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Date:         Wed, 4 May 2005 18:47:37 -0500
Reply-To:     Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
Subject:      Re: gas mileage--existing cars kept running have a huge edge
              environmentally
In-Reply-To:  <BE9E520E.9B8E%mwmiller@cwnet.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

Or biking.

But you have to look at the potential of the vehicle to carry passengers, what is the cost per passenger mile, and then you have to drive the van accordingly. Driving a van or any other vehicle with one person in it isn't making very good use of the vehicle's potential cost per passenger mile. If I remember correctly, the Whole Earth Catalog back in the early 70s lauded the freight locomotive and the split-window bus as the lowest cost per passenger mile vehicles that ran on fossil fuel (it's hard to beat a sailboat).

Then there's the impact on the environment from the manufacture of the car. The vanagon may get 30 miles to the gallon less than a Prius, but will never have a huge, expensive battery that has to be buried somewhere, and you may never recover the energy it took to manufacture it. The vanagon, if you drove it sensibly for a number of years (and who of us hasn't) and by driving it you kept one or more new cars from being consumed, you'd probably come out way, way ahead environmentally. And that's if you never ever have to haul home a stack of 4 x 8 plywood or go offroad at all.

Don't just focus on the mileage. Consider the lifetime impact. How may BTUs does it take to make a car? How much plastic resin?

Jim

On May 4, 2005, at 12:18 PM, Mike Miller wrote:

> If we cared, really, we'd being walking. > > Barefoot. > > Mike > > On 5/4/05 9:40 AM, "Don Williams" <williams@FIRE.BIOL.WWU.EDU> wrote: > >> So I have my 85 westy with manual transmission running about as >> perfect as >> this human is able to get it----and I get 16 miles to the gallon. I >> have >> worked methodically through my 20's list (the things that I was doing >> to >> get my vehicle to get 20 MPG, but after working through it I'm faced >> with >> the probability that that ain't never going to happen (unless I go to >> a >> different engine). I love my beast but I get ridiculed by friends who >> drive really horrible cars (eg, Pontiac firebirds and Cadillac >> eldorado's, >> really ugly and old cars that I look at as environmental disasters) >> but get >> better gas mileages than I do. I have taken to mumbling when people >> ask me >> about the gas mileage, so that 16 MPG sounds something like 26 MPG. I >> carry a heavy burden in this matter because I parade myself (in some >> circles) as an "environmentalist" and people who know what I drive >> ain't >> buying it. My wife told me that if I gave a sh** about the >> environment I >> would be driving a Prius. I carry this burden as best I can but it >> is hell >> to love a vehicle that gets such poor mileage. >> Should I auction it off on Ebay or say to hell with the critics??? >> >> Don >> >> >


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