1.) Performance cars are still cars.
2.) Cars are not evil.
3.) Cars, all cars, contribute to less then 3% of all air pollution.
4.) Regardless of speed, all cars pollute, even your 50+ mpg hybrid.
5.) You can love the environment and love your BMW M5 or Dodge Viper. Just be sure to use environmentally friendly soap.
6.) These exotic cars are probably driven very little. Therefore they will actually contribute less to pollution of the environment than your daily-driver hybrid.
7.) Some of these cars are works of art. Art is not pollution.
8.) If it weren't for people thinking about, being passionate about, and loving cars, you wouldn't have hybrids or even engines that get 30 mpg.
9.) My car has 400 hp. That's 350 more than your hybrid. It also gets 28 mpg. Does that make me evil? I think not.

Celebrating the destruction of people and their property in the name of the environment is perverse.

1.) Performance cars are still cars.
2.) Cars are not evil.
3.) Cars, all cars, contribute to less then 3% of all air pollution.
4.) Regardless of speed, all cars pollute, even your 50+ mpg hybrid.
5.) You can love the environment and love your BMW M5 or Dodge Viper. Just be sure to use environmentally friendly soap.
6.) These exotic cars are probably driven very little. Therefore they will actually contribute less to pollution of the environment than your daily-driver hybrid.
7.) Some of these cars are works of art. Art is not pollution.
8.) If it weren't for people thinking about, being passionate about, and loving cars, you wouldn't have hybrids or even engines that get 30 mpg.
9.) My car has 400 hp. That's 350 more than your hybrid. It also gets 28 mpg. Does that make me evil? I think not.

Celebrating the destruction of people and their property in the name of the environment is perverse.

I agree with most of PhishJam's comments. One of the reasons I left an environmental non-profit after 4 years was the extreme hippocrisy and self-rightneous snobbishness encountered there. EVERYTHING humans do is ecologically damaging to some extent. To reiterate, most owners of expensive, gas-guzzling exotics rarely drive them; they just aren't the type of vehicle that's enjoyable on the stop-and-go 1 hour commute to work. Additionally, many of the engineers working on your beloved hyprogen cars (as well as plausible plug-in diesel electric hybrids) have cut their teeth on high-performance automobiles. Without that experience on the track, we probably wouldn't have the Insight, Prius, or Jetta TDI.

phishJam,

>1.) Performance cars are still cars.

Yes, and coal power plants are still power plants. Your point?

>2.) Cars are not evil.

They definitely bring both good and evil. Some are worse than others. Equating all cars is downright silly.

>3.) Cars, all cars, contribute to less then 3% of all air pollution.

Depends where. On average over the earth, it's possible although I'd like to see the source of that statistic (you've never seen the blue hazes of diesel exhaust over the hills in Europe, eh?). In cities, not likely

4.) Regardless of speed, all cars pollute, even your 50+ mpg hybrid.

Yes, but some pollute less than others. A Prius is AT-PEZ (partial zero emission vehicle, which is over 90% cleaner than even ULEV IIRC).

>5.) You can love the environment and love your BMW M5 or Dodge Viper. Just be sure to use environmentally friendly soap.

You can love the environment and be a hypocrite, and you can love the environment and not be perfect. Some people will justify everything they do as being "not that bad" and keep doing stuff they could easily avoid doing, others will aim to be as good as they can be within reasonable limits (fufill their needs). Driving a Viper is not being as good as you can be, and I find the rationalizations used to explain ownership of such vehicles dowright infantile in most cases. I mean, if I live in a 35 bedroom hollywood-style mansion, can I just say: "well, my mansion is a work of art, and I use non-phosphorous soap, so everything's good!"

>6.) These exotic cars are probably driven very little. Therefore they will actually contribute less to pollution of the environment than your daily-driver hybrid.

Yes, they are lower volume cars. That's true. But should I permit myself to do anything bad I want just because "I'm just one person and am only a drop of water in the ocean?" That's not that kind of thinking that will lead us to a sustainable society. It's just a result of the ME ME ME society.

>7.) Some of these cars are works of art. Art is not pollution.

Art can be pollution/polluting. No doubt about that.

>8.) If it weren't for people thinking about, being passionate about, and loving cars, you wouldn't have hybrids or even engines that get 30 mpg.

That's strange logic. People can be passionate about cars without driving gas-guzzlers at 120mph on public roads. Besides, high oil prices and pollution are what is bringing more efficiency, not race-car addicts (just look at how much gain in efficiency we had before oil crisis) on their own (in fact, they bring the inverse, usually, with horsepower races between carmakers going on all the time because they have bigger profit margins on powerful cars).

>9.) My car has 400 hp. That's 350 more than your hybrid. It also gets 28 mpg. Does that make me evil? I think not.

Please tell me what kind of car it is, I'm really curious. I don't own a car, btw, and no hybrid currently sold that I know of has a 50 hp engine.

>Celebrating the destruction of people and their property in the name of the environment is perverse.

I agree. But you'll notice that it isn't what I was doing in that post, and I was careful to point that out. I was highlighting a symptom of our society of over-consumption, not laughing at car accidents.

Thank you for your comment, drive safely.

Sorry - but the author of this entry is not only a self-righteous prig, but the gloating motivation behind posting it shows him up to be a very dark and perverse soul. Shame on TreeHugger for not editing this nasty post out. It really stains your reputation to have this sort of thing on your site.

Ah yes, when nothing works, ad hominem...

TreeHugger is about being smart, efficient, stylish, respectful of nature, etc.

There's nothing smart, efficient, stylish or respectful of nature about driving gas-guzzling racecars on public roads, and them crashing at very high speeds and destroying lives is just another symptom of our over-comsumption and selfish society, the same way that most other pollution problems are.

Spin it any way you want, owning a Ferrari Enzo that gets 8mpg is overcomsumption and un-treehugger. Crashing it at 150mph on a public road, killing a family in a minivan that was going at 60mph is the worse of the worse and I don't have a problem denouncing it. I do have a problem with many aspects of wreckedexotics.com though, as I *did* point out in my post, but we don't have to post only about things we 100% endorse.

"t is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." -Aristotle

And next you'll be posting pix of property that enviro-terrorits like the wacko arm of PETA have destroyed or vandalized.
I stand by my remarks. The post and the disgusting schadenfreude sentiment behind it have no place on TreeHugger. If I was an editor here you'd be suspended for a week or two.

That has nothing to do with eco-terrorists and destroying property; these cars were destroyed by their owners (along with the lives of bystanders in most cases).

If we use your analogy, the drivers of these cars are closer to being the PETA wackos and radical Earth First! people.. They are the ones doing extreme things and causing damage on multiple levels.

As a bicyclist and a safe driver, I hate these speeding assholes with a passion. To hear that some of them elimintated themselvs from the gene pool makes me smile. If they took some innocent lives in the process would be a crime.
CARS SUCK.
http://www.cars-suck.org/

Thank you to the OP.

Sometimes more horsepower is safer...the on ramp onto a highway is a place you don't want to be weak in...a slow poke that can't enter a lane at proper speed will get knocked off.

Any car you drive must be driven safely...

And it is true that the focus on more horsepower and racing has lead to gains in fuel efficiency. The LeMans race cars do not have time to make pit stops every five minutes because their 1000 horsepower speedster is a gas guzzler. They also don't like the added weight of fuel. So researchers have gone about the task making these high power motos more fuel efficient. Without the brains behind speed an power, the CVT transmission in most hybrids would not be able to transmit enough power to make a 76hp Prius reach a decent speed of 70MPH in 17 seconds.

Also...high speeds (meaning highway) usually equate to more fuel savings. At high speeds, the cars momentum keeps it moving forward instead of constantly getting push from the engine...the engine is practicly running idle at the highest gear if you aren't accelerating.

Use your brains...cars are around to fit peoples needs, desires, and capabilities...pollution won't destroy the Earth for atleast a few centuries if this continues...and as greedy as this sounds...I won't be around to see the difference...Most pollution is caused by much larger power plants and large trucks and planes...not autos...

JUST LET IT BE.....

First of all, you should just accept that cars are going to be a necessary "evil" for many years to come. All cars pollute( regardless of how little or how much) and so these "assholes" with low volume, high performance cars are no less guilty that you owners of a Prius. And so i agree with Leunamme.

People will always think of themselves first and what they desire... its in our nature, we are hedonists( as much as we deny it). I think the few people who are concious of the state of our enviroment( such as yourselves) are very noble yet hopelessly out-gunned.

If you ride a bike thats great but ultimatly our race will consume everything on this planet. So get over yourself and enjoy your time here cause its probably the best its ever going to get.

Let it be...

Thanks Leunamme

It's funny how "treehuggers" complain about cars being bad for the environment and how they pollute and how people have stuff that they really don't need. But the fact is that cars are the least of our problems. One plane burns more fuel on one single trip than a few hundred cars do in a weeks time. Also if you hate pollution so much then why do you continue to live in cities....is it because you just like to complain about stupid issues because you like the attention it brings. Everyone one this planet should have an equal right to do things the way the would like to. You may like to ride your bike on the weekends, but a family might like to go and watch cars race around and burning fuel and polluting the air. The funny thing is that I have seen "treehuggers" driving cars that burn oil like crazy and probably get about 17 miles per gallon when the car was designed to get 30 miles per gallon. If they were so concerned about the air, then they would do routine maintence on their vehicles, and they could also get a newer car and take care of that one. But none the less they still manage to waste money, that could go to repairs, on stickers that complain about something. You can probably tell by now that I'm not an environmentalist of any sort but I do know how to respect what people want. I don't go around and make fun of people because they have different looks on life than I do. I also recall reading about people being selfish, but couldn't you consider yourself as being selfish because your trying to get people to change so that they can make the environment to your specifications. But it doesn't work that way. If everyone listened to the same thing and did everything the same way as the other guy, this world would be boring and wouldn't be as great as it is. Yeah there are wars, and you probably think that America is the problem but what about the wars that they have over in irag and those other countries where all they do is fight and kill over religious beliefs. But no matter what you do it's not going to change everybody and all you will do is make others mad because they don't want to be converted to different ways of life. I know that this post doesn't have to do with just cars but it's what I felt like saying at the moment.

From my experience, the people doing the most damage to the environment with their cars are the one who don't care for their cars. Drivers of expensive cars tend to keep their cars in top condition. However, most of the cars which leave behind a plume of blue smoke (caused by motor oil leaking into the combustion chamber) and have their exhaust pipe falling of (thus allowing unfiltered exhaust to escape) tend to also be covered with bumper stickers showing how much the owner cares for the environment. How can you tell me to "hug a tree" when I'm behind you struggling to breathe?

*****Quote Above******
>9.) My car has 400 hp. That's 350 more than your hybrid. It also gets 28 mpg. Does that make me evil? I think not.

Please tell me what kind of car it is, I'm really curious. I don't own a car, btw, and no hybrid currently sold that I know of has a 50 hp engine.

*****End Quote******

Actually, this would be the 2006 Chevrolet Corvette with Manual Transmission. 400 Horsepower, 18MPG City / 28MPG Highway.

The amount of energy consumed to make any car is quite large. Consider all the people driving to the factory, etc. To take a perfectly good standard car and switch over to a Toyota Prius, the energy saved by driving the car might take it's entire life cycle to make up for the amount of energy consumed to make the car. Also, there is the small problem of batteries. A Prius is filled with many of these "toxic waste dumps in a box"

Don't get me wrong, I currently drive a 1993 BMW 325i and get 20/28 mpg (by the way, almost identical to the Corvette with less than 1/2 the power), and I am now considering a Jetta Wagon TDI, but there is only one way to really fix this problem.

It will be very easy to walk/ride a bike once the earth runs out of gas and noboby gets to drive anywhere. Imagine riding your bike 20 miles to work on the 6 lane superhighway that was once packed with parked cars during rush hour.

my car leaks oil and has a 440 big block 4 barrel gas gussling engine. it smokes a bit and when i park it it leaks about a half quart of oil where ever i go. so if you step in some it could be mine.

I don't see anywhere on the site that the cars were doing 120+ MPH when they were crashed. Just because a car can do 120+ MPH (like a Dodge Neon can, or just about any car with 130+ HP can), doesn't mean it was doing that speed.

I'm sure many of these cars crashed bcause a bicycle pulled out in front of them, a tree fell on them, or an inattentive person in a Prius ran a stop sign. You can debate the eco-friendliness of the cars, but acting superior because you think that someone that would drive a fast car is automatically irresponsible and dangerous does nothing but damage your position.

Nice try. Have you looked at the photos? These cars were not going slow when whatever happened happened.

Thanks for the opportunity to disagree with you. I've been a "car guy" all my life. I love 'em! I enjoy driving my '69 Ford Torino GT Fastback to town and back (4 miles) a couple times a week. I also enjoy my '04 Olds Bravada with AWD on the wintery MI roads. My daily driver is a '02 Pontiac Bonneville SSEi - Supercharged. They all have one thing in common: they transport me and my stuff from point A to point B. I like EFI and Nitros. I like NASCAR, NHRA, and watching the local boys duke it out on 1/4 mile tracks - straight and round. Now, multiply me and my likes by 100's of 1000's of people all accross this great land of ours. We're willing to pay higher gas prices for the trade-offs of power, safety -pit my Bravada against your Prius in a really bad accident!- and comfort. I'm a nice guy, really. But I don't like underpowered, ugly, little cars. They're uncomfortable and slow. How boring. Their mpg goes down as soon as you turn the heat or air on. I can't pull anything with a hybird. So for me, they're useless. Don't condemn me because I don't want a hybird. As a travel nurse it would also be impossible to get to work 240 miles one way. What? You want me to ride a stinky, air polluting bus? My point is: Car guys (and gals) are here to stay. If they build a better car (better mileage, power, comfort, safety) that meets my needs - I'll probably buy it. Used of course!

ok guys here is a question for those who are bombarding cars and car lover, what would you suggest to the people who have to drive 50 to 60 miles one way to work? (besides carpooling and mass trans) if you look around every single thing that you use contributes to pollution. you want an example? sure, how about your home AC and heat? how about your washer and dryer? and, the best, how about your asses? your fart is a contribution to pollution too. :D so what are you going to do now? start living under the sky and wash your clothes in the stream and not fart? that will contribute to other kinds of pollution and you dont want me to go into that. my point is that no matter what you use or do you are contributing to pollution. some pollutants are taken care of naturally and some are taken care by preventive steps. i dont own a muscle car, heck not even a fast car but i admire them and if ever i have enough money i will buy one too. its not the technology that is destroying the atmosphere, its the ignorant people. if you can fix them then these gas guzzlers will be no problem.
long live the muscle cars!!!!!!!

"ok guys here is a question for those who are bombarding cars and car lover, what would you suggest to the people who have to drive 50 to 60 miles one way to work?"

Generally the people who are critical of our over-reliance on cars and of the negative impacts of the car culture are also against urban sprawl and over-long commutes.

this is my first time on this page followed a link in from a car page. i am a bit of a car nut and i agree with a lot of the statments on both sides here people really understand that most of those cars are barly legal in the us and its more liky that they crashed in europe where their might not be a speed limit. just pointing that out yes there are a good number due to driver stupidity theirs or others. as for fuel milage its the gear ratios that decide top speed and mpg more then horsepower the jetta gli 2004 only gets 27mpg highway with 180hp but a 1.8t with the same motor gets 31. and not all of us can afford a gas saving car i drive a big 4500lb olds with a 3.8l v6 but i drive between 45-60 no ac windows up and i can pull 28 or 29 mpg out of it i have it cause it only cost 600 dollars which is all i could get. as for citys most smart city dwellers only have a car to leave the city anyway hey in 20 or 30 years the prices will be so high that no one will drive anyway maybe oil will be on the way out by then i'm praing for that but tomany people got to rich off it to just walk away. we'll just have to see what happens...

All Cars ARE evil.



So are humans if look at things some ways.



The question is not the material object, but's it's use. A car is the same thing as what was know 150years ago as a stage coach. It has a certain social function.



I hate cars because I am passionate about social justice. I am interested in the environment because it is the public commons we all share. Environmentalism is a strange idea.



I don't hate all car drivers. I love the ingenuity in the technology of cars. There is no justification for our society having people move around the city in cars mass transit. Individuals faced with a screwy society can't be held responsible for EVERYTHING or considered EVIL if you are trying to be constructive.



PS: though tailpipe emissions are but a minor aspect of the ugliness that is The Automobile, 3% is B.S. Cars are in fact the major lifestyle choice we make that leads to massive air pollution. Sure some of it is 'industrial' pollution, but look at what industry it is, dude.

ive tried to justify eating meat and not hunting. killing is killing. if i refuse to kill one animal but will still ea it i am a hypocrit. so instead i am a barbarian who will kill to eat.



and so i can only justify driving what i do and how i do one way. i am not an environmentalist. i am once again a barbarian who will pollute to have my fun. ill teach my kids dont drive for fun unless youre pretty damn sure the streets are empty. even better wait for the weekend and go to an auto cross course. i wont try some slight-of-hand these-are-low-production-car arguement. the fact is i am doing harm to the planet. i am hurting the people around me however negligible the harm. and so instead of worrying about the great or minor offence i bestow upon my neighbors with my pollutants, i choose to call myself an evil barbarian, continue to pollute in my fun, and ignore the ignorable.



oh and one more thing. to the person who something to the effect of "look at those cars. its obvious they werent in low speed accidents." i will agree that those are some scary looking photos but the photos dont tell the whole truth. it is possible that any one of those cars was driving down a two lane highway at 50mph and was somehow hit head on by an 18wheeler going 50mph in the opposite direction. perhaps the driver of one of the two vehicles fell asleep and veered into the opposite lane. sad things happen to innocent people at legal speeds.



be cars evil then so be i.



the only sin i atone for is that of misspelling. forgive the typos please.

I am a Datsun/Nissan driver, in fact I own several Nissan cars all made before 1984. I don’t like over development (i.e. urban spiral), or over decedent over consumption. I like to have wild places that I can go to. I will take public transport when I can, and if this were Japan, I would just leave the car at home most days. So, I love cars, and in fact, I am a sports car mechanic, but I also don’t go overboard with cars. I walk and bike when I can. And I am buying a motorcycle so that I can save gas (Honda); this will allow me to drive my performance cars when I want and how I want and still use less gas than an average commuter does in a week with a Honda. Also, I can get 30 MPG using 1980’s technology, and I even get around 30 with my turbo 2.8 ltr.

I love all this talk about fast cars Vs. environment. That is not the case; you don’t need massive power to go fast. Collin Chapman said something that is appropriate, “Just add lightness”, and I would add what I say “If you have good aerodynamics you don’t need lots of power, you just cheat the wind”; what this means is that I can build a car that gets massively fantastic mileage and can do 150+ when needed. All this could be done using 1980’s technology, but until now, it was easier just to stick in a bigger engine.


Case in point: JAPAN. Look at the Japanese car production and tuning industry from a historical perspective and you will find that the Japanese have become masters of getting more power from less engine. Case in point: the RB-series of engines like the RB26DETT (2.6 ltr DOHC, EFI, Twin-Turbo). There is a reason for this; Japan has no oil and must import all of it. So efficiency became the name of the game in Japan. Lend to this things like “displacement tax” and that just makes automakers think more creatively about how to get 400+ BHP from a 2 ltr. Motor. That is why you have cars like the Lancer Evolution series that get massive power from a small engine and get close to 30 highway! American companies just never had to think this way until now, and they are still resisting change.


And that brings me to my next point; HYBRIDS ARE UNNESSARY! And I refuse to be hoodwinked into believing they are the only way forward. Cars are being built in places like Japan that get hybrid mileage figures but that have standard IC engine systems. This all due to the appropriate use of technology! You can build a standard car with a under 1000cc turbocharged, intercooled engine that feels like a bigger car when needed, but gets mileage like a hybrid. If we could get the products that companies like Mitsubishi and Nissan build in Japan from either a Japanese or American maker, they would sell extremely well. I just think that American makers think people won’t buy them, but look at Scion, they are selling all over the place! This is why the Japanese “Keicar” (pronounced “K-car”) and a American domestic Keicar industry would do very well. It would also help to revitalize the US auto industry by creating many companies to make Keicars and not just a few big players.

The other issue with hybrids such as from Toyota is that they are overly complex, even for a hybrid. They just stuff as much tech into the car, but never think of life after assembly. If hybrids are to be on the roads more, I like the new Subaru system; simple and you still get the benefits of the hybrid drive.

In closing, you don’t need a huge amount of power or a huge engine to go fast and make big power. The solutions are easy and don’t need to be overly complex. I could build a car with off the shelf parts that gets hybrid mileage with just a gas engine. Advanced materials such as carbon fiber will take the small displacement cars even further and they will still be able to generate more power than large engines. New types of turbo systems are coming out all the time and the aftermarket is full well made turbo kits from reputable manufacturers. I recommend a turbocharger be added to any car, but especially to small displacement cars; more power and great mileage. As long as the kit makers recommendations are followed with installation, operation and upkeep, then there should be no problems and life of worry free operations.

In regards to fast driving, the car is only as capable as the driver is. The problem is that the drivers think they are capable by virtue that they can afford the car.