June 01, 2006
"Mayor Moves to Hybrid Car"
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has announced today that he is trading in his 17-mpg Cadillac DTS for a more fuel-efficient hybrid vehicle. When I reported recently that Mayor Kyoto was guzzling 5 gallons of gasoline a day, his spokesman mentioned that Hizzoner was interested in getting a more fuel-efficient car, but no timeframe was mentioned, so I can't help but wonder if my report prompted the Mayor to quicker action. But even with a more fuel efficient car, one still has to wonder about Mayor "Let's Get Everybody Out of Their Cars'" personal commitment to reducing traffic congestion. The press release makes this startling revelation:
Going almost 100 miles a day on average, the car is the mayor's second office as he travels around the city to community events and meetings.
100 miles a day? How necessary is that really? Meanwhile, the chauffeur-driven mayor wants to
impose a transportation head-tax on the employees of Seattle based businesses. Firms that offer subsidized transit passes would be exempt. I've asked the Mayor's office whether the exemption would also apply to people (like myself) who work at home and don't commute at all. The response is pending.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 01, 2006
06:24 PM | Email This
1. Mayor PhatAss is gonna have 1 helluva time gettin' his enormous derriere in and out of a Prius!! It would be phun to watch him though. Maybe he will sell tickets??
Perhaps one of our highly skilled videofolks from the RIGHT can "paparazzi" a video clip of him struggling with his ample girth in a very small area. I wonder if he can steer with his gut????
2. I'm sure he will still have a Tax payer paid chauffer to drive his Hybrid so that his trip from home to work every day will require four trips a day instead of two.
A special thanks to Stephan for holding these peoples feet to the fire on this one.
I agree I hope the new van has at least a 1 ton suspension!
3. Why isn't Nickels riding the bus to all these events??
4. dude, he can get a nice roomy Ford Escape hybrid. It does not need to be one of those midget cars from overseas.
5. Does it say anywhere that he will be riding inside of his "second office"?
6. "nice, roomy Ford Escape Hybrid"????????
Roomy is a relative thing legast.
Have you actually seen how phat Nickles is???
Nickles kind of reminds me of Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor"!!!
What was that one classic line....something like
"They would melt me out of my fat drop by drop and liquor fishermen's boots with me; I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits 'til I were as crest-fallen as a dried pear."
Something like that.
I can see Nickles driving around in one of those Hybrids dressed like Falstaff!
What a goofball.
7. Indeed, how necessary is any form of face to face PR travel? The only workers who should travel are the ones that need to repair or move something tangible. I'm in the wireless business with communication tools up the ying yang and we have high ups booking travel all over the country, collecting frequent flyer miles and enjoying their free alcoholic beverages in flight. It's a money wasting exercise no matter how one slices it.
8. Mayor Nickelbag still doesn't get it. He's not reducing how many miles he is driven--he is just trying to avoid any more embarassing questions about why he goes through more than 150 gallons in gas each month while telling the rest of us to take alternative transportation. He could take the bus, car pool, move more meetings to his neck of the woods, etc. But no, Mr. High and Mighty is hoping this will appease the peasants while he CONTINUES to tell us to take the bus, walk, blah, blah, blah. WHAT A HYPOCRITE!!!
9. Maybe the reason the Mayor wants to gets us out of our cars is because they've wasted all our taxes on crackpot projects and have no money left to fix the numerous potholes all around the city.
"Saving the earth from global warming" sounds so much more noble than "We're broke."
Maybe selling the DTS would provide enough money to fill a couple dozen of them.
10. What? No one has heard of the Lexus RX 400h? I think it's the first luxury hybrid. Nice car. And Seattle taxpayers get to pay for one.
11. "Hybrid" doesn't necessarily equate to high mileage. The mayors new car is the hybrid 4wd model of the Highlander SUV. (Why he needs 4wd for city driving is beyond me - Toyota even gives warnings that the hybrid Highlander shouldn't be driven off-road.)
The hybrid Highlander is not really designed for fuel economy – it’s a higher performance version of the gas Highlander with some improvement in mileage. The gas version has 215 hp and will do 0-60 in 8 seconds while the hybrid version has a net 268 hp and will do 0-60 in 7.2 seconds.
The 31 mpg estimate in the press release is the EPA estimate for city driving. EPA estimates are notoriously bad, especially for hybrids. After lots of complaints they are planning new testing techniques to go into effect in 2008. The new city estimates will probably be 20 to 30 percent lower for hybrids. That would put the mayor's new car at 22 to 24 mpg.
12. My 4x4 Suburban gets about 14. Go to 2 x 4 and get a stick (could save another 4). After all, the mayor has a driver.
But, it would put fear in the hearts of those behind the "stick" getting onto the freeway on some of those steep hills. I remember closing my eyes and praying that my coordination was right when I started up after sitting at a light.
I remember just
13. A couple weeks ago I believe it was MSN Autos that ran an article on how most of the hybrid models actually cost more to operate over a 5-year period because of the maintence needed to keep them going, In many cases it was thousands of dollars.
Good to know some research went into his decision before sticking the taxpayers with added expenses.
14. Not only do the "feel-ohso-goody" toy cars cost more to operate, wait until you have to replace/dump the stupid batteries. Might as well be uranium fuel pellets.
15. What I would like to know is how he drives 100 miles a day? To where? Even if they count the commute from his home to work, 100 miles a day is alot. Where's he going for lunch every day? There's not enough places to walk to around his office?
16. Bob - He needs a 4wd cause you can't drive around this city without one because the roads are in such disrepair. Hell, my 4wd gets more work driving down Mercer than in the back woods.
17. This move by the mayor incenses me more. Above all, why can't he either ride the bus or drive his own car to work like everybody else? Then, this stupid trade-in PR ploy which simply ignores the basic economic principles. I personally own a Suburban but am not going to trade in to get better gas mileage because it would take years to recoup any loss that would incur through trade in. Let's do the math using mayor's Cadillac. Trading-in surely would have resulted in a loss on the value of the car by the tune of at least $5K, then the mark-up (or immediate depreciation as his chauffeur drove it off the lot) woould be another $5K considering that this is a gov't purchase. In addition, there is the added cost of ownership on a hybrid which is well explained at
The dollars & sense of hybrids where Toyota Highlander Hybrid is rated as costing $5,508 more (or $7,708 without federal tax credit) on 5 year ownership than non-hybrid Highlander.
18. Hybrids are a
POLITICAL statement. Hybrids have nothing to do with economics. When you do the
math Hybrids cost more, than the closest similar car. Add in the higher insurance, and maintenance, the cost of replace and recycling (which no one talks about) the battery pack, the DTS probably ends up costing us about the same as a friggin' Prius.
Nickels is the Mayor of Seattle since the Metro is such a wonderful system Hizzoner should go to the Metro web site use the trip planner to schedule his day. Then ride the bus and walk the rest of way (which would help the girth issue).
19. I know i'm way off base asking this simple question but...
If the goal of the SSL (seattle socialist left) is to get us all out of our cars then how do they plan to "replace" the lost tax "revenue" once nobody is paying license fees, sales taxes, gas taxes, etc? and what about the auto sales, repair, insurance jobs that will be lost? do they have a plan for them?
as they tell bush all the time, you cant cut a tax without replacing the "lost government revenue."
just curious as to what the socialist plan is to replace all those lost taxes once there are no autos.
20. I actually saw the Mayor in West Seattle yesterday as I was sitting on the bus. He came out of the Starbucks (with his driver), got into a brand-spanking new, and very clean and shiny, black hybrid SUV. He then proceeded to take the very same route that I did to work, only I was on the bus, and he was in his car.
What gives? A brand spanking new car paid for by me, that looks like it gets more attention (that I also pay for) than a Kobe beef cow, and I don't even get to ride in it.
21. Nickels in a Hybrid with his fat ass? I hope he bought the Jaws-Of-Life accessory to pry his fat ass out of it.
22. busrider, you've been had, eh? THEY want you to ride the bus. But THEY want to drive around in their SUV's while criticizing the rest of us for driving when we don't even own SUVs.
23. What's a liberal mayor to do when the nice, new, expensive Cadillac taxpayers paid for is not politically expedient? Just have the taxpayers buy a nice, new, expensive hybrid too. Other people's money is no object.
24. Dave,
Why do they tax cigarettes to "discourage" their use, then fund children's health care with the proceeds.
Why do they tax small business to the point of forcing them out of the State. Then complain about the lackluster economic opportunities.
Why do thing the taxpayer is a bottomless pit of money to be taken with impunity.
Why do they think government can control and economy to begin with?
They are willfully ignorant of economic realities because it conflict with the communist belief system.
25. enough of the girth jokes. I didn't notice that the Mayor was of gargantuan size. Well-fed, but not repulsive. Besides, the issue here is not that he is fat, but that he is wasting taxpayer money on new cars, while making it more and more difficult for the taxpayers to buy (and drive and park) their own cars.
26. Lampooning Politician's stature and appearance has a long history, ask Lincoln and Taft.
27. "enough of the girth jokes. I didn't notice that the Mayor was of gargantuan size. Well-fed, but not repulsive. Besides, the issue here is not that he is fat, but that he is wasting taxpayer money on new cars"
Posted by busrider at June 2, 2006 09:39 AM
Actually, the issue is also that he is fat....a rich, fat white Lefty! He should be riding a bike, the bus or walking. He is the epitomy of Leftist arrogance. Between this and the head in the clouds Tunnel brainfart....the guy needs to resign. Unfortunately, too many Seattle idiots are mesmorized by his pied-piper dreams. The end of line is someone has to pay for all of this.
Anyone know what happened to Nickles Old Car????
Was it traded in?
Or was it given to some other FatCat??
28. Now if Nickels would just go the final step and fuel his hybrid with his own prodigious methane production.
29. Bananaland---
That's the ultimate!!
I can just picture this politically correct jacka$$ jamming a plastic tube up his a$$ as he waddles into his hybrid.
30. Here's the other thing that struck me about the story: If he is in the car for 100 miles, then, at a minimum, he is spending at least 2.5 hours driving around Seattle every day. (I can't believe he averages more than 40 miles an hour. And, if we allow a little for the chauffeur to come and pick him up, then we should also allow a little for traffic jams.)
Now he has a driver so he can do some work in the car, but it is hard to believe that the back seat of the car is as efficient a place to work as his office.
Either the 100 miles a day is bogus, or the mayor is wasting much of his day. (Or the car is being used for other purposes than driving him around.)
31. Jim, my
earlier post explained some of the 100 miles. The car is garaged at City Hall and makes an extra round trip to West Seattle every day to pick the Mayor up in the morning and drop him off in the evening. Also, the Mayor's advance team uses the car to travel to the sites of his engagements before they bring the Mayor there.
32. Busrider-
I don't think you actually saw the Mayor- I'm pretty sure he has a custom 40 foot stretch hybrid SUV that gets 6 MPG and burns up one of those highly toxic batteries in a week hauling his lardness around.
Actually, it probably was his fatness and I'm sure he was cussing and telling his driver to cross the double yellow to get ahead of the losers riding the stinking Metro (no offense).
And when you mentioned more care than a Kobe Beef, I'm sure you were refering to the Mayor and not the SUV - he does resemble a Kobe Beef. Nice observation.
33. Let's see, 100 miles at an average speed of 20 mph means he spends 5 hours a day sitting in his car. 5 hours! and that assumes he doesn't get bogged down in traffic.
34. He's gonna save our environment with Al Gore".......All Hot air!
You gotta TAKE A LOOK AT this NY Post article on Gore's new film:
http://www.nypost.com/movies/66485.htm
35. GS---
What a fabulous review!
The problem with our KLOWN Kommunity is they lap up Gore's bullsh*t like there is no tomorrow.
They never take time to question Gore's FACTS??
Gore is making unreasonable predicts based on lies and undocumented assumptions....aka WILD-A$$ GUESSES.
Gore is making the most shameless political move our Country has ever seen.
Lot's of time for the lies to be exposed.
It will backfire on Gore bigtime.
Who wants a President like him???
36. If the mayor was truly walking his talk, he'd be covering that 100 miles a day using Metro and Sound Transit - as he advocates the rest of do. Of course, he may not get anywhere on time, and might not get home until midnight, but that would seem a small price for him to pay for leading by example.