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The people don’t really want Electric Vehicles, so the US Government is thinking of forcing them on the buyers by squeezing the industry that makes them. There is talk of new rules which apply to the companies selling cars. The control of production could be hidden in something called the Corporate Average Fuel Economy or CAFE standards. By averaging the fuel consumption across a whole company, those brands will have to find a way to sell more EV’s and to limit their own sales of gas guzzlers. It’s a supply and demand thing, if a company can only make so many large internal combustion engine cars, the prices of those will be artificially high. Only the wealthy will be able to afford them. The poor will still pay more for cars than they do now, but the cheapest cars on the market will be EV’s — subsidized by inflated prices on petrol driven cars.
This is just a thought bubble for now, but obviously, the message is to buy your big cars and look after them. They’ll be hot property in the second hand market.
Say goodbye to the free market: The Soviets would be proud of it
From David Wojik, CFACT
Technically these are the Corporate Average Fuel Economy or CAFE standards. The way they work is hidden in the name. They do not govern the average fuel use of cars used by corporations, which the name “corporate average” suggests. No, they govern the average fuel economy of cars MADE by corporations.
The way it works will be well hidden. Instead of telling you and me what we can buy, they in effect tell the car makers what they can make. I am not making this up.
The result is rationing and it has been for many years. The car makers limit the production of bigger cars and trucks, with higher fuel consumption, to stay below the standards. In reality what is rationed is stuff like power, size and safety. I have even heard that they raise the prices of big cars to cut the prices of little ones. This is called a cross subsidy.
So it sounds like the CAFE standards are going to be ratcheted down over less than a decade, until 40% of the vehicles sold are EVs.
Hopefully this abuse of the efficiency standards will be found to be illegal.
But as David goes on to explain, the Brits have their own form of weird plans to make big trucks run off electric overhead wires? See “Trolley Trucks” and read it at CFACT.
Imagine having hot wires strung just above all the nearly 50,000 miles of interstate highways, carrying enough juice to power all those big trucks. Massive accidents waiting to happen? How about them ice storms?
Seems like the wires will only run over the slow lanes, so maybe just 100,000 miles worth.
Blackouts due to unreliable electricity grids will clog up the roads and cripple the country. Good target for foreign adversaries.
Time to invest in a tow truck with a built in Genset for EV’s.
Might get one of these for the future idiots that buy an EV.
Nissan tests mobile charging service for stranded EVs
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That’s what they mean when they talk about “green jobs”
I am sure the RACV/NRMA type orgs are already onto it.
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In NSW the NRMA are pushing EV sales hard and have been for a few years.
I have written explaining the obvious limitations, inconvenience and high pricing compared to equivalent ICEV but the NRMA never replies.
Isn’t it obvious that political agenda overrides free market capitalism, let the consumers pick winners and losers?
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This is bonkers, but there’s a whole ‘nother ballgame going on here.
Ultimately, The Pretender wants to completely control where we can go, how much we can drive, how much gas we use, the whole enchilada.
AND, of course, tax us like there’s no tomorrow to try to a) limit our mobility, b) suck us dry, financially until c) we finally pay even more for the right to drive and, most importantly, finally implement their GreenNewDeal, the fever dreams of all Communists (look the GND up and you’ll see Agenda 21 peeking thru the mist).
Of course, the Great Reset is playing a massive role in all of this.
That’s what we’re facing here.
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When Peter Garrett was campaigning successfully for election to our federal parliament in 2004 having newly joined the Labor Party he said answer to a question that he expected at a Labor government would tell farmers what to produce.
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in the early 90s, I had a lecturer at Uni called Harry Recher. Heard of him ? Had a bit of a profile at one stage. I heard him say in private conversation on the bus to an excursion that the only solution was an end of private land so farmers could be told what to do.
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Remind me, why were trolly buses of the 1950s abandoned but trams or light rail was continued, also with overhead electricity supply?
Road safety maybe?
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Have difficulty in seeing any Logic at all: Edinburgh re-introduced Trams at overly great costs – and going for more. Accidents with cyclists on the rails. Trolleybuses -rubber tyres on plain road surface surely would have made more sense
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We have the exact same incomprehensible political tram abuse here in NovoCastria.
Pure tokenism designed to give the appearance of adding to community infrastructure while being just another chance to sell off a contract to the highest bidder.
p.s. The type of bids that are kept out of sight.
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I have said it before but trolley buses are a better solution than buses carrying a heavy battery around all day. Equiped with a small battery – good for, say 5 miles – and rigid power rails at the bus stops only. The much lighter trolley bus will accelerated faster, use less power overall, and with some built-in range would not be marooned by mishaps with overhead wires and breakdown/accidents.
Of course no-one is interested, trolley buses are old fashioned when you can get new expensive all electric ones, which work some of the time.
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No one is interested? No one understands the basic physics of it.
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Too much infrastructure and maintenance to go large scale, when cars and trucks became faster and more reliable it was easier to increase road expansion as they’re at ground level and require less power to run lights, signals, sensors etc..also governments worked out there’s far more money to be made from registrations or taxes on fuel than trying to increase a giant spider web electrical system in the air, the onus was put back on the consumer.
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Sure but why continue to use trams/light rail that need even more infrastructure & maintenance?
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Brisbane had trolley buses up to 1968, they could pull in to bus stops just like a diesel bus and pull out and accelerate faster than a smokey diesel of the times and were clean and silent.
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Perth also had trolley buses on one route. The original steel concrete-filled poles remained on the roadside until they caused too many issues with car accidents.
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I like trams. They have been reintroduced to a few european cities. I think one of their biggest benefits is that carriages can be added or taken away according to how busy the route is during the day. Because of their tracks they also tend to have a clearer run than buses that often get snarled up in traffic.
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Trams may be less likely to be held up in traffic but that’s only when they have dedicated lines at the expense of car lanes. Naturally, this then increases traffic bottlenecks for the cars.
When trams run in lines on roads, they completely block the road when letting passengers board or alight. A bus does not.
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Montpellier has an interesting tram system.
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I remember the Brisbane trolley buses.
It wasn’t a large network and they tried to avoid duplicating the tram coverage but they occasionally crossed paths and with the trolly busses using two lines and the trams just one, there could be a lot of wires in the air a crossroads.
I lived in Melbourne for a long time and the tram network there is great.
Melbourne is better suited than Brisbane because it has many more very wide roads to accomodate them.
I notice they’re extending the Gold Coast’s tram network but calling it “Light Rail”.
I sometimes wondered if the change of name was to avoid comparison to the closed Brisbane tram network . . a bit like changing ‘Global Warming’ to ‘Climate Change’.
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Road safety? How does a trolley-truck swerve to avoid an accident if the driver knows he can’t stop in time?
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“Blackouts due to unreliable electricity grids will clog up the roads and cripple the country. Good target for foreign adversaries.” 1.Surely the roads would get priority / be separated out like, I assume, the rail network? 2. Target for adversaries: Hmm. and is that why the daft british folk are already “fenced off” from the Rail Ways? from watching eisenbahn-romantik https://www.swrfernsehen.de/eisenbahn-romantik/startseite-110.html one sees how many parts of europe have sensible folk and free access permanent ways.
Now according to BBC ticker, US has 50% of manufacturers in agreement ….
Whole thing is a nonsense, when you see how Diesel engines are being developed https://www.dieselprogress.com Wow, how the headlines have changed since I last looked.!
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Watch them start talking about hydrogen this and battery that for tucks.
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I think we just need to tell these idiots to drop off and loudly call them out as insufferable fools.
Tell them to get stuffed.We need to ignore covid and it will largely disappear, covid is the cover for much evil….
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Whats next? Dodgem carts?
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Consistent number, cars scraped each year in Australia is about 800,000
https://www.caradvice.com.au/574207/australia-average-vehicle-age-is-10-1-years/
Automobile production in million vehicles globally
2020 (78)
2019 (92)
2018 (97)
2017 (97)
Slowdown influenced by pandemic and shortage of electronic chips.
The average fuel consumption is misleading because not everyone has the same drive patterns and loads, this includes the car stickers that show factory tested fuel consumption.
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But the number of new cars registered each year in Australia is 1+ million !
And 99% pf them ICEs !
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They have been using the CAFE standards for many years to force all the annoying “so called” efficiency functions on the public. Items like start/stop and sailing/coasting/freewheeling which is also dangerous and even comes with many safety warnings in user manuals. It seems 0.05l/100km has more value than our safety.
Given they have form there is no doubt CAFE will be the tool used to remove ICE vehicles from the market.
Yep get your keeper car now and enjoy it because they will doing whatever they can to force it of the road.
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In Australia the cost of owning and running a car on the road is getting beyond many people, I have a Holden V8 ute that costs more to run than a Corolla but less to register because of a commercial vehicle loophole, also my Harley costs the same as the ute to register because TAC? or so I’m told.
Cue the tractor jokes.
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Yon, is the ute for the Harley. ?
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Harley support vehicle ! 😉
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Hardly Driveable so needs support.
wink!
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Its never been towed or left me on the side of the road, I maintain it and know all’s good with fluids and wear items, also I don’t try to race it as it’s a cruiser not a sport bike, I had a v-rod muscle before this and that was plenty fast for me and road conditions.
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Why do yo think this? I pay $845.00 per annum to register my Mazda3 (in Victoria) – I would think that the number of people in Australia who can’t afford $845.00 to register their car would be absolutely miniscule … tiny.
So I’m not sure what your point is.
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In Ohio I pay about $60 per year to register my car. Is your paperwork and license plate gold plated?
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The registration fee in NSW is $68 for all cars.
They then charge a yearly Motor Vehicle Tax on to of that, (depending on size of engine, iirc)
Not sure what the Motor Vehicle tax is used for, (been there since the 1920’s iirc)
Then you have to have Compulsory Third Party Personal (CPT green slip) through an insurance company. This covers against any Personal injury you might cause to someone, plus a Fund levy for ambulances, fire services, lifetime care and compensation payments etc
CTP cost varies with car, where its garaged etc etc
Then you probably want comprehensive insurance in case you have a bingle or car is stolen etc.
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Yikes …. $85 for vehicle registration here in Alberta Canada … a bargain …. now insurance on cars if you got some nice ones gets a little nasty and we are two retired people with some nice toys and well over $4000 a year for 4 cars that sit in the driveway and garage most of the time 🙂
And that is no accidents or speeding tickets!!
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Au contraire, ICE cars have never been so cheap, so reliable and so low maintenance.
Who carries a spare fan belt or radiator hose with them today? I don’t recall lifting the bonnet more than half a dozen times in the ten years I’ve owned my Toyota. 90% of service stations have closed while the town has doubled, and those that still exist do not operate a hoist. How many motor mechanics do you now personally, how many motorists can do even basic maintenance?
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Maintenance and fuel never were a major cost for car owners.
Tyres are the biggest cost wear item, more frequently damaged these days from 5hit road conditions nd expensive due to the sad trend to large dia , low profile tyres.
$500 each is not uncommon.
But the main costs are …
Depreciation most cars are <$40k new
Insurance’s
Regeo/ Road tax
Tolls,…if you live neare the major cities (most folk do)
Parking ..ditto above.
Annual servicing can be expensive also ( labout rates ) and heaven forbid you have need for serious mechanical repair because it doesnt happen these days , they will just replace entire assemblies (engine, gearbox, brake rotors etc etc).
No, car ownership is not cheap. !
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Yes you should get a John Deere. Doesn’t cost much to register them at all and a bit better performance.
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The only reason to do Trolley Trucks is because road truck industry is not as super-regulated as train tracks are.
Why not allow private operators to use the largely under-utilised train tracks with better technology-controlled safety.
Oh wait … they will have even more safety regulations for the use of their new trolley lanes on roads.
And this will actually decrease the utilitisation of the main roads – entropy does that every time.
Jo thinks “Good target for foreign adversaries.” They should be thinking about the local adversaries … truckies are pretty tough bunch.
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In the US, they put the trucks on the trains and haul them across country at 70 mph.
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using very efficient hybrid locomotives; the standard now for freight hauling.
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Yes, Richard. In the US, rail freight fuel efficiency is now 480 Ton-Miles/gallon diesel fuel.
Roughly equal to 185 Metric Ton-km/Liter of diesel.
https://www.powderbulksolids.com/material-handling-transportation/nations-freight-railroads-now-average-480-ton-miles-gallon
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Where does all this ‘extra’ power come from?
If you stop getting power from oil based fuel., and start getting it from electricity.
You are going to need a LOT more electricity – one EV = one household.
God knows how much a truck needs.
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Right, and never discussed. The Brit trolley truck planning doc just estimates the cost to string the wires, at several billion pounds. The cost of the huge, reliable generating capacity is not included. Probably trillions of pounds. Much more in the US because we drive and haul a lot more, being so much bigger. Plus the cost of the vehicles, etc. it simply cannot be done.
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Invest in copper futures!
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In reply to:
“Probably trillions of pounds.”
Totally agree. More because there is no engineering solution to expand, without adding more hydrocarbon powered power plants.
And the expansion, must be completed, in time, to power the EV vehicles. This mandate would force power system expansion which will increase electric rates for all Americans. Pain for no gain.
The public thinks the green scam is working and can work. It never ‘worked’. But the so called ‘optics’ worked.
The wind and sun gathering was added to electrical power grid that had full hydrocarbon power supply ‘backup’. It is not backup because if it is remove the scam is exposed.
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A diesel engine semi truck is about 500 HP. So, an electric traction motor equivalent would be about 500 kW.
Starting that motor, under load, would require some 2 to 3 MW of inrush power.
There are about 2 million tractor-trailer trucks in the USA.
The lights would dim every time those motors engage the grid.
Stabilizing such a load would be very challenging.
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Sorry to correct you, but NO,.. you will not need a lot of extra power
The biggest vehicle class on the road is passenger cars, that outnumber trucks 15:1,
And i have given the calculation several times , that even if we switched to 100% EV cars onernight/ tomorrow,.. then we still have enough generation capacity CURRENTLY available to supply that extra energy demand.
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Kool.
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And as/if the transition to renewable (it’s actually a joke) energy was ever completed and heavy transport required recharging, and other EV models, and the existing energy demand continued???
And what about road load limits and therefore Electric Prime Movers with battery packs weighing several times more than fuel tanks for the same distance or range, reduced PAYload and therefore taxable income or revenue for the owners?
Don’t forget downtime on the highways to deliver the payloads, time is money.
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well I heard that Australia car guy on youtube say it would only require an extra 10% of the electricity we already make. I find that hard to believe, but he’s a smart guy (and thinks he is).
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What springs to mind is that we never had energy crisis till renewables came along.
Now we will have transportation crisis because EVs came along.
But the real crisis is the pockets of all of us that have to pay for unrealistic government assumptions. What benefit and where?
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Not only didn’t we have a crisis, power price increases were less than inflation for decades.
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That’s the result of economy of scale.
Now we have hidden energy taxes going to who knows where.
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What the hell are the people pushing this kind of rubbish looking for? A perfectly good civilisation is going to waste? You are not kidding.
Ruining the world for what, exactly? I don’t understand how such totalitarian ideas get past anyone with a smidgeon of education.
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Sickness and stupidity comes in all flavours. There is never a shortage. The issue though is if not enough people want to stop the rot then it will continue unabated. How do we stop it? Simples. Just stop voting for the main parties and let a minor party or two who reject all this crap form a minority government after they are forced to stop the BS about reducing emissions with EV and renewables. There is no other way. We’ve seen enough evidence to prove both major parties are hell bent on sticking to their emissions reductions scam. So either vote with your ballot paper or step aside and let them destroy the nation.
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A lot of people believe that humanity per se is at risk of extinction from human caused climate change, making cost irrelevant.
https://www.cfact.org/2021/06/29/unfounded-fear-of-extinction-drives-climate-hysteria/
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If cost is irrelevant because of the fear of a human induced climate catastrophe then the solution is simple; build nuclear pwoer stations. Problem solved. Of course it’s noting to do with saving the world from some mythical man-made catastrophe. It’s all about destroying the West. What they have in mind to replace it depends on who you are talking to. Of course the real push is for a NWO by globalists who even the left would hate but they don’t have the required intelligence to recognise and understand that.
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How often do govts pick ‘winners’ and get it right.
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We’re from the guvuhmint and we’re here to help you.
An old one but a true one!
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The globalists are stupid.
Sorry, but there is no other word for it.
They are fools who follow a false god, the same who will get them all killed. Lake of fire, the 2nd death awaits them all, if they follow thier father, Sa.tan into destruction.
We have a global vaccine-driven genocide against humanity in action right now, a huge open air concentration camp but no ovens this time….but cops as the german shepherds and lockdowns as the prison guards….
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If the cops are the German shepherds, what are the soldiers who are backing them up?
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Oz Orwellian Government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqrJTmfloO8&ab_channel=TheRubinReport
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The Democrats tried this in the 1970’s after the fuel crisis but the US manufacturers convinced them that commercial vehicles should not be included as it would have a negative impact on small business and the economy. Then the manufacturers set about convincing Americans that a pickup truck would give them a better lifestyle than a car. The result was Americans stopped buying economical cars and bought ever bigger trucks that burn more fuel that the gas guzzlers they replaced.
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There is actually a great need for powerful vehicles. We have lots of stuff and big hills.
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Particularly in agriculture. A powerful and affordable reliable truck, preferably diesel powered, is essential in agriculture. They are essential for family farms and ranches. But the left are against private agriculture. The left are against private property and private property rights.
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Let them ban diesel so there are no tractors, and see how hungry they get. They will have diesel back within 2 days.
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I remember renting an under-powered Ford compact when I toured New Zealand in 1979. There was a pass over the mountains between the west coast and east coast of the South Island. The engine stalled before I got over the crest. I had to back down a ways, turn around, and get back to the bottom of the hill. Then I got a running start, well exceeding the legal speed limit, and still just barely made it to the crest of the pass before the engine stalled!
Having an adequately powered car is not only more convenient, but safer, when driving in mountainous terrain!
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Clyde, my father recalled in the early days of motoring the family had a A Model Ford, and the only way to get up some hills was to reverse up, as reverse was the lowest ratio in the gearbox.
Further in this thread, I read recently, probably on this site that one in five Californians who have purchased an EV, have gone back and bought an ICE due to the inconvenience of keeping the EV charged.
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I thought it was because the fuel tank feed was at the front of the tank so it would fuel starve climbing steep grades
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I like cars. I sometimes equate them to women. A car can be art. Trucks not so much. Trucks like end wrenches are tools not art. However, as a practical matter if you need a truck, and most people do if only occasionally, considering the high the cost of all modern automobiles, it makes sense to invest in a single capable truck instead of multiple cars and trucks. Therefore pickup trucks displaced the family sedan in the new auto market place. Driving up costs of cars will only further this trend.
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re cars equate to women … back in the 70’s the joke was that girls are like cars … they’re better with their tops down.
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The car makers are building EV factories so they welcome a mandate. Making CAFE 100 mpg or so should do it.
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Interesting to note how Greenies wreck their own public relations. Policies like Bidens CAFE standards will simply puts loads of Americans out of work and play right into the hands of their competitors like China. And the end result will be that any politician preaching ‘clean and green transport’ will be booed off stage.
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In keeping with Biden’s China first policies.
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Biden and his handlers are not concerned about being unpopular. They can always steal the next election.
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“hands of their competitors like China” ?
China is Biden’s ally, not competitor. !
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If you think CAFE is bad, then you will hate this Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, and continuing the (false) premise of this article, then USA is already communist.
06
US Democrats thinking of telling car companies what they can make: communist control of production by stealth.
Communism seeks government ownership of the means of production. It is fascism that seeks government control of production without government ownership. Is there a practical difference between fascism and communism (supposedly the extreme right and the extreme left) and are the democrats sliding into communism or fascism (like China). Maybe the true difference is totalitarian versus democratic. People living the way an arrogate elite want them to live versus people living the way they want to live.
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Actually, historically, facists were extreme left !
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EV’s the new Lada!
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I almost bought a new Lada
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Toyota tries to reality check the industry again
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/toyota-warns-again-about-electrifying-all-autos-anyone-listening
but aren’t the emperors new clothes nice?
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And to think that all these initiatives are predicated on a need to address the allegation that “climate change” is all due to human activity.
More and more evidence destroying this “climate change” narrative keeps surfacing but the conversation is concluded.
The history books yet to be written will be truly fascinating.
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A Lada anyone? In 8 years time.
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The only thing worse than having the lunatic running the asylum is to have the geriatric running the nursing home, which is the current state of US politics. If we could look into the future and see the outcome of this policy, then I’m sure you would see freeways dotted with EV cars and trucks all towing trailor-mounted diesel generators with large fuel tanks.
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So why not railway lines on the slow lanes and use diesel-electric locomotives instead of heavy transport prime mover tractors?
Oh that’s right, the railway networks are already in place with room for more links.
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