I've been reading the doomsday prophecies about peak oil recently, and I've put in more than a little serious thought on how I can use less petroleum.
Unlike some Americans you may know, I actually don't like huge automobiles. I have a mid-size car that regularly gets 27 miles per gallon given my driving patterns. I have two problems with this:
Let us assume that I use the car to commute, run errands around town, and go to the occasional sporting event. And one or two long trips per year.
Though I could certainly get in shape to commute on a bicycle -- I've done it for shorter distances than my current commute before, with great success -- the bicycle fails in the cargo department. I could commute with it, and maybe run some small errands, but that's about it. Long trips are nigh impossible, and thoroughly impractical to boot.
Then again, it's great for getting random exercise, since the petroleum costs are mostly in its manufacture (plastics), and only a very tiny bit in its upkeep (lubrication).
Like the bicycle, but with more risk of SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH, probably mostly from other drivers. Not as good on fuel consumption as the bicycle, but pretty darn good.
I have to go over a windy bridge at freeway speed. And one of my commute cycles seems a bit close to the maximum range for this cute little electric car. The price/risk ratio would be much more attractive if I lived in a very dense city and didn't have to commute out of it.
Why do we have to wait until 2006 to see these in the United States? (Oh, right, diesel particulate emission problems, but I hear that smart, or their parent Mercedes Benz, or perhaps its parent DaimlerChrysler, has made a lot of progress recently.) These cute things are just what the cramped big cities need. San Francisco and New York spring to mind. Heck, it would even work where I live...
I have driven one, and it is good. To the fine woman who let me drive it, many thanks.
(Stupid Honda web site tells me I have an unsupported browser and won't show me anything.)
I almost liked the compact better than the mid-size version. But I'm a sucker for small cars.
Conan, what is best in life?
To crush the other motor vehicles, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the poor sods who are hurting the American economy by not consuming enough.
(suddenly explodes for no apparent reason)
So those are the possibilities I'm considering.
Okay, so I've already thrown some of them out. And I have to pay off my existing car loan anyway, and that will take another two years, and I'd rather not have another set of car payments on my plate.
This is not an easy optimization problem.