tandempower

Many things 'demand' driving. I have been making that point for years, but whenever I do people tell me that there are no structural pushes toward driving and that LCF is a free choice for those who prefer it.

To them, as long as you can survive without driving, no matter the sacrifice, then you have nothing to criticize. If you die trying to LCF, they might consider the possibility of structural bias against your choice, or they might just blame you for not trying hard enough to achieve your dream.

Whatever you choose, please be happy and don't change your dreams/beliefs to fit any man-made economic realities.

Saale

I don't consider any new car an ideal option, they're all too puffed up and stuffed with tech for my liking. Easier to just pick out something that's a bit older, has already proven its reliability and still gets decent economy thanks to being more lightweight. As for choices in new cars I guess it depends on what extent of utility you're actually looking for. In Europe we've traditionally been blessed with lots of hatchbacks and so-called dog catchers, small high roof vans. You can buy the Ford Transit Connect in the US now which I think offers tremendous cargo space for its size and can tow a hefty amount of weight, but it's still rather large, a bit utilitarian on the inside and still gets mediocre fuel economy. Below that size I think your only options are hatchbacks. I'm not sure if VW ever sold Golfs with diesel engines in the US. Personally I have lots of sympathy for the Lexus CT200h, it's the same platform and size as my current Toyota hatchback, but with a Prius drivetrain and a far more premium interior. Then of course there's a wide range of older hatchbacks like Honda Civics and so on which have been getting upwards of 40 mpg since the '90s. Sedans are universally garbage for utility in my eyes.

On a side note I highly doubt that '70s and '80s cars were designed for going up to 80 mph down the highway because at the time the national speed limit was 55.

cooker

Oh they sold diesel VWs in North America alright! Now they're all being modified or recalled.

Walter S

It's amusing to read the same old debates between the LCF diehards and those that choose to own a car. The diehard has to make car ownership be a prohibitively expensive lifestyle choice and paints a worst-case-scenario about just how costly that may be. The car owner has to show how dirt cheap a car can be and insists that only foolish people get burned with expensive costs they never anticipated.

The reader can then walk away with little to go on - just read the truth that you personally like and go with it. Then learn from the real world what your choices will bring, which is what you'd do if you'd never gone to BF for advice in the first place!

Machka 

+1

Happily, some of us are actually able to weigh up the choices for ourselves, and to make the decision that works best for us.

takenreasy

My car for care-light would be a Honda Fit.

KD5NRH

The ones I've driven did fine. The manufacturers didn't want to be stuck with a bunch of 55mph cars if NMSL got repealed sooner than expected. They were tuned for best economy at 55-60, but really didn't lose much at 75-80.

Maelochs

Minivans .... the smaller and older the better. Nowadays "minivans" are almost full-sized vans and have more creature comfort than a luxury car (which are all SUVs now ... whatever) but for highway aero, hauling everything, and camping for the night even in pouring rain .... Find one with a 4-cylinder (I spoke yesterday with a guy who put a rebuilt engine in an early '90s Toyota Previa for $1600 .... for another $1600 in maintenance he will be driving it for another 15 years.)

Bog-slow accelerating, real issue pulling onto a highway .... but set the cruise control to 72 and sleep at the wheel practically. Take out all but the front two seats. Everything you need can be inside out of the elements even with a bike and gear in back you could sleep well enough ... park in the parking lot of a hotel ---use the pool for a quick after-hours dip, then use the restroom in the lobby in the morning and down the road.

Maelochs

Absolutely. And speaking as someone who has been driving since then I can report that no one Ever exceeded it.

Saale

Is that sarcsam then? I mean, they may not have run out of breath at 55 mph exactly, but just looking at the final gear ratio you can easily see they weren't made for particularly high speeds.

Maelochs

Not sure when you started driving but I drove cars in a lot of those decades, and a variety of cars (for a while ai was a driver and drove many different cars for deliveries.)

I can tell you form experience that not a lot of people drove 55 and not a lot of cars couldn't do more than that. Some of the earliest Japanese imports were pretty anemic, but after the first few years of the '70s the engineers realized that American roads and American drivers were as little different, and they adapted.

Read some reviews form auto magazines about the cars form those decades .... make your own decision about what you want to believe.

Sorry, but like I said, I was there, driving ... both around town and highway miles ... 55 was what you drove when and only when a cop was about.

Someone else looking not at numbers but actual experience.

Trakhak

I bought my Scion xB based on a review in Guitar Player magazine; the writer was amazed at how much music equipment he was able to get in it.

Saale

I'm sure you have a point. I'm just a bit spoiled about speed and skeptical about the capabilities of cars from certain home countries.

Maelochs

In any case ... A minivan would be fine, but I have an old Honda ... pretty good for a low-operating-cost car when I need to carry more than one person or more gear than I can fit on a bike ... or when I meed to travel several hundred miles in only several hours. I think i have used it once this year .... good to know it starts readily.

KD5NRH

It's amusing that several years after NMSL was repealed, there was an article in, IIRC, Car and Driver about Nissan and Acura making toned-down versions of some of their sports cars (In particular, the 200SX that I had a 1985 model of - 3 years older than the 65mph modification and ten years older than full repeal. That car's speedometer topped out at 120 and it still had some punch left after the needle was buried. Highest verified for mine was 165mph.) because the vast majority of new car buyers did so little of their actual miles on open roads, so the cars were being tuned for best performance and economy at an average of around 40-45mph.

tandempower

If you tuned a car to get optimum fuel-efficiency at 15-25 mph, it would get really good gas mileage. You could put narrow tires/wheels on it and pump up the tires to super-high pressures. If you could drive cars at these low speeds on highways without stopping and starting, they would be very efficient for long-distance transportation. With self-driving cars, you could just sit for hours and hours not paying attention to the road while waiting to go 100s of miles at 20mph.

It would be like bike-touring without the exercise and sense of accomplishment; but you could carry more cargo and stay dry in the rain.

Maelochs

You could set up a trainer in back.

KD5NRH

Sitting is not a natural position for the human body. That's a large part of why so many people with desk jobs develop lower back problems. Throw in a 2-3 hour each way commute and you might as well just pass out wheelchairs at high school graduations because everybody will need them soon.

Machka 

I can't even express how horrible that would be.

Bored stiff.
Wasting time.
My DVT flaring up.
Hospitalisation again.


I'd much, much, much rather hop aboard a TGV and cover 300 km in an hour, get it over with, and get on with my day.

jon c. 

Traveling longer distances in a practical time frame does indeed demand driving. But what does 'structural push' even mean? Covering a distance of ground more quickly requires a faster conveyance. If you need to cover great distances, living car free is indeed difficult. As living horse free was a few hundred years ago. This is something pushed by any structure, it's just a simple reality..

cooker

TGVs only go from population centre to population centre - the driverless car would take you anywhere cars currently go, and it's not going to be limited to 20 mph. It would be no different than being on a road trip where you or a companion are doing the driving, except that you would be passengers the whole time, and you could snooze, sight-see, read, play games or videos or whatever. You've mentioned that you drive to trailheads - you could do that with a driverless car and nobody would have to drive home at the end of the event, exhausted from the cycling and forcing themselves to stay alert, and perhaps having missed out on the post-ride beers.

tandempower

Rail transport is very energy-efficient, even at high speed, I think, because of the singular punch-through momentum of the train through the wind. Still, rail developments are always hindered by business/labor politics, so we keep getting stuck with tire-d vehicles on asphalt despite their inefficiency. Business and labor love it because it generates more sales and jobs of various kinds.

Maelochs

I hate to sound anti-business, but Detroit is the single biggest obstacle to development in all other transport modes.

I-Like-To-Bike

What is your predicted timeline for the availability of driverless cars to safely take passengers anywhere and/or on road trips to locations not located within the same local metropolitan area, or off the beaten path such as trail heads?

Maelochs

from Now ......




to Then.

What's yous?

(See, I never even guessed it was @cooker who was in charge of such things.)