600 mile range Federal law needed

So Bush should stop and respond to every cackpot who comes up with
half-baked stories. Like Louis Farrakhan saying regarding New Orleans:
" 'I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25 foot deep crater
under the levee breach. It may have been blown up to destroy the black
part of town and keep the white part dry,' Farrakhan said."
(That's an example of an honest to God direct quote:
http://www.wcnc.com/news/topstories/stories/091205-ad-wcnc-farrakhan.4fb21767.html)

Sorry - but I think it would be foolish to start responding to such
crap. A president could be more effective ignoring it and it would be
irresponsible to be distracted like that.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

You have just invoked the ol' slippery slope argument. Liberals never
allow slippery slope arguments when used against them, but they sure
whip them out when it suits their purposes.

Seriously - from a strict legal/Constitutional standpoint, "one step
towards" is the same as the commonly used expression "a near miss" (or a
near hit) - (an inch is as good as a mile). Either it fits the
prohibited activity or it doesn't, not "It appears to some as being
similar to...". It doesn't say "nothing can be done that looks like it
may be a step towards..." It says "may not pass a law that...". *Bush*
is not *Congress*. *Speaking* is not *passing a law that*. Therefore
"Bush saying..." is not the same as "Congress passing a law that...".

See above re: Slippery slope arguments.

I'm just the messenger. A state establishing a religion is not
prohibited by the Constitution. Again, I didn't say I think they should
or that it would be a good thing to do, but if we're talking about "What
does the Constitution say about a state establishing a religion?", then
the answer is "Nothing". Again - I'm just stating the facts. I didn't
say I was for or agin'. The subject is the Constitution.

Whether I have a problem with it has nothing to do with the question of
is it allowed by the Constitution, does it. This isn't a discussion of
what is and is not Ok by me. This is a discussion of what is
Constitutional.

BTW (and you may find this intersting and/or humorous) - I used to work
with a guy that claims that the county he lives in never signed the
loyalty oath that was required of all counties in the Confederacy after
the Civil War (or what some refer to as "The Recent Unpleasantness"),
and that it is the *only* county in the entire south not to have done
so. So technically, he claims, his county is still seceded from the Union.

We live under the Constitution. If we believe in the Constitition, then
we should all let the chips fall where they may and strictly enforce it
even on specifics that we disagree with. And, BTW - it does have the
provisions within itself to be altered/amended. It was intentionally
and wisely made difficult to amend, but even a strict Constitutionalist
has to acknowledge that it can be amended.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Obliquely relevant: did you know that the UK has an established religion,
the Church of Engand?
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/

Doesn't seem to have done us much harm. In fact, we are the least religious
country in Europe.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
---

[...]

[...]

 

Interesting point. I think that the goal of having a 600 mile range on
a car would not all be in the capacity of the gas tank. The mpg needs to be
about 25 mpg and then a 24 or 25 gallon would do it.
I think I remember the weight of a gallon of water is 8.3 pounds and
the weight of one gallon of gas is 6.5 or 6.7 pounds. So, 6.7 x 25 would be
less than 175 pounds. That is the weight of one average man or less. Hope
that does not make a difference to a motor vehicle. If it does, I am not
sure that I would want a vehicle like that. (30 galllons at 6.7 would be
about 200 pounds.)

 

It is interesting. You have a number of 'non-friends' in this (Chrysler) NG
and yet you manage to start very long threads...


DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

 

You're right - I assumed 200 miles on a typical intermediate car gas
tank of 11 or 12 gallons, so to get 600 mile range, I tripled the gas
tank size. That works out to about 18 mpg - today's car doesn't get
much better than that in city driving - but that also was part of your
point.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

And how much more fuel will the nation consume while hauling the extra (He said
triple the size)= 24 gallons = 91 liters = 90 Kg = about 200 lb..

Sorry I should have read the previous post! (same point, different numbers)

 

Of course 175 pounds of weight makes a difference to a vehicle. Every
extra pound takes energy to accelerate, decelerate and haul up hills.

Matt

 

Well, I am writing from Minnesota. We don't have many hills here.
But, the 175 lbs is total weight for a 25 gallon gas tank, the incremental
difference from say 12 gallons is not 175, but would be about 90 pounds.
For better, gas mileage people are encouraged to not carry around a lot
of stuff in their trunks and their is value in that but, if 90 pounds or 200
pounds affects mileage more than .3 or .5 miles per gallon I would be
disappointed with my car. My basic point, is that I like the idea or having
a range of 600 miles for a vehicle.
Of course not all vehicles are equal either but, for cars it would be
nice if they could get 25 mpg or so. However, it might be impossible to
have a V-8 SUV or pickup truck with a lot of towing capacity be able to get
25 or even 20 mpg. Maybe the max there would be 16 mpg in which case the
gas tank might need to be 40 gallons. For a 12,000 lb truck with 6 or 7 mpg
maybe a 100 gallon tank would be unreasonable and maybe some classes of
vehicles would be excluded but, I still like being able to go along way
without stopping for gas a lot.

 

Like I already posted to this thread

My 2005 Ford F-450 4x4 Crew Cab (10,000 pounds full of fuel and unloaded)
6.0L Power Stroke Diesel carries 59 gallons of diesel (Just shy of 420
pounds of diesel fuel). (Diesel weighs about 7.1 pounds per US gallon)
(Gasoline weighs about 6.2 pounds per US gallon) This truck Gets 14.5 miles
per gallon. That equals 855 miles per fill up. At over $3.00 per
gallon, that's over $185 to fill up. :-(

 

Why not add hurricane testing to federl crash standards too? Then you don;'t
have to worry about the vehicles range. It's makes just as much sense as your
suggestion.

 

All politics aside . . . if a new car has (and will get) 30mph EPA
highway fuel ecomony and has a (typically) 16 gallon fuel tank (of which
only about 14 can reasonably be used without harming the electric fuel
pump in the tank), then that's a total theoretical 480 mile highway
cruising range. Up from the former 20 gallons and 20 EPA Highway (i.e.,
400 miles) situation in the later 1970s.

If a new Dodge pickup is rated at 21mpg EPA Highway with a 26 gallon
fuel tank (possibly), might the way to get to the 600 mile range be to
add a few more gallons' capacity to the fuel tank?

By observation, once you spend 400 miles behind the wheel of anything,
you NEED to get out and walk around a little. A fuel stop is a good way
to do that! Might be one reason that smaller and more fuel efficient
cars have smaller fuel tanks? A build-in "safety" situation?

A high level Ford Motor Company operative was quoted as commenting (re:
federal CAFE fuel ecomony standards) that it was NOT the way to get
people into more fuel efficient vehicles, when compared to normal market
issues and fuel costs. When fuel costs go up, sales of smaller vehicles
trend upward too, typically.

Yet CAFE mandates those things for us rather than US making that choice
ourselves. Protecting us from ourselves? Possibly. Maybe not.
Depends upon which economist and prognosticator you desire to listen
to--of which there are MANY these days that ALL have the answer.

Some might claim it was the drive to higher CAFE and resultantly smaller
cars that fueled the trend toward truck-based vehicles in the first
place. Families have NOT shrunk and they now have more and larger
things to carry around with them (high tech and larger baby strollers,
for example). The small cars of the 1980s would not do those things and
still get 30mpg, unless it was a Chevette diesel at 50mpg with no
factory a/c available. Much less haul 5 people in relative comfort AND
safety!!

One reason the Chevy Suburban became "The National Car of Texas" was not
that a big state needs big vehicles for the citizenry to drive around
in, but because of "safety" issues for the occupants. "Texas Monthly"
magazine did an article on that back in the later 1980s. It also
mentioned how a dual-a/c Suburban just didn't cut it when compared to
the import minivans of the era too, in use/utility/people and family
haul and the "safety in a crash" issue in the pre-air bag days. And the
1/2 ton models would generally get mid to high teens fuel economy on
the highway and in normal use . . . plus haul the bass boat on weekends,
or the travel trailer. This was in the 1985 era time frame.

With the optional 40 gallon fuel tank and 16mpg highway, over 600 miles
range.

In modern times, it's not specifically how big the tank is, it's how
much it costs to fill it and how THAT fits into the budget. For
example, the Avalanche owners that moved into Pontiac G6 or Chevy Malibu
vehicles are now glad they did it.

Granted, many people really don't need a truck-based vehicle to just
drive around in--but they buy them for that. Kind of like the executive
that drives a 4 door 4wd diesel pickup to work. Heck of a price of
admission for the diesel engine option over a gas motor, plus the
significantly higher cost of oil changes, but the engine costs will be
usually returned at trade-in time, so the real costs are the 10-17 quart
oil changes and the more expensive oil filter that are not compensated
for with the up to 20mpg+ (unloaded average fuel economy. If you've got
the price of admission for a $50K diesel pickup rig and can not flinch
at the oil change costs (some people even want Mobil 1 synthetic oil in
them!!!), then our generally strong economy can help them support that
habit--whether we like it or not.

Almost everything the government has tried to legislate us into, the
enterprising people that we are has generally found a way around it (the
legal stuff, that is!). If people want rwd V-8 vehicles and truck
chassis vehicles can and do have that, they'll buy them over a fwd car
they don't like. No musclecars as such, but we've got factory 150mph+
SRT-10 Ram 1500s to compensate. But then we've now got 14.0 second 1/4
mile times from a 4000lb production sedan that will get about 25mpg+ on
the highway too.

We've been into truck chassis vehicles for too long, but that's what the
public has been buying due to need or just desires. Now it's time for
some neat cars again (i.e., new Mustang) AND for Chrysler to stop
side-stepping things and get us a new CHARGER COUPE and a companion
CHALLENGER/CUDA car that's WORTHY of the name!!!!! Just like the prior
B-car chassis was the basis for the E-body chassis/platform!!! They
need to get there BEFORE GM does!!! WE know they can do it, if they
just would!!!!!

Ford seems to hit all of the right buttons in the "retro" Mustang and
seems to have a monopoly in doing that sort of thing. And Mr. Creed
desires to push his agenda of having just a 4-door Charger, when it's
highly obvious that there needs to be a CHARGER COUPE that is WORTHY of
the name in style and performance and IMAGE.

(remaining soap box time relinquished . . .)

Enjoy!

C-BODY