Drew Dowdell

Charger, you've been a great addition to C&G with many great ideas and insightful posts...... this isn't one of them. Let's start with your errors: 1. You can't make the blanket statement that it takes 3 times as much energy to produce Ethanol then it does to produce the same quantity of gasoline. Ethanol can be made from many many different plant sources... each one takes a different amount of energy to get ethanol out of... it takes more energy to get ethanol out of woodpulp then it does switchgrass.. for example. 2. You're not burning "food".... that is unless you eat sawdust, grass, waste sugar cane, or rotten apples. Yes it can be produced from corn and wheat, but it isn't like we can't grow more. 3. You say that the cost of ethanol is artificially low because of government subsidies. I say the cost of oil is artifically low because it doesn't take into account the amount of money we spend in the Middle East. Where would you rather your tax dollars go to subsidize your fuel... the Middle East, or the Mid-west? 4. I think you're mixing up some statistics. There is around 30% less "energy" or BTU in a gallon of Ethanol then there is in a gallon of petrol. Currently, because our infrastructure isn't set up to produce large quantities of ethanol, we don't achieve the same economies of scale the petrol producers do. Some facts: 1. Ethanol is completely renewable. 2. The plant sources for ethanol are very flexible. Just some of the examples are: Corn, Potatoes, sugar cane, wood pulp, saw dust, rotten fruit, fruit pealings, switch grass, hemp, peanuts <amongst other nuts>, grains, cheese whey, waste sucrose, potato waste, brewery waste, and food and beverage wastes. So... have a bum crop of corn this year? No matter, call up the folks at Budwiser and see if they have any brewery waste they'd like to get rid of. 3. Ethanol is as close as we'll ever get to having a Net 0 CO2 emissions vehicle without going to solar powered cars. The amount of CO2 emitted from an ethanol burning car is never greater then the amount of CO2 absorbed by the plant while it was growing. Petrolium on the otherhand pumps dormant/stored CO2 up from the ground and releases it out into the air. 4. More agriculture in the US is a good thing. It improves the quality of your air and keeps the money you spend on fuel local <at least on the country level>. 5. Ethanol is water soluble, non-toxic and biodegradable. Making the envirmental cleanup of a spil as simple as a rain storm. I suggest you check out E85Fuel.com for more information.

mostly

Nope, no oil leaks on mine. There really was nothing wrong with it other then the fact that I got out run by a VW Rabbit diesel.

Turbo charger

and the Toyota sales person will even help you sign up for medicare plan B while they process your credit app.

All but one of my previous cars.... 1985 Oldsmobile Toronado Caliente 1985 Lincoln Continental 1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Convertible 3.4 DOHC uh... someone else can take the 1983 Chevy Caprice with the 3.8.

I won't generalize because there are always exceptions, but yea, I'm not a hatchback kinda guy. Gimmie a big coupe any day. I'll take a sport sedan in the event that a decent luxury coupe isn't available.

With their grandfather?

Where would GM be without the UAW? About 100 billion richer....

GM should get the credit <and often does> for making the most effiecient of the full sizers. That they can also run on E85 should be trumpeted from the mountaintops... even if people can't fill up with E85 locally. It's about perception, they may never buy E85, but in their mind they could..... just like they *could* use that 66k new Escalade to go offroading in.

Oh no!!! not him! Kidding..... congrats man.... I try bribing them with money and I still can't get any respect around here [/dangerfield]

Eldorado Riviera Aurora I like the Cutlass Supreme also.. but you get caught in a Catch-22 with that one. The 3.1 is a bit of a boat anchor in that car, the 3.4 DOHC is great... but can be tough to work on... and there aren't many mods. I do recommend the 3.4 on performance alone though.

v. And strangely both of the above are platform mates with both of the below...respectively.... v. one might think that Hyundai/Kia was copying the Lincoln/Jaguar template.... I get shouted down for this one a lot....

Except that the price of refined gasoline is rising faster then the price of crude oil.

Is that a can of St. Ides?

Hydrogen isn't viable because it isn't a positive energy source. It takes more energy to create usable hydrogen then the hydrogen provides in return.

but they are much closer to a "Net 0" then regular petrolium. The CO2 that comes from Ethanol is just the CO2 that was absorbed by the plant in the first place.

*farts*

Bio-diesel isn't cheaper then gas per gallon because the infrastructure isn't up to speed yet. Bio-diesel *is* cheaper per mile of use though since you get much better mileage then gasoline.

That's ok, plants can still be built in Mexico...... I guess you could say the jobs are going somewhere....

No, never blame the union that held the management's feet to the fire by threatening to strike... there is plenty of blame to go around.... both sides can share it.

Uh...GM and Ford are the only manufacturers that offer full sized trucks and some SUVs that can run on an alternative to petrol. Guess what... Toyota doesn't. You can have as many hybrids as you want, but at this point they still ALL run on petrol. Ford could have a super trump card if they made the Escape Hybrid a FFV. I'm really hoping GM is smart enough to make the Hybrid GMT-900s FFV. An E85 burning, active fuel management, hybrid Avalanche could really take the wind out of Toyota's hybrid sales.

I don't know what the Toyotas are like, but apparently GM managed to get their 6-speeds into a package smaller then their old 4-speeds.

I think from the press releases, the most number of gears the 7 and 8 speeds can jump at a time is 2. I think a jump from 8 to 3 would be a bit drastic don't you?