Obama's plan to move to better mileage cars

[MalibuMan]

Will it work? Look at the current top selling cars from Detroit. Not exactly good MPG vehicles. Do people really want small fuel efficient cars?

I personally got rid of my beloved truck to get a fuel efficient car and I can say I wish I still had my truck.


Best Selling American Cars, Top U.S. Car Sales

 

[Skull Pilot]

If people wanted smaller less safe more fuel efficient cars they would buy them. it's that simple

The question is not what people want to buy but rather how will the government force people to buy smaller less safe fuel efficient cars.

Can you say higher, much higher gas taxes???

 

[neurosport]

It's not about what people want. Never has been. Traditionally the government simply brainwashes people into thinking they want this or that but Obama apparently doesn't play games - he's just gonna force you to buy what HE wants.

I am personally partial to cars that are large, powerful AND fuel efficient.

95% of new cars today still use more gas than they have to for their size and performance.

There is no reason why a more powerful car should use more gas. And a bigger car should only use a little more gas than a small one.

It should entirely be possible to build a 800 horsepower S-Class Mercedes with 40 mpg.

 

[MalibuMan]

I also smell government inflated gas prices to encourage ( Make ) people move toward cars people apparently don't want now.

 

[neurosport]

Some people will get a motorcycle to supplement their gas guzzler instead of downsizing their main ride.

I think i may be one of those people.

Although frankly motorcycles scare me to death. But i just don't see how i could go for less power in a new car rather than more.

I want 0-60 in 3.0 seconds from a car. I think faster than that would be stupid.

 

[MalibuMan]

I always wanted a Harley.

 

[AllieBaba]

I also smell government inflated gas prices to encourage ( Make ) people move toward cars people apparently don't want now.

And then when everybody's pissing and moaning about gas prices, Obama will blame BIG OIL.

So predictable.

I read something the other day about Prius sales being down by a ridiculous amount...something like 45 percent or something.

I don't think the people are enamoured of our new regime.

 

[WillowTree]

If people wanted smaller less safe more fuel efficient cars they would buy them. it's that simple

The question is not what people want to buy but rather how will the government force people to buy smaller less safe fuel efficient cars.

Can you say higher, much higher gas taxes???

It hasn't been that long ago the Dems promised us $10/gal. gas,, hard to do it right now though cause their economy sucks!

 

[foggedinn]

If people wanted smaller less safe more fuel efficient cars they would buy them. it's that simple

The question is not what people want to buy but rather how will the government force people to buy smaller less safe fuel efficient cars.

Can you say higher, much higher gas taxes???

It hasn't been that long ago the Dems promised us $10/gal. gas,, hard to do it right now though cause their economy sucks!

Should have been done forty years ago. Now it's too late.

The borrower is servant to the lender. Get used to being servants.

 

[STAND4LIBERTY]

Obama's plan to move to better mileage cars

 

[Oddball]

If people wanted smaller less safe more fuel efficient cars they would buy them. it's that simple

The question is not what people want to buy but rather how will the government force people to buy smaller less safe fuel efficient cars.

Can you say higher, much higher gas taxes???

People HAVE been buying more fuel efficient cars.

Even though SUVs are huge and most have V-8s, they're more powerful and get roughly double the mileage they did 30 years ago.

Another big problem with big gubmint is that they think that their measure of "efficiency" is the only one that is legitimate.

 

[neurosport]

Even though SUVs are huge and most have V-8s, they're more powerful and get roughly double the mileage they did 30 years ago.

i disagree. they're not more fuel efficient. in fact the opposite. new cars are LESS fuel efficient than old ones used to be.

i made it all the way to Canada on one tank on my father's 1994 Chrysler. I can barely make it to Connecticut in my car and the car is about same size. And my car is relatively old-school, it has an engine design from 2002. Cars with the very latest engines like Infinity G37 use much more gas still. My friends with G35 and G37 can't believe how fast their cars eat gas.

Another big problem with big gubmint is that they think that their measure of "efficiency" is the only one that is legitimate.

this is very true. there can be many measures of efficiency and free market prices is the only measure that takes them all into account.

 

[Skull Pilot]

If people wanted smaller less safe more fuel efficient cars they would buy them. it's that simple

The question is not what people want to buy but rather how will the government force people to buy smaller less safe fuel efficient cars.

Can you say higher, much higher gas taxes???

It hasn't been that long ago the Dems promised us $10/gal. gas,, hard to do it right now though cause their economy sucks!

Should have been done forty years ago. Now it's too late.

The borrower is servant to the lender. Get used to being servants.

The lender would not exist but for the borrowers

 

[Citizen]

Auto makers could have manufactured fuel efficent automobiles if they wanted too.

Back in 1933 R. Buckminster Fuller designed and built an automobile that could haul 10 passengers, travel over rough terrain, turn in its own foot print, had a top speed of 120 mph, and got 25-30 mpg.

But with 25 cent per gal. gasoline, his was a car waiting for a market.

My point being, if a car could be built in 1933 that could get 25-30 mpg, and had a top speed of 120 mph, held 10 passengers, why aren't auto makers building cars today that can compete with one built 76 years ago.

My first new car, a 1964 ford fairlane 500 would run 110 mph and got 21-24 mpg, about the same as my 1950 ford, and cars have not improved much since then, except for maintence intervals.

 

[Oddball]

Obama's plan to move to better mileage cars

[youtube]rAqPMJFaEdY[/youtube]

 

[Metternich]

I think we should overlook some of the more idealist rhetoric, from both sides, and look at the facts today.

Car companies are faced with a deadline, written in discussion chalk, embodied by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. Explicitly, the industry-overall Corporate Average Fuel Economic for 2020 has to be 35mpg for cars and trucks combined. These are the minimum targets, but more interestingly is the fractured nature in which all of this is being applied and the relative possibility the standards are going to be raised; there is a 'maximum level' which is applied all the way to 2030 which is as high as 52mpg. Double our current fleet's mpg, and honestly speaking worrying (that 'maximum' should be set much more south, and indicates the level of which the government thinks is hurtful, because one could always raise the mpg standards as long as it doesn't go north of this crazy high line).

Anyhow, the standards are badly issued and worse yet: awkwardly enforced. Road & Track quotes certain consultants within the automobile industry saying, "automakers would prefer any number- even more stringent ones -that are written in ink, not in still-under-discussion chalk. With the EPA granting special leave for California to do as it pleases, some states have accompanied the California model. Yet this proves to be a thorny problem as some states subscribe to both the Federal EPA (by default) and Californian (by choice) without worrying the issue that the two guidelines sometimes are walking contradictions (especially when California legislators vote on AB 1493).

To make matters more interesting, there's a common misconception, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (distinctly separate from the EPA, part of the Department of Transportation) is one that actually 'makes' the mpg goals. The EPA regulates emissions, so in a roundabout way they do control mpg but this difference does bring up a interesting problem. If the technology could exist to take CO2 emissions out of a car's exhaust (a catalytic converter, but for another gas) why would it be enacted if auto makers would still have to obey government mpg standards? A topic for discussion for all of you...

Then there's some jokers in the deck, regulation wise. The first, obviously, is the amount of sulfur in gasoline and what it means for car companies if that is also to be regulated by the EPA. More interestingly, the increasing amount of Canadian oil - tar stuff, quite dirty - means that there will be more sulfur in the refining naturally, and since the winds blowing from Washington seem to indicate more regulation I would suspect that the era of excessive standardization is going to include sulfur content not long from now. Which brings up a interesting question; there's sulfur in Canadian tar oil, but significantly less from Middle East. So, more discussion on that subject; environmental protection greater than or less than geopolitical considerations?

Above all else, we must remember that the automobile industry comes out with a model about once every other year. So when most of these deadlines start hitting their stride (2020, 2018) then there is few car models to work with. The 2010 model has already come out, 2012's - depending on who produces it - has most of the mpg saving (or hurting) generalities engineered. Which means, in no uncertain terms, that the industry has 2014-2016, 2016-2018 and 2018-2020. In other words, they have about three car generations to execute the largest increase in mpgs in the history of automobiles.

Hope it works out, and God Bless this Mess.

 

[Oddball]

Anyhow, the standards are badly issued and worse yet: awkwardly enforced. Road & Track quotes certain consultants within the automobile industry saying, "automakers would prefer any number- even more stringent ones -that are written in ink, not in still-under-discussion chalk. With the EPA granting special leave for California to do as it pleases, some states have accompanied the California model. Yet this proves to be a thorny problem as some states subscribe to both the Federal EPA (by default) and Californian (by choice) without the worrying issue in that the two guidelines sometimes are walking contradictions (especially when California legislators vote on AB 1493).

That's a large part of the problem with economic recovery in general....Banks and businesses have no idea what the rules are, and that many of them have been altered or ignored by executive fiat makes it a dubious proposition that even if the rules were written in ink, they'd be brushed aside as the current administration's situational ethics dictate.

 

[neurosport]

[youtube]rAqPMJFaEdY[/youtube]

yesss ! ! !

 

[neurosport]

I think we should overlook some of the more idealist rhetoric, from both sides, and look at the facts today.

Car companies are faced with a deadline, written in discussion chalk, embodied by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. Explicitly, the industry-overall Corporate Average Fuel Economic for 2020 has to be 35mpg for cars and trucks combined. These are the minimum targets, but more interestingly is the fractured nature in which all of this is being applied and the relative possibility the standards are going to be raised; there is a 'maximum level' which is applied all the way to 2030 which is as high as 52mpg. Double our current fleet's mpg, and honestly speaking worrying (that 'maximum' should be set much more south, and indicates the level of which the government thinks is hurtful, because one could always raise the mpg standards as long as it doesn't go north of this crazy high line).

Anyhow, the standards are badly issued and worse yet: awkwardly enforced. Road & Track quotes certain consultants within the automobile industry saying, "automakers would prefer any number- even more stringent ones -that are written in ink, not in still-under-discussion chalk. With the EPA granting special leave for California to do as it pleases, some states have accompanied the California model. Yet this proves to be a thorny problem as some states subscribe to both the Federal EPA (by default) and Californian (by choice) without worrying the issue that the two guidelines sometimes are walking contradictions (especially when California legislators vote on AB 1493).

To make matters more interesting, there's a common misconception, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (distinctly separate from the EPA, part of the Department of Transportation) is one that actually 'makes' the mpg goals. The EPA regulates emissions, so in a roundabout way they do control mpg but this difference does bring up a interesting problem. If the technology could exist to take CO2 emissions out of a car's exhaust (a catalytic converter, but for another gas) why would it be enacted if auto makers would still have to obey government mpg standards? A topic for discussion for all of you...

Then there's some jokers in the deck, regulation wise. The first, obviously, is the amount of sulfur in gasoline and what it means for car companies if that is also to be regulated by the EPA. More interestingly, the increasing amount of Canadian oil - tar stuff, quite dirty - means that there will be more sulfur in the refining naturally, and since the winds blowing from Washington seem to indicate more regulation I would suspect that the era of excessive standardization is going to include sulfur content not long from now. Which brings up a interesting question; there's sulfur in Canadian tar oil, but significantly less from Middle East. So, more discussion on that subject; environmental protection greater than or less than geopolitical considerations?

Above all else, we must remember that the automobile industry comes out with a model about once every other year. So when most of these deadlines start hitting their stride (2020, 2018) then there is few car models to work with. The 2010 model has already come out, 2012's - depending on who produces it - has most of the mpg saving (or hurting) generalities engineered. Which means, in no uncertain terms, that the industry has 2014-2016, 2016-2018 and 2018-2020. In other words, they have about three car generations to execute the largest increase in mpgs in the history of automobiles.

Hope it works out, and God Bless this Mess.

i don't doubt that it can be done. there were 50 mpg cars fifty years ago. i just wonder how much will a car like Dodge Viper cost with 12 mpg highway or so when Dodge will need to produce twenty "smart" cars just to offset it's gas mileage.

we might have a situation where Dodge would pay the customer ( not the other way around ) to drive a "smart" car just so somebody else could buy a real car for 4X the price that it would have been without the regulations.

Hehe that could really backfire if people who never had cars in the first place, like high school students, will now all be driving because they would be paid to drive

That's an optimistic scenario. That's if they don't further lower the speed limits. After all when half the people are driving dingy little smart cars it would be downright irresponsible to allow speeds as high as say 50 miles per hour.

 

[Metternich]

I know there's a lot of complaints against those little SmartCars, but speed is not one of mine. I was going 70 on I-10 and one of those Benz SmartCars passed me like I was standing still. Must be a crazy feeling, and that guy must have balls of steel, to go that fast yet they can. Which is something.