

Honda Insight
Honda Insight to be priced from $18,200








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By Spuke on 12/1/2010 10:06:30 AM , Rating: 2
(Need = use the bed, third row, or tow on a consistant basis, if you just use it once or twice a year it would be a hell of a lot cheaper to rent the Home Depot truck for $20 on those occasions)
The Home Depot trucks don't have trailer brakes so your limited on how much weight you can tow. In CA it's 1500 lbs. You could put more than that in the bed not to mention it's pricey of you want to take it out of town. It's tough to rent a truck in my area. My wife tried for two months straight to get a truck for our trip last week (our truck was towing our RV and we wanted another truck to tow the horse trailer). Found one place with a truck with trailer brakes but they could not reserve it or guarantee it's availability. Sure enough, when we called a week and a half before to rent it, they had rented it and all of their pickups to the local power company. Fortunately for us, one of our neighbors came to the rescue and let us borrow their truck. Very nice of them!!!!

About 80% of truck/SUV purchases are for status and not a real need.
Post a link to where you got that info. Thanks.

But they didn't, they bought a truck or SUV instead. BTW, large SUV sales are totally niche. They are on par with sports car sales. You should focus on pickup trucks instead as the two best selling vehicles in the US are pickups. If you cut those sales, you would reduce overall fuel usage. Good luck with that.

By adiposity on 12/1/2010 11:57:58 AM , Rating: 3
Where I work there are quite a few women in the office. Most of them drive suburbans or SUVs. They use them as commuter vehicles. So five days out of the week, they are driving a 5-7 passenger vehicle with one person in it. Maybe these people qualify as "not needing it."

I'm guessing they like the vehicles because

a). They have kids and like having room to pick them up
b). They go shopping on weekends and need room to put stuff in the back.

But the bottom line is they really don't "need" the vehicle they use, for what they mostly use it for. Maybe that's what the original poster was talking about.

I owned a Jeep Cherokee for several years because I used the tow package enough that it was worth it. I didn't really "need" it, I suppose, because I could have just rented a truck when it was necessary. But it was more convenient to own.

If you are somebody that regularly has to tow more than 1500lbs, I doubt anyone is questioning your use/need of your vehicle. The complaint is against people who consume needlessly (although the 80% figure is obviously just made up).

Personally I feel you should be able to have whatever vehicle you want. But people are still entitled to be annoyed that you are increasing the cost of gas by consuming so much of it.

By ebakke on 12/1/2010 1:36:24 PM , Rating: 2
Well Jesus folks. By that logic we could say they don't really "need" a vehicle at all, right? I mean, she could've bought her kids each a bike. Or they could just walk.

There are two gaping flaws in the OP's logic (and your attempt at explaining it). First, you're making the assumption that you know what/why/how an individual uses their vehicle based on one snapshot of their use. So you see some guy driving to the office in an F-150, but you don't see him hauling construction materials on weekends for his side job. And second, even if some guy's only using a truck to commute, there's only one person who can determine if that meets his needs, and that's the guy driving it. Giving someone else the power to determine what you or I need or don't need is the exact opposite of freedom.

Personally I feel you should be able to have whatever vehicle you want. But people are still entitled to be annoyed...
Be annoyed, sure. Try to force me into doing anything differently, absolutely not.

