Well are you all ready to pay even more in taxes when you purchase your vehicles, were talking $1000+more to the sticker price. For all those that voted yes on the new transportation bill this is what your money is going to. To support legislation like this. Look at this article from the old star tribune. http://www.startribune.com/17648204.html Now you all know that I work for a well know dealership here in the cities This info was sent out to us and I thought I would like to share it with you all. A bigger problem will be what the dealerships will have to pay for to get your car that you want to you. For example, you want a white car, the dealership that you work your deal out with does not have a white one. So the dealership looks for a dealer that has one in the state of MN....no other dealer has one in MN. So they search other states. They find one in WI "today" we can have it sent to the dealer that you are working with locally for a small cost. If this new bill goes through you will have to wait to get your car from good old California with all there Green BS, plus it will cost at least 1000+ to ship it from CA. Well here is some info for you all to chew on Dear Representatives and Senators: I implore you not to vote in favor of the California Vehicle Emissions Bill. For one, I am totally confused on why we would want CA to be setting policy for us in Minnesota now and into the future. Two, it will have an overwhelming negative impact on the auto industry in Minnesota and truly do very little if anything to enhance our air quality. The damage a bill like this could have to our industry especially when we are already reeling from a very difficult time http://www.startribune.com/business/18436069.html could be catastrophic. We are presently losing one new car dealer a month in the state, and if you begin to total up the jobs that are going with that and the lives that are be so horribly impacted by it, well need I say more. This bill will only cause more dealers to close their doors, make our vehicles more expensive to the average consumer who is struggling now, and have very little positive impact on the health of our environment. As I am sure you are aware, CA still is the most polluted state in the country and they have had this costly policy in place for years. All that said, I do not want this construed by anyone as a lack of my concern for our environment, I am as deeply concerned as anyone, and I would be more then happy to support a meaningful solution to the problem, but I do not believe this is it and I believe the California fact alone is evidence of that. I believe all these facts together should give you serious reason to vote “no†for such a crippling piece of legislation. I have also included in this email the information that my association has provided which I must assume you have already seen, but just in case you hadn't I have attached it. Several models of vehicles with Flex Fuel "E85" motors are simply not offered for sale in states that have implemented California's Vehicle emissions law. Inventory restrictions are a serious threat to our industry. Not only will Minnesota dealers be restricted in their ability to get supply from the factory, but we will also be restricted in our ability to share supply with other dealers in nearby states through dealer trades. Dealer trades are an important way for dealers to meet customer demand, while also keeping the sale local. Under HF 863, vehicles that are not California certified would be illegal to register in Minnesota, which means we could not bring in many models of vehicles from other states to meet our customers demands. None of our neighboring states are governed by California's law, and which means they will not have California certified vehicles to trade with Minnesota dealers. It would keep many that now cross our state borders to make their automotive purchases away because of the higher cost placed on these vehicles to meet these ineffective standards. States like ND, SD, WI, and IA If we allow the recently passed federal standards to work, we can achieve improved vehicle efficiency across the whole country without damaging our industry in Minnesota. By contrast, if we submit to California's law, it will limit customer choice in Minnesota and harm Minnesota's economy. This bill allows California regulators to make law for Minnesota. That is terrible public policy that allows for no representation of Minnesota interests. Thank you very much for carefully considering this very serious matter to so many. --------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks a lot to the moronic career politicians that are in office. In school I've met many people that want to go into politics and I cringe every time. Typically they do not know their people and what is best for them.
While I agree with this in principle, it is worth noting that there are very few new cars that are not 50-state legal these days. Seriously, go out on your lot and pop the hood. The emissions sticker will tell you if it is CARB legal. My LGT was orginally sold in Nebraska and resold in Utah and is CARB legal. And flex-fuel is a scam that costs you the taxpayer a ton of cash, and if I really thought it would kill this E85 BS, i'd go out and campaign for it. Oh and do some research. CARB regulations has massively cleaned up the LA Basin area (and other areas of California). It has been very effective. LA is still very polluted, but that is due to sheer numbers and geography. It is much cleaner than it was 20 years ago. While I would agree that it won't translate well to a flat, less dense state like MN, it is incorrect to say CARB has not been effective in CA. Legislators know it has been effective and to include a statement saying otherwise loses credibility. CARB is effective because it is designed for the unique needs of California and is the main justification for its existance as an exception to EPA regs. This is also why it is a bad idea for other states that don't have CA's needs to adopt them And finally FWIW, the reason they chose this is that it is the only alterantive to the inadaquate EPA regulations. If you write a letter, you should emphasize that you feel that any increased regulations should be on the federal level, which is where auto emissions outside of unique situations should be regulated.
Yes when I did my short time with working for GM, the E85 is a waste of time and taxpayer money...and warranty issues with GM...replacing all 8 spark plugs because a customer did not follow the proper gas to e85 procedure. If there is going to be any step in a different direction diesel is the first step....cant wait for the Legacy Diesel to hit state side..
My Dad has been wondering about a flex fuel vehicle, and I do not know much in this area at all, what can I tell him to present a logical and enlightened perspective of why not to buy flex fuel/e85. I was watching tv late night a few years ago, flipping channels, and something on public access that caught my attention. They had some old rerun presentation about the "wave of the future" and how Minnesota will stand to make out well from this program, they were talking about E85 from back in, I'd say it was 1987??? I know some of the bad points are the crop issue, and the prices of other things are going to rise. Please make a concise rundown, long or short about why this is NOT good for our Planet, country, state, and family. I am going to do my own homework about this topic, but you who are more versed on this subject, please describe in greater detail as if you were telling your Dad/Grandpa about it, Thank You.
When running E85 your MPG drops compared to regular fuel, plus E85 burns dirty compared to regular fuel. For GM you have to drive your vehicle for at least 10 miles before the computer will convert to E85 so no filling just before you go home if your E85 gas station is close to home. Also E85 is not regulated as well as regular gas, I had several customers that had to pay to get the bad E85 pumped out of there truck. Locally you pay more in taxes at the pump to federally pay for the farmers to make it.
Re: E85 E85 is made from corn Not my math: a t&c minivan leaves quahog (family guy) bound for springfield (simpsons) on a trip of 800 miles at 2:30pm. it's first tank is regular gas, he paid 3.61 for it. with a median mileage of 20.5. The second leg of 400 miles was with e85 at 3.01, with a median mileage of 14. which leg of the trip cost more? the second leg, 400/20.5 is 19.51 gallons @ 3.61 = $70.43 vs 400/14 is 28.57 gallons @ 3.01 = $86. Mileage is 17/24 for gas vs 11/17 for e85 And then you add in all the government subsities (paid for by your tax dollars) to make e85 that cheap (in a free economy it would be more expensive than gas) and the incentives for automakers to make e85 vehicles (aka $$$), it gets more expensive. E85 exists for three reasons 1: ADm and Cargill have powerful lobbies 2. Iowa Caucuses (really) 3. Big 3 get major savings by being able to avoid CAFE with E85 vehicles. A bit off topic, but corn based ethanol is just about the dumbest thing this country is doing right now (and that says a lot)
They're only importing the cars, not the inspections. You'll live. edit; reading that article "take minnesotians of of thier trucks" LOL. Have they even been to CA? The LA soccer mom with 1 kid and a giant ****ing SUV is a stereotype for a reason. People think Californians are just driving Pruii. That's funny. And $1000? If there is a markup (as most vehicles are 50 state legal), I've never seen one over $300. Fear mongering is fun. Don't get me wrong, this is stupid because it applies a system designed for a very unique geography toa state that is completely different and further turns of Minnesota regualtion to another state, but this stuff is hilarious. People blame politicans for making stupid, laws, I blame these people. The no SUV thing will likely get certain people on board (though it is not true) The $1000 thing is pretty small fries The policy implications are massive, but these organizations either don't care, don't realize, or think Minnesotians are too stupid to care.
I think the inspections will be around again soon....it will just be another way to make us pay for E85 and feel guilty because of our "carbon foot print"
Algae has been discussed on other boards I frequent and its possibly huge possibilities. I'm excited to see what happens
One good thing. CARB ****ing hates E85 and any other corn based solution. They've fought tooth and nail against even e10. Its only in CA gas because EPA forced them to through the courts. Ethanol is also bad for our air. CARB may have some screwed up policies, but they actually do care about air quality and aren't going to support ethanol for that reason. Also California is strongly against farm subsities in general, largely because of the huge transfer of wealth form federal taxes from CA entreprenuers to IA corn farmers (aka Cargill)
It would be wildly unpopular and is a PITA system to set up. I highly doubt it would ever happen. On the other hand it is a great way to keep ****boxes off the road.
+1 politicians should represent their people, how can you represent a people that you are not in touch with? +1 Boxer Turbo Diesel, the solution to my sub 40mpg problems. The current ethanol system is a joke. I am in close contact with the Bio-Based Products people at the U of M. I have learned quite a bit about biofuels. (not all but enough) First off, there is nothing inherently wrong with E85. It provides higher octane fuel at relatively cheap price. The issue is that there is roughly 30% less energy stored in ethanol as an equivalent amount of gasoline. This means that to get the same energy out you will need 30% more ethanol. By running E85 your mileage will go down. However the low cost of E85 is enough to compensate for this, and you should be able to save a little extra on top due to current high gas prices. E85 is pretty heavily subsidized to help keep the costs down. If you plan on buying e85 to support the mn farmers, you are in for a disappointment. The subsidies and profits of e85 go to the company that mixes the ethanol and gas which happens to be the large oil companies. In the future it is very possible that ethanol will be a much better fuel source. Cellulosic ethanol has the potential to create much cheaper ethanol from a much larger variety of feed stocks. Corn based is not worth it, and will never be with out subsidies. When a solution is found which can reduce the energy requirements of the pre-treatment process for cellulosic ethanol it will allow for ethanol to truly function as a mass produced fuel. Pre-treatment involves a considerable amount of energy inorder to remove lignin from the plant matter. There are numerous scientists working on this problem as we speak. I see no reason not to buy a flex fuel vehicle. you do not have to put e85 in it, but the option is there. I do not have the numbers handy but I saw a presentation at the U from a professor and he had done the math to prove that a flex fuel hybrid was more efficient. Just dont let him by a straight up hybrid. the prius, and its billion pounds of battery, will be going the way of the dodo in the next 5-10 years.
Did you see my 2nd post? At currnet prices, E85 is actually more expensive once the eocnomy is factored in. Reason not to buy a flex fuel? Some more expensive parts if your not running e85. The incentives that go to makers of e85 vehicles, etc Non-corn ethanol shows some promise, but isn't really getting the funding it should. Corn ethanol is a gravy train for certain entrenched interests (ADM, Cargill, and Iowa) and they'll keep that from going away.
^ I missed your second post. Cellulosic ethanol is the only way that ethanol is going to be worth it. When the pretreatment thing is figured out you are looking at reducing the cost of production by more than 75%, while allowing for using a huge variety of feedstocks like switch grass or yard trimmings. This summer I am going to be working with WVO alot. I will be interested to see its impact on the diesel world.
Pure WVO is a great way to kill a modern diesel engine. Bio is probably fine assuming its done right. Most at home people don't though. Modern diesels are quite bpicky about fuel, and need higher quality than most people can make themselves.
Most people aren't capable of changing their own oil or sparkplugs, so its only natural that they cannot process waste oil for use in a a diesel.
What i dont understand is that they have made oil from coal shale (the waste from mining coal) I have heard that they can make oil/fuel for 30 dollars/gal. Were sitting on millions of tons of coal shale. I think the biggest problem is the cost of Diesel that keeps going up, and why should diesel cost more....its refined less then gas??
While they don't specify Smog testing in that article, it sounds like they are gong to try to implement the same nonsense as California. And with that comes Smog testing. My car will become undrivable, the wagon project will become undrivable.... If that is the case, then like I said, I'll move. I refuse to revert to stock or close to stock for some horsecrap emissions tests, and I refuse to stop working on project cars because of emissions tests. If I have to live in some po-dunk town in the middle of nowhere to escape emissions tests I will do so.
I believe competence is partly why they don't have the equipment. If they were competent enough, they wouldn't do it without the proper setup.
It takes more than a particulate filter to make vegetable oil usable in a diesel engine. Many people don't understand that. I guess if we look at other arenas we see the same things as well. Tons of people don't understand what it takes to modify their cars for the power they want, but they go for it anyways...
Smog checks suck. In Cali every year we had to deal with finding a crooked smog shop to get cars to pass the check. Then you had to pay for the smog check and the "tip" for the mechanic. Usually a smog check ended up costing around $350-$400 in addition to your registration, which depending on the car could be $50-$500. (My dad's 2 door explorer XLT cost him $459!) After they started cracking down, they had undercover agents at the smog check shops. If they saw any aftermarket part on your car they would tag you, after being tagged you could only get your car smog checked at a DMV shop wehere you could only get checked if your car was completely stock engine wise. But they were also nice enough to have a CHP officer that would check how low your car was, and how dark your tint was to make sure your car was CA law compliant. Needless to say a lot of guys ended up with inoperable car registrations. I've been in MN 7 years now so I don't know how bad it is over there now. I really hope they don't implement smog checks here, it just sucks.
The point is that the federal government is doing a completely horse **** job of fuel standards regulation in light of the known energy issues this country is going to face. You think global warming is a farce and that all this "green" stuff is non-sense? Fine, you go ahead and live in that bubble. Either way, you're paying $3.50+/gal and that price is only going up. There's a limited supply of oil regardless of your belief in global warming. Given that reality, it's no wonder states are taking matters into their own hands to address this issue. Is it accurate to take another states regulations and just plop them down on our table and expect everything about it to an exact fit? Hell no. But would you rather the state of mn spend all your tax dollars to set up an equivalent agency to CARB? Fact of the matter is that CARB has been on the forefront of leading technologies that reduce emissions. Anyone trying to argue that reduced emissions is "bad" or "worthless" is a moron and has never been to a city like LA or (if you want to really see what happens when this stuff goes unchecked) Hong Kong. I've been to both, and I have to tell you that the air quality in LA is like the fresh air of the rockies in comparison to Hong Kong. That place smells like pure diesel fuel everywhere you go. Now, having said that. This thing will be about as worthless as Pawlenty's Job-Z program unless neighboring states adopt similar measures.
It's idiotic to think you can dictate change from the top down. That just hurts auto manufacturers. The only way to get cleaner, more efficient cars on the road is to increase the demand for them. Most people aren't ever going to give a enough of a **** about the environment to give up the comforts of their giant cars. The only way to increase the demand for efficient vehicles is to RAISE THE PRICE OF GAS. Yay capitalism. Unfortunately no politician will ever allow that because it pisses off the voters.
See, I think that's the attitude to have. It goes with the whole pay to play thing. But you also offset that by riding motorcycles when you can. I've said it before, I'm not going to complain about expensive gas when I purposefully drive a car that only gets 20mpg (hell, you know we all get less than that for the fun of it ). I've offset my hobby by riding my bike to work when I can and choosing to live 7 mi. from work instead of 20 mi. like a lot of people who commute.
Indeed, i save enough driving the motorcycle in the summer to offset the amount of gas guzzling my cars do in the winter
Agreed, I do believe that cars have gotten better from the past of how they were built and the standards of how thew were built. I do believe that there have been cars that have passed emissions tests with TBE and no cat. So if were already there why do we need to pay more. My next mod will be taking the turbo out and putting in an electric motor, ill feel better. In the mean time I will start looking for a different job by riding around on my bike. I will show up to my interviews sweaty and green...then when they ask me why I lost my job I will say "I was laid off so the sate could go green and charge the paying consumers more money to drive and make them feel guilty" But I guess I will have to give away more and more of my hard earned money, so I cant go out an purchase more things for my big carbon foot print car. I also feel bad for the next trip that I go on in my subaru...
Yeah, I've been saying this exact same thing for years. For people to make their own decisions, not only does the cost of gas need to go up, it needs to rise drastically.
People already make their own decisions, and they want large cars. What's wrong with that? What do higher taxes get you? Once you get on the namby-pamby, tell-people-how-to-live liberal bandwagon, it never ends... Smoking is bad, smoking kills. Make a pack cost ten bucks or ban them altogether. Fast food and Coke is bad. Put a $5 tax on a can of Coke. Firebomb McDonalds. Red meat is bad. No steak for you. Eggs cause cholesterol. Kill all the chickens. Speed kills and burns oil. 45 mph speed limit. Alcohol is bad, ban that. TV and computers make people fat. Ban those. Does anybody see a pattern here??? As for global warming... dinosaurs used to run around Minnesota. They don't anymore. That mile of ice above your head is also gone. Get over it.
I bought $30 worth of fuel today before I went and ran some errands. The lady at the station said I was lucky since she was going out to raise it ten cents. I agree that it takes drastic things for people to change. Ya it sucks, but we do have a bit of an energy problem in this country. Like I've said before, we could save a million barrels of oil a day if people that don't need the capability of trucks and SUV's didn't drive them. What would that do for fuel prices? Also something that is a little concerning is the mandate for HDTV. HDTV's use something to the effect of 2-3 times the amount of electricity that a normal CRT uses. Just what we need in this country is more demand for energy :roll:
I like freedom, but there's a huge amount of gray area between anarchy and totalitarianism. Should people be free to drive however they want? That might be fun if you lived in the middle of nowhere, but somehow I don't think most people have enough good judgment behind the wheel to avoid killing each other. Banning smoking indoors also has to do with endangering other people's health, not your own. Helmet laws are terrible, you should certainly be free to hurt yourself all you want. Nobody's tried to ban steak or chicken or beer as far as I know. Again, you're only harming your own health if you eat badly. Speed does burn more oil. Ignoring mechanical losses, it takes 2.1x as much power to go 80 as it does to go 55 and you're only getting there 1.45x faster. This is greatly oversimplified, but the point is driving faster is less efficient. Speed limits keep going up. Nobody's trying to crush your fun yet. They can ban TV if they want, I won't complain.
When in my comment did I say I even care what people do, or that I was pro-gas-tax? Gas is a non-renewable resource, as the supply goes down and the demand goes up, it gets more expensive. *Gasp.* All I did is assert that the relative cost of fuel is, and will be, the largest determining factor on what type of car and how much people drive.
Its an incomplete article. There will be no emssions testing. While the strict rules will be there, there will be no inspection, and old cars will be grandfathered in. A car manufactured before the date this law goes into effect will not have be CARB legal. And if you're running catless, its illegal in all 50 states anyhow.
Markets are in perpetual flux, well run businesses understand this and instill a level of flexibility that allows them to move with the market. That is, was, and will always be the case. Dealers are closing every week because they're probably poorly managed businesses. Likewise, we have a responsibility to ourselves to keep a level of flexibility to adjust to market conditions. I'm pretty sure selling cars isn't the only thing you're good at. I think that if people want to be excessive in what they eat/drink/consume and kill themselves that's their own deal. Just don't get in my way and screw up what I've got going on. The joke is the hypocrisy of the right - those who say they want small government and them to stay out of their business but want to ban abortion and gay and everything else that happens to bother them.
Pollution creates a negative externality. This means that a person's choice hurts others. You dump **** into a lake, its going to hurt the people who use the lake. You dump **** into the air, its going to hurt the people that use the air. In a pure "capitalist" (not really, Adam Smith believed the government needed to act to prevent negative externalities too) system, there is no check on these dumpers. The impact to them is none to minor compared to the impact on society as a whole. Economics and the common law demands that we do something re-impose the burden on those creating the externalities.
Also, LOL at conservatives that want small government but complain about roads, bridges, education, and everything else they use and appreciate daily that is paid with tax dollars.
