Green Cars?

[Alexander]

This a list of supposed "green cars." These cars are supposedly environmentally friendly. http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center-top100/ The list is mostly of hybrids and they are mostly foreign cars.

In actuality any old car is much more environmentally friendly than these new cars. First a car that has lasted fifty years has saved a lot of energy, because it did not need to be replaced. Cars are not grown in fields. It takes a lot of energy to build a car - probably the equivalent of a few years of driving. In an old car parts can be rebuilt. A carburetor, fuel pump, power steering components take only a few smal pieces in an old car to be made brand new. On a new car you need to replace the part. The big part you take out on a new car ends up on a landfill. The large number of batteries in these hybrids is also an environmental disaster. Will all the acid and lead in these batteries be recycled when they need to be replaced. I doubt it.

A old car is green, no matter its color. Most yuppies buying these supposedly "green cars" are too ignorant to see that.

Alexander
1959 Hardtop
1960 Golde Top

[tarps3]

RE: Green Cars?

I couldn't agree with you more Alexander.

It is much more environmentally friendly to recycle and drive an old car instead of buying new cars every few years. No matter if they are hybrid or not.


In addition, the newer cars won't last more than a couple of decades anyway - where do you think all that plastic ends up? Plastic that will sit there for generations without breaking down or degrading..

Even an old car eaten up with rust (back when they actually made them out of metal) will eventually return to the earth in the form of iron-oxide (rust).
By driving an old car instead of a new one, many more resources are saved. There's a reason new cars cost so much - there's a lot of material in there that has to be processed and refined at great cost and energy.

The Feds have a program for green building design that provides credits for reusing old structures in lieu of building new ones. It's the same principle as reusing old cars. Most people see "hybird" and don't take time to really think about it...they are trying to "buy" a green principle instead of taking the effort to actually practice what they preach.

[Alexander]

RE: Green Cars?

I have heard that energy is one of the main costs of producing the whole process from getting the raw material to making a finished car, that in essence when you buy a $30,000 car you are buying $30,000 of energy. It will take a long time for a car to consume $30,000 of gas even at $3 a gallon. At 20 gallons a week, it would take ten years for an old car to burn equivalent of what it takes to produce one new car.

Alexander
1959 Hardtop
1960 Golde Top