Comments on: Hey I have an idea, Let’s Make Cars Lighter! http://www.techimoto.com/2008/08/12/hey-i-have-an-idea-lets-make-cars-lighter/ Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:27:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: eltonito http://www.techimoto.com/2008/08/12/hey-i-have-an-idea-lets-make-cars-lighter/#comment-407 eltonito Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:30:43 +0000 http://www.techimoto.com/?p=515#comment-407 Smaller cars can be safe if they are designed correctly from the start, but most small cars here are still far from lightweight I also don't think larger vehicles (SUV's, etc) will ever entirely disappear. Even if they did, the semi traffic in most metro areas would still represent a serious threat to an unsafe paper mache car. In my opinion a great short term solution no one seems to be discussing is to reform our safety standards to be more compatible with those of Europe. Adopting EuroNCAP standards, even temporarily, would open up the flood gates of small, safe, fuel efficient cars from Europe. Sure, emissions and the like would still need to be tweaked, but America's occasionally obtuse safety standards are the biggest hurdle to carmakers. Safety wouldn't really suffer too badly either - EuroNCAP isn't exactly chopped liver. Smaller cars can be safe if they are designed correctly from the start, but most small cars here are still far from lightweight I also don’t think larger vehicles (SUV’s, etc) will ever entirely disappear. Even if they did, the semi traffic in most metro areas would still represent a serious threat to an unsafe paper mache car.

In my opinion a great short term solution no one seems to be discussing is to reform our safety standards to be more compatible with those of Europe. Adopting EuroNCAP standards, even temporarily, would open up the flood gates of small, safe, fuel efficient cars from Europe. Sure, emissions and the like would still need to be tweaked, but America’s occasionally obtuse safety standards are the biggest hurdle to carmakers. Safety wouldn’t really suffer too badly either - EuroNCAP isn’t exactly chopped liver.

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