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I agree with you. In places like Redmond, seeing people in their Hummer H2, complaining about the high gas prices is annoying. No one takes fuel economy into consideration until they look at the pump.
I know alot of people in the U.K who pay MUCH more than we do, and we complain the most.

The Hummer is a perfect lesson for people. If you want to be cool, you will pay. Unfortunately, so will the planet. I really hope that tiny little cars become cool soon.

> outside the US where it can cost $50

It can cost? It costs! And that for the cheapest fuel here in Germany, Diesel. But fortuanately my Peugeot 206 only needs 4,5 l/100 km :-)

I lived in Canada for a few years, and regularly paid $2.75 per gallon (USD)

I remember when gas in the US was 95 cents per gallon (granted, im only 17).

There are many cars and trucks that get lousy gas milage, not just the H2. Not sure why the H2 is the posterchild for environmental rageaholics. It's not very logical. Maybe its because they're big and shiny. Most pickup trucks also get less than 15mph and they're the best selling vehicles (Ford F150) period (in the US at least). People bash the H2, and I agree that some people buy them for the wrong reasons (bling), but there are ligimate reasons to buy one. 1) towing capacity 2) offroad prowess 3) comfort 4) dog hauling capacity, 5) misc truck needs, etc. In fact these are the reasons I bought one, and I've used all of the capacities it has to offer. Because. I. Needed. A. Truck. I buy vehicles that meet a need - I didn't buy it because I wanted to wear gold jewelry, wear pants with my ass hanging out, and make weird arm crossing hand gestures. Booooy. I don't think I should be bashed for this. All I'm saying is that some people actually use these vehicles for that which they were designed. Wishing for continued high gas prices as some sort of life lesson for those people with v8 engines is unnessarily punative for those with actual need.

Canada is pretty bad right now, thousands of dollars a year just for gas. It has doubled over the past few years, I don't think it will ever go down. Still, it is similar to the prices of the U.S (compared to overseas).

You bring up a good point about how the higher prices will push people to build the 1000 miles/gallon car and/or finally establish a *permanent* type of alternate fuel system.

BTW I wish I had a Peugeot 206 :-)

Mike wrote:

There are many cars and trucks that get lousy gas milage, not just the H2. Not sure why the H2 is the posterchild for environmental rageaholics.

-- It gets 12mpg, not 15mpg as the other ones.

1) towing capacity

-- many other trucks can tow the same, but get 3-4-5 mpg more.

2) offroad prowess

-- see above.

3) comfort

-- ???, try to get in one.

4) dog hauling capacity,

-- OMG, that a MF big honking dog. Bigger than Clifford, the big red dog (and that one *is* imaginary). Kinda reminds me to the SNL skit about an old lady being run over and later pronouncing to the soccer mum driver that when she was a girl, the public park was smaller than the back of the SUV, which was purchased for the only kid.

Wishing for continued high gas prices as some sort of life lesson for those people with v8 engines is unnessarily punative for those with actual need.

-- it is good for all (environment) might be bad for some. A price I am willing to pay. I am wishing for the $5 gallon prices. (BTW, Goldamn Sachs predicted +$100 per barrel before the year's end. It is now $55 top record ever).

Peter, some trucks get a bit better mpg, some are just as bad. My point was that the H2 has been unjustly cut from the herd.

Offroad:
No other truck on the market is better offroad than the H2. I've been offroading with most of them so I know. The only real problem with the H2 offroad is its width. I have a giant scratch on my door from a fiesty tree to prove this. Pickup trucks blow off road. Long wheel bases. Poor exit and entry angles. Top heavy.

Comfort:
You'd be highly surprized how confortable it is. Have you actually ridden or even sat in one? You'd probably be shocked. You'd probably fall out of your seat. But you wouldn't want to because you were so comfy. I also have the removable side steps and it's easy to get into. Maybe if I were 80 years old and infirmed it would be a problem, but my mom loves riding it in it so it can't be that bad.

Dog hauling:
You'd be surprised. Again. The inside of an H2 isn't really very big. It's wide (only 3" wider than a suburban), but not long at all. I think it's about as long as a Ford Explorer actually. I wish it were bigger inside actually.

The reason I chose an H2 is it had the best combination of features of any truck on the market.

Gas prices:
Counterpoint. I heard the bigwigs at Opec talking about how they don't want prices to go out of control so they are planning on upping supply. If prices reach $100.00 per barrel, we're going to have larger economic problems than the price of gas at the pump.

Hi Mike,

thanks for the insight. I really mean it.

I do realize that we need to have wide variety of vechicles available to meet the wide variety of people's needs. It would be an interesting statistics (and possibly suprising for both of us) to see the H2 usage patterns. I do see a lot of them in LA on the westside, where the closest off-road is about 100 miles (3 hours :-) ) urban driving in any direction. Perhaps you have other more suitable vechicles for city use. Ideally you'd have a 30-40mpg vechile for city use (90% of usage) and have a utility truck for the rest of the time when you absolutely need it (and willing to pay the gas price for it).

I do realize this is an expensive proposition to own 2 vechicles, but as the gas price gets higher it might actually become economically sound. (and perhaps beneficial to the environment as well -- even if we count the environmental impact of vechicle manufacturing).

And the point about the dire consequences of the $100 per barrel are well made. Interstate commerce is almost purely based on trucking. Contrast this to the rest of the world, where most long distance commerce is done on rails (mostly electified), and only local deliveries are trucked. With current gas prices it is nonsense to expect the rail companies in the US to compete with trucks.

Hey Peter, I actually do have another car, a Corvette, so I don't drive the H2 everyday. Unfortunatly it gets about half of your recommended mpg. Probably gets high teens to low twenties depending how hard I press with my right foot.

I'm also looking to get rid of the h2. There are a few problems with it, mpg being only one of them. Mainly, I've had an unending rash of reliability (mostly electronic) with it. The other three issues are: 1) its (surprisingly) underpowered 2) its starting to squeak a lot (poor fit and finish) 3) no nav system. I have the v1 2003 model. So there's that. I think they should put a deisel engine in it and work a bit on the fit and finish. They already have put in a nav system in the new models. If they did this, it would be a great work truck. A deisel engine would probably give it like a 50% boost in mpg and LOTS more low end torque, which would be fantastic for towing (big issue for me).

Another dire consequence of really high oil prices will be increased cost for air travel. The airlines will really take it in the shorts, then we will. Then more people will start driving instead of flying... Maybe Amtrack will make a comeback. Or buckboard wagons.

As you can probably tell, I'm a bit of a car nut. I like power and performance. I truly hope that we get engines that have high performance and high efficiency in the near future. I'd hate to have to drive some 80hp import because I can't afford fuel. That would suck. :-)

You want to try and buy fuel in the UK! last night I paid 88.6p per litre. Thats about $1.61 per litre. And there are 4.5 litres in a UK gallon (so thats around 3.8 litres in a US gallon).
So thats about $5.80 per US gallon of fuel. So sit there and smile about why we all drive such tiny cars!

Eileen

Mike,

good news for ya! The electric cars have an amazing amount of low rpm (as in 0) torque available. Practically all torque id avaialbe at all rpms. This means that the litte home built electric car shames the $400K Ferrari to no end when taking off at the red light.

I need to google it up once more, but I have read about this Seattle man who built a 40"-wide 2 seater called Tango (seats behind each other) electric vechicle and placed all batteries on the floorboard. 2 seats behind each other means that 2 of these can share a normal lane, and lengthwise it can still park nose first to the curb. It does 0-60mph in something like 4s. Plus all the weight in between the wheels means that you (practically) cannot tip it over. He made this all custom for about 80 grand. There was some talk about leasing the design an mass producing, but that might take 10+ years depending on the financing...

Just sharing, as an other car nut...

I totally disagree what if people like what they drive well thats why they bought it RIGHT! quit our whining jesus christ in cali its $8.13 w/e who would pay that for gas i think u have no clue what ur even talking about buying small cars some people dont like it mmmkay i rather stick with a nice hummer or truck cadillac then some small car o and we r prolly not gonna keep gas for long bekuz of the prices going up so high so sudden ovb. we have had gas for soo long we r prolly gonna move to something different like fossil fuel or something diff. so gas companys r getting their money while they still can mmkay and a lot of people have problems with gas and their cars omg all the people who r dropouts working at McDonalds making what 15 cents or w/e how r they going to pay for another car or gas huh tell me that since u know so much RIGHT? kuz thats the idea im getting from u not all people can afford to pay for the gas THANKS FOR THE INFO THAT HELPS FOR THE PEOPLE WHO R GETTING KICKED OUT OF THEIR HOUSES!AND ALSO MAKING 15 CENTS TO 3.18 IM SURE THEY R REAL HAPPY THEY KNOW THIS!TRY TO TELL THEM TO QUIT THEIR WHINING AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS MMKAY

Most new small (for american norms) cars with modern Diesel Engines here in europe are very fuel efficient. A car, the size of a VW Jetta/BMW 3 Series does 52 miles/gallon. The ordinary gas models do something like 39 miles/gallon. So,
go to your toyota, vw, bmw or Ford dealer. Scream at them and ask them for a fuel efficient VW Jetta, BMW 3 series, Toyota Camry or Ford Focus. They sell them here in Europe, they should sell them to you too.