Thursday, April 27, 2006

Ford Escape Holds Up Well as Taxi Cab A few months back someone gave me a political button to wear. It said "Stop Global Warming" and also said something about an vigil style protest to happen December 11, 2005. So what did it do that day? Bought an SUV. It wasn't a hybrid either. Despite all my objections, my wife insists that the Honda CR-V handles so much better and is just so much more reliable. For me, this was really hard as I realized she is not nearly so devoted to envionmental causes as I am. To me, when better choices came available, the normal old ICE only vehicles became unacceptable. This was about a month after I attended the ASPO Conference on Peak Oil. I was buying a car with 30% worse gas mileage. Toyota was airing ads showing people taking deep breaths of hybrid enhanced, less polluted air. I was buying a car with a CARB emmissions rating ten times what I could have. OK for other people maybe, but not for me. To her, tiny differences in handling and Consumer Reports overcame the huge differences in mileage and pollution. Keeping the wife happy was really the only jusification I could find to go along with the CR-V. But I still hate that car. It doesn't help that the color she chose is oil slick grey. One thing the ASPO Conference pointed out was that automobiles stay in the fleet for a long time. The choice we made not only encourages the auto makers to continue with ICE only vehicles, but our car, and every car like it, will be on the road polluting and guzzling for another 10 to 20 years. This moral transgression that we have commited is no small temporary thing at all. Anyway, on to happier times. The Auto Channel says the Ford Escape Hybrid is holding up pretty well in very demanding taxi service in New York and San Francisco. Here are a few links from arguments I made back in December... Wheels TV -- Review of Ford Escape Hybrid HybridCars.com -- Hybrid Incentives by State Clean Car Campaign -- Hybrid Incentives by State Colorado Department of Revenue -- Specifics of Tax Incentives for Hybrids in Colorado SB03-91 -- Bill Authorizing Tax Incentives and Hybrid use of HOV Lanes I would have thought the HOV thing would have got her, since she commutes to Denver. Alas.... 11:29:06 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2006 Joe Biegelsen. Last update: 5/2/2006; 1:05:12 PM.