(12-14-2017 12:01 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Government: You need to make more fuel efficient cars! WE DEMAND YOU MAKE MORE FUEL EFFICIENT CARS! We will shut you down if you don't!

Private Sector: Uhh ... OK. We'll make the cars out of cheap but light plastics. So the cars will fall apart more quickly, particularly with trim, but get better mileage because they carry less weight. We'll stop having frame rails which we then mount the body panels to and instead transition to using a monocoque chassis. This means it is again lighter and thus more fuel efficient. And it also means it's way easier to total your car. Just ask your local Sheriff Department how much they enjoy having to declare every seriously wrecked police car totaled, whereas with the old Crown Victoria they could even fix severely warped frame rails, and typically only had to bolt on new body panels. For those keeping score, that's the government demanding that other parts of government cost more. But whatever. And lastly, to keep safety ratings high with all these lighter flimsier materials, we'll make complicated crumple zones to absorb energy but, again, make it far easier to total the car. Lastly, we'll start introducing hybrid cars. Pay no mind to the fact that you have to rape the Earth to get the materials for and manufacture the batteries. And the batteries will probably only last you a decade. It gets great mileage though!

Government: HEY! You created fuel efficient cars and that means we get less gas tax. So now we need to monitor the mileage of every single vehicle. This means either government vehicle inspections or, more creepily and insidiously, installing "insurance-esk" ODB2 tools which communicate via cellular data networks to tell us where you are and precisely how you are driving at all times.



So the government is crying about a problem they created. And it isn't even that obvious or clear to me that they actually did less damage to the environment by doing this. Perhaps the most environmentally friendly car is one built like a tank like the Crown Victoria even if it only gets 18 mpg. If it lasts 30 years, that's a lot of value out of those materials. And it's not uncommon to see Crown Vics still going 3 decades later. Do you see many plastic econo-boxes still going after 3 decades? How about the environmental impact of having TWO ENGINES for hybrids? And the batteries, my God the batteries. Nickel mining is a filthy business and causes acid rain. And you need a crapload of it for hybrid batteries. And the supply chain on making those batteries is ridiculous. You're sourcing materials and parts and components from several CONTINENTS. How the hell is that efficient or environmentally friendly?



We're from the government, and we're here to help pass sweeping feel good legislation backed by massive ignorance. But hey, a big chunk of the electorate likes that we're "doing something" and is probably even more ignorant than we are. So we'll cash in those votes and consequences and analysis and objective quantification be damned!

They've been talking about this for at least a decade all around the country.

Don't you love how dems call things that are gonna frick the rest of the country because states overtax their citizens cute names like "salt".

(12-14-2017 10:46 AM)GrayBeard Wrote:  

(12-13-2017 10:26 PM)shere khan Wrote:  California should tax them double if they leave the state

I really hate you.

Escape. We will give you a waiver to live in the Heart of Dixie but it's top secret.