Gas Tops $4 A Gallon

[FinanceDude]

Originally Posted by Wags

Boston.com - Frustrated owners try to unload their guzzlers

Frustrated Massachusetts drivers try to sell their gas-guzzlers - The Boston Globe

The high price of fuel is really hurting people's pocketbook and the sales of trucks, SUV's and big gass guzzlers are DOWN.

GOD BLESS US ALL

Wags, you're beginning to scare me, you are starting to make sense at times........

Here's the problem:

For years, Ford pushed the F-150, Chevy pushed their Tahoe, Suburban, and pickup lines, and Chrysler pushed their Jeeps and minivans. All on the basis of cheap oil, and because those products had the highest profit margins.

Toyota and Honda made their money on small and midsize fuel efficient cars, and still do today. The higher the price of gas, the more folks will continue to buy fuel efficient cars.

I don't know what's going on in R&D at the Big Three, but if it were me I would work like crazy to be the FIRST company to have an fuel cell or electric car that the average American could afford. I don't think high efficiency diesels are the answer, because if diesel is $5.00 a gallon, folks will stay away.

Let's hope a combination of technology and conservation provides a solution........

[youbet]

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

For years, Ford pushed the F-150, Chevy pushed their Tahoe, Suburban, and pickup lines, and Chrysler pushed their Jeeps and minivans.

Since the folks buying had other choices and could have purchased small, more gas efficient cars from Honda, Toyota, etc., rather than say the Big Three "pushed" big vehicles, I'd say American consumers pulled them.....

If we had stayed away from Big Three show rooms or predominantly purchased their compact car offerings, they would have quickly gotten the message. They're dumb, but not that dumb....... They understand low sales and rapidly rising inventories. They gave us what we wanted, what was moving off the showroom floor.

Of course, if blaming someone else makes you feel better....... Go for it! For myself, I purchased a V8 F150 in 1999 completely informed of all the issues and knowing I could have purchased a fuel efficient vehicle instead and accept the responsibility for that decision.

[FinanceDude]

Originally Posted by youbet

Since the folks buying had other choices and could have purchased small, more gas efficient cars from Honda, Toyota, etc., rather than say the Big Three "pushed" big vehicles, I'd say American consumers pulled them.....

If we had stayed away from Big Three show rooms or predominantly purchased their compact car offerings, they would have quickly gotten the message. They're dumb, but not that dumb....... They understand low sales and rapidly rising inventories. They gave us what we wanted, what was moving off the showroom floor.

Of course, if blaming someone else makes you feel better....... Go for it! For myself, I purchased a V8 F150 in 1999 completely informed of all the issues and knowing I could have purchased a fuel efficient vehicle instead and accept the responsibility for that decision.

No need to get snippy....... I worked in domestic dealerships in the early to mid 90's, and I was in charge of ordering inventory for a large metro dealer. However, the factory would do "interesting things", like change your order and forcefeed you an extra 40 vehicles that they knew were as cold as ice and you would end up selling at a loss after paying floorplan costs on them for 6 months to a year. The factories created some of their own problems.......

There's plenty of stuff I saw that had NOTHING to do with consumer demand........

[youbet]

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

No need to get snippy....... I worked in domestic dealerships in the early to mid 90's, and I was in charge of ordering inventory for a large metro dealer. However, the factory would do "interesting things", like change your order and forcefeed you an extra 40 vehicles that they knew were as cold as ice and you would end up selling at a loss after paying floorplan costs on them for 6 months to a year. The factories created some of their own problems.......

There's plenty of stuff I saw that had NOTHING to do with consumer demand........

I understand...... No doubt the manufacturers were trying to push the large vehicles with their higher profit margins and less competition from Japan. But, if consumers had simply chosen small cars anyway, after only a few months the Big Three would have been scrambling to ramp up production of their few small car entries and would have been panicing in the engineering depts to get small cars designed.

I know it makes us feel better to blame someone else. But really, there were fine small cars available in the 90's (mostly from Japan and Europe) which we all considered before we happily drove off the GM-Ford-Chrysler lot in our bigmobile!

[FinanceDude]

Originally Posted by youbet

I understand...... No doubt the manufacturers were trying to push the large vehicles with their higher profit margins and less competition from Japan. But, if consumers had simply chosen small cars anyway, after only a few months the Big Three would have been scrambling to ramp up production of their few small car entries and would have been panicing in the engineering depts to get small cars designed.

Well, also there is the "small fact" that GM LOST about $1300 NET on EVERY small car they made for about 20 years, not good.........

I remember when folks used to make FUN of people driving small cars, maybe those days are over??

I still wish I had my 1996 Grand Prix Sedan. It got 28 on the highway, 21 city, and was fun to drive. However, there WAS that tranny problem at 27,000 miles 4 months out of warranty that GM told me to "pound sand" on..........

I know it makes us feel better to blame someone else. But really, there were fine small cars available in the 90's (mostly from Japan and Europe) which we all considered before we happily drove off the GM-Ford-Chrysler lot in our bigmobile! [/quote]

[Milton]

Originally Posted by youbet

I know it makes us feel better to blame someone else. But really, there were fine small cars available in the 90's (mostly from Japan and Europe) which we all considered before we happily drove off the GM-Ford-Chrysler lot in our bigmobile!

I've never owned a 'Big Three' vehicle, and never will.

[FinanceDude]

Originally Posted by Milton

I've never owned a 'Big Three' vehicle, and never will.

Well,some of us had to.........

[Wags]

The new Prius from the thread New Prius, Me Likey!!, would be nice.

When the time comes for me to purchase a new vehicle the hybrid Prius and the hybrid Hondas will be high on the want list.

Gas here is holding at $3.62 a gallon.

GOD BLESS US ALL

[Marquette]

Funny that oil and ethanol and food prices were the topic of conversation at lunch today... beats baseball and the upcoming fishing opener I guess.

[ERD50]

If the price of gas guzzlers goes low enough, I will need to do the math to see if that is a good deal for me. I try to keep the miles down, so maybe it would work for me.

And if I bought used, it could still be a net positive for the environment. Instead of the old owner racing up to red lights and slamming on his brakes for 18,000 miles a year, I could drive it rationally and only put on 7,000 miles a year.

-ERD50

[laurencewill]

Originally Posted by ERD50

If the price of gas guzzlers goes low enough, I will need to do the math to see if that is a good deal for me. I try to keep the miles down, so maybe it would work for me.

And if I bought used, it could still be a net positive for the environment. Instead of the old owner racing up to red lights and slamming on his brakes for 18,000 miles a year, I could drive it rationally and only put on 7,000 miles a year.

-ERD50

A friend did that, the price of the expedition he wanted dropped several $$$, and the difference in gas per year was only a couple hundred for his short commute, made sense to pull the trigger.

[mb]

Originally Posted by RetiredGypsy

Have they decided whether crude oil is a renewable-ish source or not? That whole "our cars sip from the powdered bones of dinosaurs" thing was always hard to swallow.

How would it be renewable?

"Peak oil" is based on a material balance on a reservor in which oil is removed but not replaced or replaced at such a slow rate as to be negligible and it seems to fit the data pretty well.

The Soviets had an official state theory that oil is continuously produced deep in the earth (by reduction of carbonate minerals I suppose) and then seeps into the reserviors that we access and that therefore there is an infinite supply but like their theories on evolution I think that it was based more on compatibility with communist theory than with agreement with data.

I have also heard that some fundamentalist religious groups do not accept even the possibility of "peak oil" because they refuse to believe that god would make the world that way.

IMHO two instances of poweful dogmas over whelming observations/facts/science.

MB

[mb]

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

I don't know what's going on in R&D at the Big Three, but if it were me I would work like crazy to be the FIRST company to have an fuel cell or electric car that the average American could afford. I don't think high efficiency diesels are the answer, because if diesel is $5.00 a gallon, folks will stay away.

I know a couple of people working on hybrids at the big three and according to them there is lot more corporate (as opposed to gov) money being spent on all aspects of hybrid R/D now whereas 10 years ago it was pretty much "window dressing" because official company policy at that time was that they would never sell because they would never be economical.

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

I don't know what's going on in R&D at the Big Three, but if it were me I would work like crazy to be the FIRST company to have an fuel cell or electric car that the average American could afford. I don't think high efficiency diesels are the answer, because if diesel is $5.00 a gallon, folks will stay away.

.

Yes and no. I think they need to hit some singles before they try for home runs. Fuel cells for example are still 15 or so years away for cars and is still very much a high risk.

If you look at the R/D that the big 3 has been doing for the last 15 years in these areas you might characterize it as mostly "high risk/high return." i.e. They have been going for the home run. There are some people in the energy technology R/D community that think they have purposely designed these programs for "failure" because they wanted to maintain the status quo. I don't really think that this is true but there is a problem with the way the system is set up. For example in many of the programs it has worked as follows:

- The US government (i.e. your taxes) supplies most of the money.
- Most of the applied R/D is done at fuel cell/battery developers and most of the fundamental R/D is done at universities and national labs.
- The fuel cell/battery developers usually cost share.
- The big 3 largely control the direction of the research, get the benefits from advances, but provide little of the funding.
- Information flow is mostly one way. The big 3 get everything but the other organizations get little from the big 3.

This had been the basic model since CA first enacted vehicle zero emission targets around 1990. My understanding is that the big 3 lobbyists/congressional supporters were able to legislate this sort of structure. (A congressman named Diggle from Michigan comes to mind although I could be wrong about that. The memory is pretty fuzzy.)

The basic problem is that the big 3 got all of the benefits and little of the risk. This is an advantage of having powerful congressional supporters but IMHO it has not benefitted the country as a whole.

MB

[ERD50]

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

I don't know what's going on in R&D at the Big Three

Are you following the news on the Chevy Volt?

Chevrolet Volt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From what I've read, they are doing all the right things. It is a series hybrid (plug-in) with an ICE to recharge after 40 miles. And the ICE portion is designed to be modular - it could be replaced with a turbine, or whatever.

mb pointed out that the big three didn't think hybrids would be economical. Well, they really are not economical for most people, esp w/o a govt subsidy, and it is risky to base your plans on the fickle govt subsidies. Personally, I don't like the idea of two energy systems in a single car - too complex. At least with a series hybrid, the two systems are not so closely intertwined.

-ERD50

[Marquette]

Originally Posted by ERD50

Are you following the news on the Chevy Volt?

Chevrolet Volt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From what I've read, they are doing all the right things. It is a series hybrid (plug-in) with an ICE to recharge after 40 miles. And the ICE portion is designed to be modular - it could be replaced with a turbine, or whatever.

Probably not worth discussion, but I wonder why they stopped the EV-1 program.... ie, how much of Who Killed the Electric Car is haymaking versus hard fact.

[ERD50]

Originally Posted by Marquette

Probably not worth discussion, but I wonder why they stopped the EV-1 program.... ie, how much of Who Killed the Electric Car is haymaking versus hard fact.

From what I've read - the 'who killed the electric car' is rubbish.

The history - CA required companies to sell x% of the fleet as zero-emissions cars, or they could not do business in CA. So, GM offered the EV-1. But, no one was going to buy them at the price they would need to sell them at. And, if they sold at a loss, people would probably strip the cars and sell the parts. So they leased them, so they could retain some control over the process.

Then CA dropped the zero-emissions fleet requirement. So then GM 'killed' it. I'd say it was CA that 'killed' it, or maybe - it was never really alive?

BTW - all of the above from memory, didn't have time to google, so I'll welcome corrections/additions.

-ERD50

[mb]

Originally Posted by ERD50

From what I've read - the 'who killed the electric car' is rubbish.

The history - CA required companies to sell x% of the fleet as zero-emissions cars, or they could not do business in CA. So, GM offered the EV-1. But, no one was going to buy them at the price they would need to sell them at. And, if they sold at a loss, people would probably strip the cars and sell the parts. So they leased them, so they could retain some control over the process.

Then CA dropped the zero-emissions fleet requirement. So then GM 'killed' it. I'd say it was CA that 'killed' it, or maybe - it was never really alive?

BTW - all of the above from memory, didn't have time to google, so I'll welcome corrections/additions.

-ERD50

I think that ERD50 is right. The technology just wasn't there in terms of performance and cost.

I think that CA would have been better off legislating incentives/penalities to reduce overall emmissions and then let market figure out how best to do it.

MB

[youbet]

Originally Posted by Milton

I've never owned a 'Big Three' vehicle, and never will.

Well consider yourself excused then. The rest of the class stays for detention. Milton heads to the playground!

[chinaco]

Yup... Big gas guzzler owners and manufacturers are going through their own sub-prime crisis. Selling them is going to be difficult and at a loss.

Detroit amazes me. They have been caught sleeping for the uptenth time. Put all of their cards on massive sized vehicles with a poor diversification strategy regarding fuel economy. Toyota is ahead of the pack in the application of hybrid technology.

[ERD50]

Originally Posted by chinaco

Yup... Big gas guzzler owners and manufacturers are going through their own sub-prime crisis. Selling them is going to be difficult and at a loss.

Detroit amazes me. They have been caught sleeping for the uptenth time. Put all of their cards on massive sized vehicles with a poor diversification strategy regarding fuel economy. Toyota is ahead of the pack in the application of hybrid technology.

Well, I agree that they are slow to react, and put too many eggs in one basket, but....

according to Fortune's records,