For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come. :D


Mini to the max: Will the Smart car grow on U.S. drivers?

Story Highlights
The Smart car goes on sale in the United States in January

The ultra-compact two-seater is designed to get at least 40 miles per gallon

Car is expected to be big among first-time buyers, city dwellers, baby boomers

Size prompts questions about safety, but company touts steel-cage technology

By A. Pawlowski
CNN
(CNN) -- There's a petite new contender ready to tackle America's problems of foreign oil dependency and urban congestion.

Meet the Smart car: An ultra-compact, Mercedes-designed, head-turning little vehicle that's been negotiating traffic and squeezing into impossibly tiny spaces in Europe for almost a decade.

Now, it's about to go on sale in the United States.

One reason the company waited so long to introduce it to Americans was that the U.S. wasn't ready for such a small car, said Jessica Gamarra, marketing specialist for Smart USA.

But choking traffic and rising gas prices have changed that, she said.

"I think we've finally gotten into a mindset where we are starting to look at conserving rather than consuming, and I think that especially makes this car the right car at the right time," Gamarra said.

The Smart is expected to get at least 40 miles per gallon.

But fuel-economy may be an afterthought for some buyers. Many are simply expected to purchase the car for the "wow factor" once it hits dealerships in January.

"You get something that looks totally different than anything else on the road," said Csaba Csere, editor-in-chief of Car and Driver magazine. "So if you kind of want to be looked at and want to be the first on your block with the new hardware, the Smart does that."

But Csere advised prospective Smart car buyers to take a realistic look at their driving habits.

"I would make sure that a car this small will meet your needs," Csere said. "If your driving is mostly on city streets or maybe city freeways, the car is going to be fine. But this is not a car that you want to do long distances in on the highway."

The automotive Web site Edmunds.com had a similar verdict.

It praised the Smart for its styling, economy, "zippy" handling and ability to park almost anywhere.

But it raised concerns about the Smart's "anxiety-causing" size and -- with prices starting at about $11,600 -- it found the vehicle expensive compared with bigger cars in its class.

"As a second, commuting-only car, it's wonderful, but those with room for only one vehicle in the garage may want to consider a larger subcompact or compact car," the Edmunds.com review said.

'Neat gadget'

Many Americans got their first look at the Smart car during the "street smart" road show, which brought the tiny vehicles to more than 50 cities across the country during the summer and fall.

In all, about 70,000 people showed up to check out the Smart and more than 40,000 took a test drive, Gamarra said. Some stood in line for hours. The tour was part of what the company calls "discovery marketing."

"We really like to give people the chance to see, touch, feel and drive the car versus just showing them a television ad," she said. "Because it's so new ... it's something that you really need to wrap your head around by experiencing it." Watch a Smart car test drive in the Big Apple »

The road show's recent stop in New York generated many comments. One fan called it a "cool, little, neat gadget;" another declared: "I just want to buy one immediately."

But other people were nervous about the size of the car.

"They're a little too small for this country, and I think people will think they're kind of flimsy," one man remarked.

"I don't know if I'd want to be on the [highway] doing 60 miles an hour and have a c

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

Well, if I ever went to Paris, I'd rather try to drive a Smart car while eluding the cops there like in the "Da Vinci Code" than attempt it with a Challenger on those small streets. :D

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

My brothers Honda Civic gets that kind of gas milage!:D

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

Anyone concerned w/ gas mileage and on this site with the intent of purchasing a Challenger as their primary source of transportation is sadly confused (even for the 6). This car as it exists is not conducive for for gas savings.

Now for those who want power and gas savings...it'll only run 50% more than the top end challenger....

http://www.zapworld.com/electric-veh...ric-cars/zap-x

155 MPH, 655 HP, 10 cents a mile? 10 minute recharge. Does it take a nuclear physicist to figure this one out?

If I weren't a Mopar enthusiast this probably would have been my only car (no toy and commuter car, just one car for both), A Rust-thang or a Scare-maro would not hold a candle to this.

Why not best of both worlds. (sound am great, but I'm in it for speed and whip lashing torque)....

With all this said, the Challenger is a guilty pleasure. Let the gas flow! If I am to purchase a KVN air filter for my Chally, it will only be to make the tank empty that much faster (provided hp gleaned out of it for the investment)!

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those.

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

It would make a great golf cart for rainy weather. :D

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

Really, and I do mean really. I'd rather walk!:D But by no means does that mean I won't want any of you to drive one. We need all the offset we can get when the Challenger hits the street. So all who live in big cities and small towns... you go buy one to offset my carbon... tracking... carbon something foot print.;)

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

Dude, NICE GOAT!!!! That thing is awesome!

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

W/ a 4.8 second 0-60 and a top speed of 155, I don't see anything trite about this vehicle; but then again, I'm a little more open minded about some things than others are.

I can respect performance for performance sake, it doesn't have to be packaged in any particular form and spoon fed to me in order for me to understand the potential of it.

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

what is the catch on this vehicle, sounds too good to be true, and you know what they say about that.
the car will probably get you 20 minutes in january with the heater, lights and fan on.
how can you recharge all that battery storage in 10 minutes, you would need some huge cable to handle the amperage, don't think I have that in my house.

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

Valid about catches, real world application, etc.

But, if it lives up to the specs in the brochure, it has to get anyone with an imagination pondering the possibilities.

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

So Smart's are actually affordable for a change. Doesn't matter, I still refuse to drive a golf cart. I feel the same way about electric cars. I think they're death traps if the battery packs get damaged in a car accident, besides they are normally extremely expensive to purchase.

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

These were initially being proposed at $60K. That's 33% more than a top of the line challenger. Between the two, I have made my decision.

I'm buying the SRT Chally for all the wrong reasons and that's a large part of the purchase decision. Again though if it weren't there, I'd delight in dusting conventional muscle cars while being some twisted throttle happy, tree hugger type.

I'm not about saving the planet, man.....(though that's an admirable objective)

but hey, if you can get your kicks for relatively cheap (when you add up the TCO) and not fund the enemies of western civilization, then why not? It's does not have to be about some Ralph Nader/Al Gore eco/ego trip. (Read State of Fear, by Mike Creighton)

If I can go fast w/o emboldening and empowering America's enemies, aren't I obligated to do such? And being that Electricity is largely produced by American energy resources (Coal, thank you great State of WV and go Mountaineers! Hydroelectric Plants Thank you Nevada/NY/Washington/PA and all others) this money gets pumped back into our own economy. It's a politically responsible and patriotic endeavor as well.

W/ all this delineated, I'm still getting the Gas guzzler, paying the penalty taxes and enjoying every minute of it. But I would certainly not knock anyone who took the next bold step and purchased the next gen in automobile (yes I know they had electric cars at the turn of the 20th century) but this incarnation. I would liken this to purchasing an internal combustion engine over a Stanley Steamer back in the early 1900s.

Have to admit, not sure how the battery packs are crash proofed and that's another valid point.

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

I knew they were going for at least $30K but I never heard $60K. That is why I referred to the SMART as the STUPID. Way too much for a golf cart. I would like it if we could come up with an alternative to importing fuel, but I don't think that electricity is the route. So many areas already have trouble keeping up with their power supplies as it is and this would only make things worse. Also the simple fact is crude oil is needed for more than just powering engines. What I would like to see is our country lowering some of the regulations and allowing us to build new refineries, drill for more oil off the west coast (where hurricanes are not as troublesome as the Gulf of Mexico) and in other places they are not allowed to drill currently, investing further into biofuels that work better than Ethanol (Butanol and Biodiesel), and performing further research into making engines, transmissions, and other components more fuel efficient without sacrificing safety or power.

Southern IL used to be on that list for the Coal but they stopped that thanks to the emissions laws. Up where I currently live, they starting to build those huge 3 bladed windmills.

About saving the planet, I think that is over exaggerated. I don't think we have that much control over our planet, and it seems to me that many of the steps they suggest on how to "save the planet" actually cause more pollution, so I don't buy into all of that personally.

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

OK, for the record, I refuse to argue with someone I am agreeing with, mostly.

State of Fear is a work of fiction which is peppered with foot notes indicating the lack of science behind Man Made Global Warming Craze.

I'm 37, but I remember well in the 70's all the hullabaloo (I don't think anyone on this forum's really old enough to use this word, but it's fun sometimes) about particulate in the air b/c of pollution which would block out the sun's rays and cause a pseudo nuclear winter. From the 70's freezing to the 90's warming; I think complex systems like the earth's climate might be a bit too difficult to get a solid tack on just yet (before quantum computers provide us with the modeling processor power necessary to even start trying to figure out and even then it would be folly).

The reason I find this golf cart intriguing is primarily economic. I find it interesting to have the kind of power available to me that rivals cars what would require 20 times more to operate (OK just fuel being considering so there are some gross liberties I am taking with assumptions supporting my logic). I find that a car that could accelerate me to a 0-60 in 4.8 and 155 mph while costing 1/20th the price to be scintillating thought fodder. As far as the operation I cannot extrapolate what the entire TCO would run, but being that we'll probably see $4.00 a gallon fuel in the not too distant future, the acquisition price versus the operating has to be considered for the entirety of the life of the vehicle and I was always under the impressions that electric motors had excellent reliability as they had so little moving parts and none were changing directions reducing further a source of stress, also, they were far more efficient than internal combustion engines.

I'm on board with getting rid of NIMBY and BANANA as an approach to rid ourselves of mideast oil. If Brazil (granted they have an excellent environment for producing sugar cane) can switch to an alcohol run transportation system, then why not us. It would certainly be refreshing for the government to subsidize farmers to grow as opposed to not grow crops.

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

That's fine, I see this as a friendly discussion, at worst a very mild debate, but not necessarily an argument.

Okay, what I was mostly refering to was the SMART, not that electric car. Did you say that those electric cars cost around $60,000? If so it would take a little over 6 years to make up the difference between that and a Charger SRT-8 (since that would be about the closest match to the Challenger), not taking into account the expense of the electricity and the extreme expense of replacing the battery packs. (The Charger SRT-8 is stated at costing $38,820 which I rounded up to $39K and the annual fuel cost is rated at $3222 a year according to http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/sbs.htm) Those are very expensive to replace. That is another reason why I'm not sold on those cars. If someone wants to get one, more power to them but don't add me to the list.

I know about the fear of freezing during the 70s as my parents taught me about that to demostrate why it is important not to believe everything that "experts" say. My theory is that the climate changes on its own like it has with the other planets in the solar system as well as it does with the Sun.

You know a couple of years ago I thought the same thing about the Brazil example and it was explained that they don't have near the fuel consumption as we do and as a result it is easiler to replace gasoline with biofuels along with the fact that the sugar cane is a cost effective source for biofuels than corn. Believe me I wish it were that easy especially since a lot of my family members, friends, and clients are farmers and it would really help them, but I think we need to try other biofuels that work better as well as produce more of our own oil so then we don't have to import it. I agree it would be better and certainly more logical to subsidize for production instead of not producing since we now have a new use for those crops besides just for food consumption.

RE: For all of you concerned with gas guzzling engines in the Challenger.....your time has come.
 

I've made your same point debating the folly of hybrids (expense of replacing batteries and from an eco standpoint well now you get to something I do believe is potentially bad disposing of these things responsibly is probably fairly costly as well).

As for the cost of Electricity, they indicate that it costs $3.20 for 320 miles. That's what makes it attractive.

Of course, if I were putting together a solution, I'd take a page out of Chrysler's history book and couple it with Reverend Dr Robert Sterling's invention to create a Turbine Engine mated to an electrical generator with a sterling engine placed directly in contact or integrated into (to make use of the thermal energy produced by the turbine) with a radiator placed strategically in front or on top to maximize temperature differentials thus driving the sterling engine with greater intensity and hook that up to an electrical generator as well and obviously throw in the regenerative brakes (to produce electricity while slowing/stopping the vehicle). The beauty of this solution is largely based on the fact that the turbine engine will run on anything flammable (biodiesel, gasoline, diesel, fry grease, alcohol). One of the shortcomings of the turbine engine was that it was hard to harness and control the distribution (via transmission) of energy to accelerate, etc. If you have this very flexible (with regards to fuels being used) engine driving something that can run optimally for it and then couple that with an engine that doesn't just let all that by product heat energy just go unused, well now you're getting somewhere.

All's I need is a little venture capital! ;)