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Cars are very expensive ($30k on average), and their production is a huge use of crude oil and water and electricity. What you seem to be advocating (and maybe

Cars are very expensive ($30k on average), and their production is a huge use of crude oil and water and electricity. What you seem to be advocating (and maybe I'm reading this wrong) is that people buy multiple cars, one small fuel efficient everyday driver, and one bigger more powerful vehicle for the 5% of the time they need something bigger than a Fiat. Humans are heavy, cargo is heavy, trailers are heavy, and furniture is big. A 1.8L engine in a subcompact can't always support those use cases. I don't know too many people who could afford a $20k car to drive to work and then a $40k truck just to park in their garage 95% of the time. And if they can, they're buying a BMW instead.

ip26 8y ago
What do you require a 3.6L for? A 1.8L will move all the cargo you care to. A 2.5L tows my 1200lb camper over high mountain passes. A big engine is really only a must if you are towing something north of a ton, as far as I'm aware. People tend to buy more engine than they need, and 1.8L's are more powerful than ever. And nobody had 300hp thirty years ago except the sports cars. We survived.
- freehunter 8y ago
  The average American camper weighs 5,200lbs [1] completely empty. Once it's loaded with water, fuel, and gear, it's about 1,500 lbs heavier. I encourage you to find a 1.8L engine that will tow a 6,000+ lb trailer over a mountain pass. I'm guessing the next argument will be "yeah but no one needs a 5,000 lb camper" to which I will say "why do you need a camper or car at all if you're trying to save the environment" to which the response will be "yeah but" and then I'll come back with "but no" and then I'll get yelled at by `dang so let's skip all that and say someone buying a 3.6L engine they don't need is a bad thing but so is the self-righteous idea that what works for you must always work for everyone else, and then agree that we're not going to solve the world's climate problems with throwaway HN comments. [1] https://camperreport.com/camper-weight/ https://camperreport.com/camper-weight/
  - ip26 8y ago
    The original comment was 3.6l is >2 times more cylinder volume than useful in >95% of scenarios. Towing a large american camper would be one of those 5% of scenarios. Many people have large campers, but far far more do not.
    - freehunter 8y ago
      And your comment was "A 1.8L will move all the cargo you care to", which is incorrect.
      - ip26 8y ago
        Again perhaps a bad assumption, but I generally hear "cargo" to refer to personal items that go in the car. Clothing, backpacks, shoes, groceries, books, etc. Hardly a strict definition of course, but that's what I was thinking about, not towed loads or a bedfull of dirt or construction materials, that I might call a "payload". But I hate quibbling semantics; my apologies.
- johnohara 8y ago
  And nobody had 300hp thirty years ago except the sports cars... My first car, 45 years ago!, was a '66 Chevrolet Impala with a standard, small block, run of the mill, 283cu in. (4.6L) engine. The motor was blown so I bought a used one for $75 and swapped it out myself. Took about 6 weeks because I had never done it before. The 283 was rated between 200 and 345hp. It was my daily driver for school (hardly a sports car) until markvdb's "oil despots" tripled the price of gas. I sold the Impala and bought a Volvo 144S with a 1.8L 4 cyl. engine. Neither car (or engine) was ever able to get better than 25+ mpg and the Volvo made you very aware of how much power you had available.
  - ip26 8y ago
    I guess I always considered muscle cars to fall in the same basket as sports cars, and the postwar Impalas to be muscle cars. Maybe that's wrong.
    - johnohara 8y ago
      My friend's father had a black '67 Buick GS400 droptop. It was a true "muscle car" in that it sucked in birds and leaves and spit out twigs and feathers. My Impala on the other hand, had a "three on the tree," a bench seat, and no a/c. But it always started in Chicago winters and ran well delivering pizzas.
  - davidgould 8y ago
    You really can't compare HP ratings of cars from that era with modern cars. The old ratings were generally "gross brake horsepower" which was what you got at the crankshaft on a dyno with all the auxiliaries (oil pump, water pump, alternator, fuel pump, fan, etc) disconnected and powered separately and with special exhaust and intake arrangements, eg headers and no air filter. Modern HP is usually "SAE net horsepower" which is measured in almost an as installed in a vehicle configuration. Gross BHP significantly inflates the number. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower#SAE_gross_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower#SAE_gross_power
    - johnohara 8y ago
theevilsharpie 8y ago
> I don't know too many people who could afford a $20k car to drive to work and then a $40k truck just to park in their garage 95% of the time. You could just rent a truck when you need to transport something that's beyond the car's capabilities.

ip26 8y ago

What do you require a 3.6L for? A 1.8L will move all the cargo you care to. A 2.5L tows my 1200lb camper over high mountain passes. A big engine is really only a must if you are towing something north of a ton, as far as I'm aware. People tend to buy more engine than they need, and 1.8L's are more powerful than ever. And nobody had 300hp thirty years ago except the sports cars. We survived.

freehunter 8y ago
The average American camper weighs 5,200lbs [1] completely empty. Once it's loaded with water, fuel, and gear, it's about 1,500 lbs heavier. I encourage you to find a 1.8L engine that will tow a 6,000+ lb trailer over a mountain pass. I'm guessing the next argument will be "yeah but no one needs a 5,000 lb camper" to which I will say "why do you need a camper or car at all if you're trying to save the environment" to which the response will be "yeah but" and then I'll come back with "but no" and then I'll get yelled at by `dang so let's skip all that and say someone buying a 3.6L engine they don't need is a bad thing but so is the self-righteous idea that what works for you must always work for everyone else, and then agree that we're not going to solve the world's climate problems with throwaway HN comments. [1] https://camperreport.com/camper-weight/ https://camperreport.com/camper-weight/
- ip26 8y ago
  The original comment was 3.6l is >2 times more cylinder volume than useful in >95% of scenarios. Towing a large american camper would be one of those 5% of scenarios. Many people have large campers, but far far more do not.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    And your comment was "A 1.8L will move all the cargo you care to", which is incorrect.
    - ip26 8y ago
      Again perhaps a bad assumption, but I generally hear "cargo" to refer to personal items that go in the car. Clothing, backpacks, shoes, groceries, books, etc. Hardly a strict definition of course, but that's what I was thinking about, not towed loads or a bedfull of dirt or construction materials, that I might call a "payload". But I hate quibbling semantics; my apologies.
johnohara 8y ago
And nobody had 300hp thirty years ago except the sports cars... My first car, 45 years ago!, was a '66 Chevrolet Impala with a standard, small block, run of the mill, 283cu in. (4.6L) engine. The motor was blown so I bought a used one for $75 and swapped it out myself. Took about 6 weeks because I had never done it before. The 283 was rated between 200 and 345hp. It was my daily driver for school (hardly a sports car) until markvdb's "oil despots" tripled the price of gas. I sold the Impala and bought a Volvo 144S with a 1.8L 4 cyl. engine. Neither car (or engine) was ever able to get better than 25+ mpg and the Volvo made you very aware of how much power you had available.
- ip26 8y ago
  I guess I always considered muscle cars to fall in the same basket as sports cars, and the postwar Impalas to be muscle cars. Maybe that's wrong.
  - johnohara 8y ago
    My friend's father had a black '67 Buick GS400 droptop. It was a true "muscle car" in that it sucked in birds and leaves and spit out twigs and feathers. My Impala on the other hand, had a "three on the tree," a bench seat, and no a/c. But it always started in Chicago winters and ran well delivering pizzas.
- davidgould 8y ago
  You really can't compare HP ratings of cars from that era with modern cars. The old ratings were generally "gross brake horsepower" which was what you got at the crankshaft on a dyno with all the auxiliaries (oil pump, water pump, alternator, fuel pump, fan, etc) disconnected and powered separately and with special exhaust and intake arrangements, eg headers and no air filter. Modern HP is usually "SAE net horsepower" which is measured in almost an as installed in a vehicle configuration. Gross BHP significantly inflates the number. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower#SAE_gross_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower#SAE_gross_power
  - johnohara 8y ago

theevilsharpie 8y ago

> I don't know too many people who could afford a $20k car to drive to work and then a $40k truck just to park in their garage 95% of the time. You could just rent a truck when you need to transport something that's beyond the car's capabilities.