People LUV their SUV

[Codyroo]

SUV owners keep on truckin' despite gas prices - CNN.com

Interesting article....interesting in that it does highlight some legitimate points and just how shallow/short sighted people are on others.

Rationalizing = hauling 3 kids and large props. Thoughts: Fine. But a minivan can do that too and at 25% better fuel efficiency....easily.

Shallow/lame = I don't want to trade in my SUV for a minivan that would get better mileage because I don't want the stigma of being a soccer mom. Thoughts: Get over your bad self. Nice message you are sending your kids (style > substance).

Short sighted = $5000 in car payments or $5000 in gas payments, I'll take the gas payments. Thoughts: You think gas payments will stop at $5000?

Legit = buying a small car for communting (sunfire) and keeping the SUV for hauling family around. Taking small car when able. Thoughts: Reasonable person making a reasonable decision.

[Rybold]

Yesterday, when I was getting my haircut, I brought up the subject of gasoline prices to the lady that was cutting my hair. She is about 35, very pretty, into fashion, and has kids. When I started talking about why oil prices were going up and down, the fact that hybrids are the future, and eventually electric vehicles, she all of a sudden became very confused and said ... "This is stupid. Why don't they just lower the prices back down to where they have always been." I later learned that she didn't even know what a "hybrid" was - she thought it was just a special edition model. She had no idea. Now, aside from being a hair stylist, this lady is VERY MUCH your average "soccer mom." I have been getting my hair cut by her for over 5 years now, and we have had many very thoughtful, very intelligent conversations. She is by no means an "air head." But she had no idea what was going on in the energy world. I wouldn't expect someone in her "profile" would know much about the stock market and oil markets, and especially not about "speculative trading," oil supplies and demand, and the NYME (New York Mercantile Exchange), but I would have at least expected her to know what a hybrid was, even if she didn't understand the technology. Nope. She snubbed it off, and just wanted "the good 'ol days" of cars being fashion, and if you drove a car with a big engine, you were "cool."

[pewd]

>his wife still needs her Suburban for carpooling to school and school events.

i found that quote from the article interesting. folks still believe they NEED a suv.
many of my students' parents are the same way - i NEED a big **!@# tank to drive little buffy to her music lesson (to school, to soccer, etc). I need a tank to go to the grocery, etc, might want to buy the entire store, so i need that hummer.

we still need a mindset change in this country that hasn't happened yet. 2,3 $ more per gallon and maybe it will.

[burritos]

As I have stated many times before in the past, as a shareholder of many oil stocks, I thank the SUV drivers.

[nerfer]

Originally Posted by burritos

As I have stated many times before in the past, as a shareholder of many oil stocks, I thank the SUV drivers.

Except that oil imports are our biggest source of the trade imbalance, threatening the value of our dollar and our economy, and that terrorists get their money (indirectly) from oil, and that oil most probably exacerbates global warming (a big problem for anybody with kids), and that our economy and way of life is dependent on countries that don't like us.

As I've said before, wasting gas is terribly unpatriotic.

And really Hummers don't carry that much. Working at a plant sale for our nonprofit, I helped load trees & bushes into people's vehicles. One person had a small single-cab pickup that we loaded up with several trees. Another person had a full-size Hummer H1. Turns out in the base model, the back window doesn't open, and these trees were longer than the trunk area. She bought two trees, along with some smaller plants, but had to angle the trees so the branches were draped over the driver/passenger. So in reality, the Hummer H1 had less cargo area than a small pickup, and gets probably 1/2 the mpg and probably 3x the price of the pickup. But it looks macho! (Not good, just macho).

[ny biker]

Originally Posted by pewd

>his wife still needs her Suburban for carpooling to school and school events.

i found that quote from the article interesting. folks still believe they NEED a suv.
many of my students' parents are the same way - i NEED a big **!@# tank to drive little buffy to her music lesson (to school, to soccer, etc). I need a tank to go to the grocery, etc, might want to buy the entire store, so i need that hummer.

we still need a mindset change in this country that hasn't happened yet. 2,3 $ more per gallon and maybe it will.

A lot of people are still convinced the SUV is safer, despite the higher center of gravity. As I've said before, when my brother-in-law worked in an auto body shop he always knew that the day after a snow storm, the shop would be packed with SUVs, not sedans.

As for looking like a soccer mom, I once had a friend who had kids and refused to buy a station wagon because "people will look at me and think 'her life is over.'" Seriously, those were her exact words. I wanted to reply that if she really felt that being a mother = your life is over, she needed counseling stat. My parents have led pretty full lives with/in spite their five children, and we spent many miles driving around in a big ol' Chevy station wagon.

[ZC1]

Originally Posted by Rybold

she all of a sudden became very confused and said ... "This is stupid. Why don't they just lower the prices back down to where they have always been."

I would have answered, "You know, I was just thinking about the same thing with haircuts. I mean the hair didn't change, the cutter is the same, what gives?"

I'm sure after that, she'll wise up.

ZC1

[Spectra]

Originally Posted by ny biker

and we spent many miles driving around in a big ol' Chevy station wagon.

Maybe something genetic about 'skipping a generation" --

When I grew up in the late 50's & '60's our family car had to be an Olds 98.

A generation later I'm in a Prius, my sister's in an Echo, & my brother's in a Matrix. And my parents, still driving () are in a Camry.

Why all the Toyotas? Just good karma ... or sushi.

[rfruth]

SUV = big on the outside not so big on the inside, seems only $$$ will get people to admit it & the economy must suffer through it

[jayman]

Originally Posted by Rybold

<snip> When I started talking about why oil prices were going up and down, the fact that hybrids are the future, and eventually electric vehicles, she all of a sudden became very confused and said ... "This is stupid. Why don't they just lower the prices back down to where they have always been." <snip> She is by no means an "air head."

Um ... yes, she *is* an airhead. Which is fine with me, means I never have to PAY for "it." I should PM you my phone number to pass along to this broad

Seriously, the vast majority of the consumming public are lemming-like, with no concept whatsoever of how things work. And why should they know or care how things work?

Thanks to the Boob Tube, a failed public education system, and gadgets so easy to use they all but turn themselves on for you, we have the result of what a prof once told me:

"Never before in human history have so many understood so little, about so much of our technology"

How many of us really have to *work* to get by? Hard to believe that +80 years ago, the majority of the population here was involved in food production, living a quaint rural existence. Running water? That's when it rains, go use the s***house

Now we have folks involved in retail, in the Service Industry. Very few of us are engineers who actually are involved - in very intimate detail - with how things get built, or how they work.

Consider my long thread on oil refineries. An engineer could spend his entire professional career just on a desalter, or tray reflux/pumparounds. That's the level of complexity involved.

Yet the average person, they stick a credit card in the pump, the pump magically turns on if the card authorizes (That process is also very complicated!), they stick the nozzle in the hole in the side of the car, and gas up

Once you start dragging out very complicated and tricky geopolitical realities, their eyes become glazed. However, I commend you for trying