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Comment by Teknomadix | Hacker News Reader

Disagree; I drive a 40 year old Mercedes-Benz turbo diesel sedan for the exact opposite reason that nothing made today is as effective and reliable with comparative economy and comfort. My huge tank of a vehicle is safe, comfortable, and economic. Runs entirely on plant based biofuels and delivers an experience that no modern machines can rival. The cost of these old sedans steadily increases despite being 4 decadea old. Mine has 550000km on the odometer and rising. Simple and affordable to maintain, and can be worked on with standard hand tools. No computers on-board.

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> Runs entirely on plant based biofuels

You forgot, "and pollutes like crazy."

The environmental calculus of driving a new car, versus driving a 40 year old diesel engine is challenging, I admit. Moreso if you are distilling your own fuel. I would bet that a gross polluter (as California calls them) from 40 years ago are probably a net loss compared to a 20 year old ICE today.

What’s the cost of biofuel, and what economy does the car get? And have you looked at how it’s crash test ratings actually stand up against a modern vehicle?

> And have you looked at how it’s crash test ratings actually stand up against a modern vehicle?

My first thought for sure. Especially because vehicles are getting demonstrably larger and heavier again in the US.

You also get a steering column pumped through your skull in an accident, but that's another discussion I suppose.

>vehicle is safe

Sure if you ignore all the safety improvements made to driving over the last 40 years...

agree here

vehicle safety improvements are one of the primary motivators (for me) to drive new cars. driving is dangerous and i want the best odds when the inevitable occurs

My favorite aspect of biofuels is that allows for the machine-energy economy to compete with the human-energy economy. It allows for first world folks to use their buying power to compete with food in the 2nd and 3rd world.

markets are good

Yep that's why the US had slave markets instead of central planning. /s

What’s extra great about it is that we use fertilizer to grow the biomass to be converted to fuel. And by some measures the energy cost of doing so is higher than just burning the fertilizer (which I’m sure everyone knows is a petroleum product) directly.

Kind of the worst of all worlds sort of technology

> some measures

EROI for biodiesel is well above 1:1 from what I can tell. Please elaborate on your sources.

Whats the model may i ask?

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