive a medium sized SUV and if someone let the air out of my tires on this reasoning I'd be pretty pissed off. Mostly because I'm well aware of the urgency of climate change and fought hard to bring awareness and action to issues involving land subsidence, sea-level rise, salt-water intrusion into groundwater, chemical runoff, potential oil pipeline access, and the benefits of local food systems. Climate change is complicated. When I interviewed neighboring community members that were impacted by hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, they were crystal clear that the only reason they talked to me was because I was from the area. Convincing people to act on climate change, especially when a community's relationship with the land is nuanced and difficult, requires local grass-roots organization and some empathy. In my experience, this kind of behavior (tire deflating) would NOT be productive in the areas that are most pressed by climate change. I think this particular flavor of activism is divisive and counterproductive and really distracts from the main issues. These drivers aren't the problem. Just to name a couple, oil and gas and large-scale farming operations are where we need to target our efforts, not some random driver in the city.
I generally agree with your outlook on activism here, but I also think this in particular is so focused on individual consumer choice that it, uh, falls flat. The climate disaster we're in the middle of has little to do with consumer choice and fixing it will have little to do with that as well, so punishing an individual who made a choice feels a bit wrong, even if it gets the word out. It's not a matter of it "turning off the moderates" or whatever, it's a matter of it identifying the wrong source of the problem.
I'd rather see a brick through the window of a Lincoln dealer or of a congressperson in the industry's pocket. That said, this is easier to get away with and I understand that the rage has to go somewhere. I don't blame the people doing this, I just hate that their justified anger is being funneled into a misdirected kind of protest.
Do you agree that this form of activism qualifies as vigilantism? How can one justify vigilanteism in this instance without accepting vigilantism generally?
You're right of course...but I'd wager for the majority, it's just a minivan for people who refuse to admit they need a minivan, or a status symbol when a smaller car would be perfectly adequate. Aside from towing, everything you mentioned can be handled just as well by a minivan with a roof rack...and easily gaining between 5 and 30 MPG improvement in doing so.
The one thing minivans don’t do that SUVs do is the drivetrain. I have never seen a 4wd or awd minivan. My family travel to snowy areas with chain controls many times every year. Having awd is pretty important for safety and convenience. Most of us have Subarus (which, by the way, get 20-30 mpg, not terrible). This is a use case that certainly is filled better by a suv. I know because my mom has a minivan, and we almost always take a Subaru.
Also, I spot checked a few cars mpg ratings. My Subaru gets better mileage than the 2022 Honda Odyssey. I also checked against a Chevy suburban. While there are some trims that definitely guzzle gas, there is also one that gets 21/27 mpg. That is only 1 mpg less than the 2022 odyssey. So big car != gas guzzler necessarily.
I'm not sure how big these cars you're talking about are but 20-30mpg sounds pretty terrible to me.
I once, very briefly, owned a 1984 Jaguar XJ6 which got better mileage than that (barely, it did a shade over 30, but you did have to be careful with it). It was five metres long and weighed almost two tonnes.
No, it isn’t great, but it really isn’t bad. There is another factor to consider: I am not flush with cash. I bought my current car for $11,000. I got a reliable vehicle that can pack a lot for road trips, is not subject to California chain controls, and is a high trim model. If you know of a better deal I can get with my needs, I would love to know.
This is the thing that gets missed in conversations like these. People have a variety of needs from a vehicle. Focusing on mpg to the exclusion of everything else misses so many aspects of owning a vehicle. When people vandalize vehicles that look large and low efficiency, it is extremely short sighted.
Sorry but 20-30mpg is very poor for any sort of personal car. A standard "white van" (aka Mercedes Sprinter/Ford Transit/etc) gets better mileage than that (~30-40mpg for most, albeit unloaded but that's a 3.5 tonne kerb weight before you start filling it up!).
My last ICE car was £6000, did 50-70mpg, had five very spacious seats, the largest boot volume of any car on the market and was pretty stacked with goodies. I drove it over muddy fields, up and down snowy mountain roads, and in all weathers just fine. It didn't look very cool, it wasn't very fun - but it moved stuff and people around in comfort and had legs for days (a full tank would take you nearly 900 miles!).
I don't know your exact needs, the rules where you live nor the availability or cost of various types of car but I am genuinely surprised you can't find something which gets better mileage than an actual bus while still doing the things you need it to do.
I'm not sure I agree with vandalising big and heavy vehicles to make a point but I also think a lot of people could make more environmentally considerate choices about what they drive. Also please don't think the previous sentence was some kind of passive aggressive bullshit attack on you personally, because it wasn't intended as such at all - I'm thinking of the hundreds of vast SUV things driving up and down my road twice a day doing the school run because there's no way all those people need those sort of vehicles. I'm not quite sure what the optimum use case for the Nissan Juke/etc is but it's certainly not the sort of urban driving so many of them seem to do.
It sounds like you are comparing the fuel efficiency of a diesel vehicle to that of gasoline (petrol) powered cars, which are more popular over here in the colonies. The numbers are not useful in direct comparison like that. The only ICE vehicles I've seen approach that number with gasoline are hybrids, and not the sort capable of towing campers or driving in snowy mountains as is common where I live.
Looks like the actual mpg for the Sprinter is in the teens. Also, not sure where that website got 65 mpg from, because the fuelly numbers for the Skoda Supreme are also about 30 mpg.
50-70 mpg? Am I going crazy or is that crazy? Looking at https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/best-worst.shtml, if you go to the excluding EVs tab, the only cars that get anywhere close to 50mpg are hybrids.
What ICE cars get that kind of mpg!?
I wonder if some of this is a unit problem. UK gallons are not the same size as US gallons, so mpg isn't the same either (I'm assuming u/mat is from the UK given the cost in pounds in his earlier comment).
So 50 - 70 mpg UK gallons works out to around 40-58 US mpg.
And your 20-30 US mpg comes out to around 24 - 36 UK mpg.
So - still not totally lining up, but my understanding is that gas (petrol?) prices in the UK have been MUCH higher than US prices for a long time, so I suspect that the market there would tend toward more fuel efficient cars in general.
Ah, interesting. I had assumed that gallons in the US were the same size as gallons here. ~36mpg is still pretty bad though.
On fuel prices, you know when the US were getting all ARGH about petrol hitting $10/gallon a week or so back?
I was wondering when the last time I'd seen prices that low in the UK, so I looked it up - it was 2003. We pay a lot of tax on fuel, which I'm in favour of, in part because it provides an incentive to improve efficiency.
But we have a lot of the same cars as you guys. Ford operate here. VW group sell in the US. The UK builds a lot of Japanese marques. So it's still surprising that 30mpg (US) is considered good where 36mpg (UK) is definitely pretty bad. I wonder what accounts for the difference?
I think you have your units and numbers way off. I live in California and we have pretty much the highest gas prices in the nation. It’s currently around $5.50/gal. Last I heard the national average, it was in the $3 range.
And 36 mpg really isn’t bad. I drove a company Prius (really good mileage compared to the market) that only got around 35mpg, and it was a hybrid.
I have friends in the US who were posting stuff on FB about fuel hitting $10/gallon a couple of weeks ago. I think it was a few outlying filling stations, but was indicative of prices being generally quite painfully high. I assume things have calmed down a little since then, they have here.
$5.50/gallon is 60p/litre and I have never, ever seen fuel that cheap in the UK. You guys have frighteningly cheap fuel, and we have incredibly high fuel taxes.
I found somewhere which converts US mpg/UK mpg and threw some numbers at it. A relatively new, mid-range Ford Focus, petrol not diesel (so a pretty standard family car), will get over 40mpg (US). A Hyundai Ioniq petrol/electric hybrid will get 60mpg (US). Which makes me wonder if there's something else at play here.
You must still be missing something. A gallon of gasoline != a gallon of diesel, in every aspect (emissions, energy density, pollution, price, etc).
36 mpg (in US, EPA terms, gasoline) is not far from what the most efficient pure ICEs, like modern Corolla/Civic, extremely efficient CVT-equipped, sub-compact sedans from Japan get.
OK so ignoring diesels then, although I still think ICE cars are ICE cars and it's perfectly reasonable to compare slightly different flavours of fuel for them. It's all just dinosaur juice at the end of the day.
Anyway, I found somewhere which converts US mpg/UK mpg and threw some numbers at it. A relatively new, mid-range Ford Focus, petrol - a pretty standard family car - should get a shade over 40mpg (US) using WLTP figures. The "eco" versions with slightly smaller engines, get more like 47mpg (US). There's nothing special about the Focus, it's pretty average. No CVT or tweaked aero or anything fancy like that.
Just for comparison, stepping outside the average, a Fiat 500 TwinAir (petrol), will get 61mpg (US). But they're pretty dinky. Hella fun to drive though.
Anyway, ignoring outliers it still seems like something doesn't entirely add up and I don't know what it is.
It's not, though, because diesel is significantly worse than gasoline in emissions.
"Diesel cars tend to have lower volumetric fuel
consumption figures than comparable gasoline vehicles.
However, the benefit in terms of CO2 emissions is
significantly lower, as the combustion of 1 liter of diesel
fuel releases approximately 13% more CO2 than for the
same amount of gasoline fuel. Diesel engines require
fuel-intensive NOx
reduction technologies and are
heavier than their gasoline counterparts, which further
reduces the alleged CO2 benefit of diesel cars. Diesel cars
also typically are equipped with more powerful engines
and have a higher real-world CO2 emissions gap than
gasoline cars."
Source: https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/Gas%20_v%20_Diesel_%20CO2_emissions_%20EN_%20Fact%20_Sheet%202019_05_07_0.pdf
I think the issue here is that mpg is calculated differently between different agencies. A 2018 gas ford focus according to the EPA gets 25 mpg: https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=39611. I honestly have no idea where 40mpg would come from.
I think everyone else in the thread is using EPA numbers, while I do not know where yours are coming from but they seem substantially higher across the board.
Standardized to EPA numbers, 36 (by the EPA) is a great MPG. It's what super light sedans with extra boring but extra efficient modern engines and powertrains get.
MPG figures published in the UK and EU are based on the WLTP and from what I can tell with a quick google they tend to be slightly higher than, but usually within about 10% of, EPA figures - although there does seem to be quite a bit of variation around that amount of deviation.
The Focus you link to is a large, turbocharged edition. I was looking at figures for the mid-range family-spec model (the 60mpg there is pre-WLTP tests, under WLTP it's more like 50mpg)
I think this is the closest I can get: https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/38470.shtml
2017 Ford Focus, manual, 3cyl 1L engine. According to the EPA it has a 31 combined (27-38).
I think that's a good calibration of the kind of numbers people talk about earlier in the thread. The people earlier in the thread with modern SUVs that are in the 20-30s range by EPA measurement are nearing baseline Ford Focus emissions. Sure, Ford isn't exactly Toyota, and it is a 5 year old discontinued car, but still, it's a relatively modern subcompact sedan! If you were to go out mocking or slashing the tires of everything who get 20-30 MPG (per the EPA), you'd be slashing basically everyone except owners of modern Japanese compact sedans, hybrids, and electric vehicles!
Compare that MPG to the modern rav4, for instance: https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/PowerSearch.do?action=noform&srchtyp=ymm&path=1&year1=2022&year2=2022&make=Toyota&model=RAV4
Pretty damn close, and with a whole lotta more metal for that engine to drive.
I think this raises an interesting hypothetical of how this act would compare from the US to the UK/EU. A 1L Ford Focus would be, at a guess, a roughly average sized car in the UK. This is purely anecdotal but I see a lot of Fiat 500 size cars around. Not sure what you'd call them, subcompact maybe? Dinky things, but lots of people drive them. I had a Fiat Panda for ten years, it was a lovely car and I could open the passenger's door from the driver's seat without really stretching.
I did find some numbers around. The average mpg for a petrol UK car is 31mpg (US) and if you only include new (2020 on) cars, that goes up to 43mpg (US). These numbers exclude diesel, hybrid and pure EV cars, so the actual on-road average for a personal vehicle here is even higher. As mentioned, diesels are very common here and while there's almost certainly some frequency illusion in my perception because I've been researching EVs recently, I do seem to see a lot of those around these days too.
In the US the average is 25mpg and for new cars only, 25.4mpg. I'm sure the US numbers are being pulled low by a relatively small number of those insane pickups which do 3 gallons to the mile or similarly disastrous mileage. But still, perceptually, that matters.
This makes me think that perhaps partly why Americans think 20-30mpg is good is because in comparison to other cars on US roads, it is pretty good. But in the UK it's below average, even when we adjust the units.
It might at least partly be due to the fact that European fuel is a higher octane. And cars sold in Europe can be optimised for this.
Higher octane fuel can give you better distance per volume, and most likely worse distance per dollar.
Turbo diesels, apparently. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison because passenger vehicles with diesel engines are very rare in the US (sedans, wagons, etc. -- easy to find a diesel truck). It seems that there is also some question about whether European test standards meet real-life expectations, though neither the EPA or the EU tests sound fully appropriate.
Turbo diesels are all I've driven, ICE-wise, for 15 years or so. So much better than petrol. Lots of torque and decent enough fuel economy to compensate for the slightly higher price of diesel.
The published figure of 65mpg I would say is fairly realistic for combined cycle driving of the Skoda Superb 1.6 diesel. Less for purely urban driving, but it'll approach 70mpg on long distance. With careful driving, of course. If you just boot it everywhere it'll suck, but so will anything.
I wasn't aware America doesn't really have diesel cars. They're pretty common here.
So you got me curious what I could have gotten if I only cared about mileage. I checked my local dealership for cars less than $15k. Best mileage I could find on a car was a Volkswagen 2012 eos komfort edition. It gets an epa estimated 22/33 mpg (city/highway). Note: these numbers are definitely gamed by all manufacturers, but they work decently for direct car to car comparison. My 2011 Subaru Outback gets epa 21/28 mpg. So the difference is noticeable, but it certainly is not huge. And this would have gotten me a much less useful car for my needs.
AWD was an option on the Toyota Previa in the 90s, it's why they were somewhat popular with families who lived up in the mountains where I live.
As far as the snow, it's easier but it's not like it's impossible to drive a non-AWD/4WD vehicle up there. Hell, my stepdad loved to tell me stories about how he learned to drive in the mountains he grew up in in a giant RWD Oldsmobile Cutlass. One of the best snow-handling vehicles I've driven was a friend's late 90s Suzuki Esteem with a set of snow tires on it. Even my ex's Kia Soul was easier to drive in the snow with all-seasons than my old Ford Ranger was in 4WD mode-- we took that thing over Vail Pass in a blizzard and had no problem keeping control while still passing multiple Jeeps and Subarus creeping along.
I feel like people greatly overestimate the need for AWD/4WD in snowy areas, honestly.
I went into a bit more detail of my “need” here: https://tildes.net/~enviro/10rc/tyre_extinguishers_deflating_suv_tyres_as_a_form_of_climate_action#comment-76oc
Mostly it’s because of chain control. It is really nice to not have to chain up. CHP closes the roads long before awd+mud and snow tires (not real snow tires) will have an issue. Real snow tires on 2wd would be an option, but we would still have to chain up because of chain controls. Also, I don’t really have the ability to have an extra set of rims and tires to have summer+winter tires.
So does CHP base chain mandates on drivetrains alone, instead of tire tread depth and type? That seems a bit backwards to me, to be honest. Locally our chain rules are met by winter tires or M+S over a certain tread depth regardless of drivetrain, and it's only for summer tires that AWD/4WD is required.
The regulations are this (as best a quote as I can remember): Chains are required for all vehicles. 4wd/awd with snow tires are okay.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a bummer. That’s why I go for the awd with m+s tires.
I really think CHP uses their chain controls to weed out inexperienced snow drivers, not to specifically allow safer configurations. We definitely get a ton of idiots driving unsafely when it snows on echo summit, even if they would have “safe” tire/drivetrain configurations. The restrictions seem to help somewhat.
I'm not surprised they fell out of style. My parents had a Chrysler minivan circa 1996 that had AWD, but the transmission on the thing was quite terrible. With hybrid minivans hitting the scene, they should do AWD quite well. My old Prius (circa 2012) was an excellent handler, proving capable of handling central-PA snowy hills without chains in the winter...which is more than can be said of many of the SUV drivers I've seen. Too many think AWD is a miracle solution for driving in the snow, although I suspect you're not one of them. I watched a neighbor get an Escalade stuck in 10 inches of snow because they couldn't bother to wait 20 minutes for the plow to come through.
That said, I do quite love a Subaru, and was kind in the running for the car replacement for the reasons you mentioned.
Yeah awd is not a miracle. I wish everyone who regularly drives in snow knew this. I have heard that awd+real snow tires is a miracle, but I have never had the chance to try that. I have mud and snow tires on mine, which don’t really help that much in the snow.
Where it is a miracle, and what I use it for, is road closures. The road I need to drive is echo summit on highway 50. Because it is 2 lane and can get pretty dangerous even in good conditions, CHP is pretty strict with chain controls. They will sometimes start chain controls even when the road is just wet and above freezing, mostly to slow traffic. They will also close the road completely even when a good 4wd with real snow tires would make it. We don’t salt our roads. While this is great for car rusting, it is not great for traction. With plows running full bore, the road is often completely ice, since the plows can only scrape off the new snow. What awd does in this situation is get me through the chain controls without having to put on chains.
Even then, vandalism is not justified. All this does is tell people that maybe the straw men being railed against all day on Fox News might actually be real. It is entirely self-defeating.
I recently switched to a smaller SUV, but it's a small hybrid, getting ~40 MPG. Space downgrade, but it's over double the efficiency of my old minivan. The majority of even new SUV rarely get above 25 MPG.
My favorite thing about larger SUVs is that they've just turned into status-symbol minivans that are more likely to roll if you drive them too fast around a corner.
If you need a status-symbol, get the new all-electric Ford F150 or the Chrystler Pacifica plug-in hybrid. I need those to start hitting the used market in 5 years or so.
I was just pricing out one of these! I have a 2008 4Runner that gets driven less than 10k miles per year (I mostly bike), but I still want something to pull my travel trailer. I won’t be upgrading for awhile, but an all-electric vehicular will hopefully be my next!
It's funny how much your annual usage drops when you don't commute to work with a car.
National average is something like 12k a year. I'm sitting at < 5k these days.
I just love how this turned to a discussion about mostly cars. some people being ashamed of their cars, some defending their cars, some shaming others for their big cars and some just comparing them