Car That Can Park Itself Put on Sale by Toyota

I was JUST about to say the same. Government is skilled at hiding true costs to the degree NOBODY knows what things cost but.... government knows instinctively to never pass up an appropriations Bill.

You can make that statement but that is because you apparently do not under stand tax law. Tax credit, a dollar for dollar tax saving and tax exemptions that save only the tax on the amount of money, are two entirely different things. A business is allowed to deduct from income the cost of the tools to do its business. When It comes to trucks they must depreciate the truck over five years, even if they replace it in less than five years. The only change in the law was to allow them to depreciate up to $25,000 in the first year. If the truck cost say $35,000 they can depreciate the TOTAL amount over five years or depreciate the maxim of $25,000 the first year. In other words a business has the option of saving the tax due on 25k once or on 35k over five years. By taking the option they pay tax on $10,000 more The purpose is to allow a business to keep more of their own money to buy new equipment to help provide jobs. A concept first suggest by President Kennedy forty years ago and expanded by President Reagan twenty year ago. It worked both times.

mike hunt

john1701a wrote:

Well,

Canada is different than the US. Canadian roads disintegrate even without heavy tucks. However, roads that do not have to support heavy trucks would be much cheaper to build. I have no idea what the Canadian tax structure is like. It might well be that the Canadian government is not subsidizing trucks. On the other hand, the Canadian government does own the railroads, so it would not surprise me at all that they tax trucks to enough to level the playing field.

It always depends on how you gather numbers. In the US, it is even mor eimportant how you gather campaign contributions and pay off pressure groups. Teamsters ahve a lot more clout than Pirus drivers.

Ed

"Tegger®" wrote:

"C. E. White" painstakingly pecked in news: snipped-for-privacy@mindspring.com:

The Teamsters have a lot more clout monetarily than *anybody* else. Guess where all your union dues go?

I dug up some figures on lobbyist funds to Congress for this group some time ago.

Here they are again, gleaned from:

Organized Labor: $41 million then... Finance/Insurance: $26 million Health Care: $15 million Agriculture: $14 million Transportation: $14 million Energy/Natural Resources: $13 million Communication/Technology: $10 million Real Estate: $9 million Business/Retail Services: $9 million Law: $5 million Manufacturing:$4 million

ROTFL. Certainly commercial trucks contribute mightily to modern economies. But all those automobiles aren't just being driven around for idle pleasure as well; the automobile is equally as crucial.

The primary reason diesel trucks get emissions slack is powerful lobbies which get it for them.

The _freight_ railroads are nothing like "out of business".

Excuse me. Please cite sources. Just because both major railroads have "Canadian" in their name, doesn't mean they are owned by the government.

By that reasoning, the ATSF would be owned by three city governments!

Both CN and CP are publicly traded companies. Heck, they even own some pretty substantial US railroads.

Dan

, so it would not surprise me at all that they tax

I am not all that up on Canadian railroads, so I probably stuck my foot in my mouth. However, being publicly traded doesn't mean publicly controlled. I know CN was "privatized" in 1995, but the Canadian government still has a controlling interest in the railroad. Right?

Ed

Dan Gates wrote:

Tell that to people who live in small towns that are no longer served by a rail line.

Ed

None of them, as far as I know, is disputing the point.

I believe it became totally free of government ownership in 1995 or there-abouts. There was much gnashing of teeth over the fact that there was no control on foreign ownership.

Dan

Dan Gates painstakingly pecked in news:xXidnX8wVuNFv snipped-for-privacy@magma.ca:

The foreign ownership rules were relaxed after it was pointed out that if they were enforced, nobody would be interested in the company.

Would that the same attitude were taken in the matter of Air Canada.

You're assuming that he's thinking . . .

Most drivers in the US use very little of the performance of their cars. Even on the freeway on-ramp, it is not unusual to be held up be someone accelerating very slowly, unsafely merging in at a speed much slower than right lane freeway traffic (and forcing whoever is behind him/her to also merge unsafely slowly), even though s/he is in a relatively fast car (particularly one with the badge proclaiming the more powerful optional engine).

For whatever reason, they buy cars with 240 or so hp (paying extra for the more powerful engine and extra to fuel it), then use perhaps 100 hp because they never push the accelerator more than 1/4 of the way down.

A hybrid or diesel engine with more low rpm torque, flattening out the hp curve, can feel just as strong, or even stronger, to a low rpm driver than a regular gasoline engine with greater peak horsepower. The latter would, of course, win a drag race if driven by a driver willing to go to redline. But most driving on the street (even by a driver willing to go to redline) is at lower rpms.

The first (US) generation Prius was mostly comparable to an Echo or Corolla in interior size, but cost so much more that the break-even for fuel economy was in the hundreds of thousands of miles. But the

2004 model is nearly the size of a Camry inside, has the added utility of a hatchback, gets better fuel economy than the first generation, and has an MSRP about the same as a Camry, the 2004 model may well attract more mainstream buyers who might otherwise buy a Camry, Accord, etc. (rather than a Civic Hybrid, a VW diesel car, or some other good fuel economy car like an Echo, Corolla, or Civic).

That would imply that the 2003 Chevy Cavalier and 2003 Toyota Prius get the same fuel economy, since both use the same fuel (which is appoximately the same fuel as the 1978 Chevy Nova got), and CO2 production is proportional to fuel consumption. Something must be wrong with these statements, since the Cavalier and Prius do not get the same fuel economy.

Why would you expect to have to repair a transmission after only

100,000 miles?

So? My question was about the difference (if any) between the first year Prius buyers and 4 year Prius buyers. It's an attitude and demographics question. Try again. :-)

Quite common with American cars and even in Japanese cars that never get transmission fluid services.