$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Toecutter', '.')...
The biggest low hanging fruit is not really a more efficient and smaller engine, but instead aerodynamics, low rolling resistance tires, and a composite body, aerodynamics having the largest effects.
....
Isn't if funny that paradoxically speaking as we get closer to PO much of the activities that we do to "save ourselves" will actually lead to "further collapse"?
PeakOil is You
THE Private transportation after PO Thread (merged)
Re: Driving private cars after PO - car industry future post
by cube » Mon 27 Feb 2006, 15:36:32
For example if the cost of fuel goes up and more people decide to park their cars and instead take the bus there would be more damage to the roadways because buses put greater weight on the roads.
If we decide to cut back on gasoline usage that means there will be less gasoline taxes collected to maintain the roads.
Now you bring up the topic of LRR (low rolling resistance tires) something I didn't think about before. As fuel gets more expensive I can definitely see LRR tires becoming more popular. But LRR tires have greater psi ratings...in other words they put more stress on the roadways. Even if you had 2 cars that weighed exactly the same the one with LRR tires would do more damage to the roadway. Why? Because the higher pressure tires concentrates the car's weight into a smaller contact patch area.
Yeah I know most people don't think about roadway maintenance but in the end we all pay for it eventually.
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Re: Driving private cars after PO - car industry future post
by The_Toecutter » Tue 28 Feb 2006, 18:28:27
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f we decide to cut back on gasoline usage that means there will be less gasoline taxes collected to maintain the roads.
Again, this traces us back to the problem that is making PO impossible to handle: politics.
Would all the pork be cut out of the highway funding and would the money that was supposed to go into our roads and infrastructure actually make it to its intended target(instead of lining the profit margins of contractors), we wouldn't need near as much gas tax revenue, if any at all.
Further, it would be possible to add road taxes to things like tires, or even the purchase of a new car itself. No need to invade civil liberties with mileage readers and what have you.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')ow you bring up the topic of LRR (low rolling resistance tires) something I didn't think about before. As fuel gets more expensive I can definitely see LRR tires becoming more popular. But LRR tires have greater psi ratings...in other words they put more stress on the roadways. Even if you had 2 cars that weighed exactly the same the one with LRR tires would do more damage to the roadway. Why? Because the higher pressure tires concentrates the car's weight into a smaller contact patch area.
It makes sense from a glance, but I'd like to see a study on this, and if not that, some sort of figures to compare various vehicles(like you could do with MPG, engine size, weight, and Cd*A in an analysis of how each effects fuel economy, for example, only this time compare weight, tire size, rolling resistance coefficient of tires, and road wear).
Given that the road wear a vehicle causes varies as a cube of its weight, this could likely be offset more than 1,000 times over by eliminating most semi trucks from the roads, and using rail to ship goods instead.
The Minnesota DOT, for instance uses .0007 as a multiplier to compare the damage of a semi truck and a passenger car or pickup. Take the truck and multiply its road wear by .0007 to find how much roadwear a passenger car or pickup is causing.
http://www.lrrb.gen.mn.us/apg/esal.htm (See Table 2)
Invert that .0007, and your typical 18 wheeler is causing more than 1400 times the road wear over the typical passenger vehicle.
I've read on other sites(oil drum, elsewhere) that the roadwear a tractor trailer creates is 10,000 times more than a passenger car, and that the Minnesota DOT figures were very biased in favor of the semi trucks.
Maybe a good solution would be to make the shipping companies pay for the road wear. They'll have two options: a) pay the money for the damage they cause instead of footing the bill to the taxpayer, or b) use less profitable and less expensive rail. Again, this would be another example that puts less cash into the economy and consumes less.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')eah I know most people don't think about roadway maintenance but in the end we all pay for it eventually.
We'll pay what a system dependent on unending growth wants us to pay. Basically everything. Or we could change the system itself. Which would you prefer? A few rich men in suits have probably made that decision for us though$$$$$$.
The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the old growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder. ~Thomas Jefferson
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