What’s it’s 20-65MPH time for merging on the highway?

Does it meet safety regulations for road driving?

What’s it’s 60-0 stopping distance?

How about front and side impact ratings?

If you’re following the theme from my last post, anyone can take my Ford Taurus, run it downhill with a back wind and throw it in neutral the whole way and get 80+MPG . . . but it’s not practical to compare that to every day driving.

I wonder how many MPG the 29MPG 2008 Yaris gets when it’s driving through New York during the day . . . hybrids aside all these small cars are terrible unless they are in lab conditions.

Yes, as you put your full amount of force and weight on a pedal you can pull away faster than a car that’s barely moved the tach past idle . . . great comparison. Try taking your family on a weekend camping trip on your bike.

” . . . but for a 1 mile trip, I’ll just bet the group I can get there faster on foot. How about 6 minutes?”

Yeah, I’m sure your moving at 10MPH on foot walking with a group on an outing. Have you ever got on a treadmill and ran at 10MPH? It’s pretty quick. Average walking speed for a general ’stroll down the street’ is probably more like 2-3MPH if you have a group and will be chatting and junk on the way and/or enjoying yourself. That puts it at 20-30 minutes or so for a mile.

There are thousands of ways to be green every day, but let’s be reasonable.

I banned Christmas gifts the following year.

So 37.8*800/900*20 = 672 mpg

Of course none of these include life cycle costs but neither does the manufacture of the car or the road.

@philip - I don’t have the data on water freight but surely someone has researched this.

@escapee - I think it will be one of necessity. I think we will see 4bd/4bath McMansions converted into multiplexes or condominiums within the next few decades. Also I could see driving the old SUV down to the gas station to fill it up and then driving it home only to siphon off the fuel to the scooter.

@moneyblogga - Priceless!

Bicycling is obviously more efficient than most forms of transportation, but I wasn’t sure it would beat either sailing or canal barge traffic. Since you say it beats sailing, I was wondering if you had any data that I could use.

I echo that sentiment!

I like the Souped Down image. I have regularly attempted to do that to any piece of machinery I have ever ridden or driven.

I like the chain drive shown on the Opel, and I was thinking about bicycle power transmission yesterday while riding. The efficiency of a bicycle is quite tangible when one is at a stop light with a line of cars. When the light turns green, your foot can immediately transmit power into forward travel, and that delay for the cars to accelerate past you is glaring.

By the way, where/how did you get that figure of 650 MPG for a bicycle? I’m a mechanical engineer by education (not profession) so I want the calculation. ;-\

I’m having trouble seeing how frugal can be hip. I don’t think I’d want it to be, as hip is fickle. In my limited understanding of hip and fads, there is a central element of either aesthetics or moral righteousness, even rebellion in some cases. I suppose the Absence of Things could be seen as some sort of Zen or Taoist Minimalist Aesthetic, but popular trends seem to focus around the Presence of Things, don’t they? And what about moral righteousness? When green is no longer some personal choice but a matter of survival, then it won’t be a trend. I think green is a nice side effect of frugal, but it is not the central point. And then what about rebellion? I have to admit that for me (a contrarian) it did in part start due to the attractiveness of saying “Screw the Man, I’m going to do what most people complain ‘just can’t be done’.” But after one does what can’t be done, what then? Well, you keep on going and you recognize that frugality is about nothing more than the financial bottom line: getting as much value as you can for as little cost as possible. Nothing more, nothing less, just the cold hard figures. Accountants aren’t hip, or are they? When was the last time that green eyeshades were trendy? ;-\