Now with the death of a gas-guzzling large car manufacturer, the Greenies have of course jumped on the topic. Some gormless idiot of a Greens senator has been barking on the media - was it Andrew Wilkie or Scott Ludlam? Who cares? Anyway, they where commenting that this is what happens to manufacturers who refuse to go green and build cars that run of pixy dust. Blah blah ad infinitum. He criticised the 380 for being a large car, and stated that this is why it died.While this is wonderful and fuzzy for the usual brainless morons the Greens movement attracts, but there are several key facts that his statements ignore:
1) The 380 sales did not die because of fuel price or environment concerns - it died because it was a rubbish car. Honestly, for the same price both the Falcon and Commodore offer better driving, better performance, better everything - for the same fuel economy. If fuel and the environment where pushing people from large cars, the Falcon and Commodore would have similarly pathetic sales figures.
2) Additionally, if everybody is moving away from large cars - probably to go to the nearest national park and smoke pot - why are sales of Falcon and Commodore V8's the highest in history? Not only are the largest number of V8's ever going out the door, the proportion of V8's to 6's is the highest ever. (In a completely unrelated diatribe, today's V8's achieve fuel economy as good as the 4 cyl of 20 years ago, so all the cannabis imbibing peanuts in Combi wagons are doing more damage to the environment than, for instance, a banker in his V8 HSV Senator)
So smoke that, you communist jerk.
The lesson is clear: A cheap, emotional rant is much more attractive than a cool, factual analysis. Especially when the facts don't fit your political bias.
This obtuse Green trait is seeping into all levels of Government here in Australia. In Queensland, for example, the government as of yesterday are no longer allowed to buy cars with anything less than a "5.5 star" economy rating - basically no 6 cylinders are allowed. So all the Ministers are going to have to give up their V6 Holden Calais - and are replacing them now with 4 cyl Audi's and BMW's - and Toyotas for the unimportant Bureaucrats. So congratulations, to the government hack who came up with this jem, you have saved the environment from an insignificant 1L/100km of petrol burned.
($54,000 Calais V6 @ 10.9L/100km, $61,990 Audi A4 2.0TSFI 9.7L/100km, Toyota Camry Grande 9.9L/100km, combined city / highway driving, Wheels Magazine)
Or have they?
A couple of issues come to mind.
Firstly, Australia is a very large country with many many government cars doing lots and lots of time on the highway. On the highway, the sixes will increase in economy, while the 4cyl will decrease in economy. The emissions benefits of the 4 cyl will become even slighter.
Secondly, fuel consumption ratings are based on a very good driver, using cruise control wherever possible, with smooth acceleration and braking. However, very few people drive like this. It is in fact easy for a person with half an hour's training in economical driving to use less fuel in a big V8 than your average driver in a 4cyl Toyota. In fact, in the city, a good driver in V8 can beat an annoyed or impatient driver in a Prius - an angry person will tend to accelerate and brake sharply, as well as drive at a higher average speed.
So what this means is that the Queensland government would have achieved a greater environmental benefit by giving their drivers a bit of economical driving training (they could hold a training seminar, Bureaucrat jerks love that kind of crap) while supporting the local car industry.
But this will never happen because it has no emotional appeal. And emotional appeal is everything to a Greeny (and politicians looking for a vote)
Instead, Holden and Ford will go broke, thousands of Aussies will loose their jobs, the planet will not be saved from global warming, but many sour-kraut eating Germans will be employed to make BMWs for us.
