Gas Prices: Who's to Blame?

[lookout123]

Today, GM's Rick Wagoner was talking about GM products doing a major increase - 23 MPG.

Wagoner is an asshat, but no reason for you to be. You didn't say it, but you seem to imply that is for GM cars. That number includes the light trucks (1/2 ton and smaller) which would logically carry with it a lower than expected average. No, I don't like GM products I just despise sanctimonious liars more.

[tw]

Originally Posted by lookout123

Wagoner is an asshat, but no reason for you to be.

Everything I have posted is what your best friend and an honest person would say. Nothing posted here by me is typical of an asshat. If you don't think so, well, thank you for your honesty and sorry you don't know what honesty looks like.

Half ton pickup is a perfect example of why GM products consume so much energy wastefully. A pickup properly designed would be front wheel drive (drive wheels should be located where most of the vehicle's weight is located), would weight less than a passenger car (pickups don't have therefore don't need more weight than a same size car), would be much lower, and would have higher ground clearance like a Humvee.

But that means a pickup must be designed. Pickups are a hodgepodge thrown together without integrating the design. Why are pickups so high but have so little ground clearance? Consuming all that more space and adding additional steel (that adds weight but does not increase strength) are easier to design and build.

Why is that pickup truck bed so high? If should be only half as high while the pickup has more ground clearance. But again, that would require an integrated design, using front wheel drive, and stop using simpler parts from other older vehicles.

Of course, an integrated design would mean more engineering. Better is to cut costs, keep the truck heavy, make it higher (to appease egos), and still use those 1968 technology drive trains and engines. Then a pickup that could easily sell at a profit for maybe $12,000 can be hyped into a $25,000 truck.

Pickups are a perfect example of obsolete technology vehicles, grossly overweight, with poor ground clearance for a vehicle so high - but hyped like another poor technology product - Harley Davidson motorcycles. GM makes a $5000 profit on pickups. Why make them better, fuel efficient, with the bed at a respectable height, and so much less weight including front wheel drive? Profits on the poor technology vehicle can be hyped even using fancy interiors for a $5000 and $10000 profit. GM profit on cars is estimated to be as high as $300. Better to keep hyping that obsolete technology pickup as 'cool'.

No reason for a pickup to be rear wheel drive - except that it maximizes profits using same 1968 technology engines. No innovation and a hyped image resulting in higher profits. Why is that pickup bed so ridiculously high? Why does a truck with so little weight so much? A properly design pickup should have better fuel economy than a mid sized car. The whole back end is empty space. But that means engineering the truck.

[lookout123]

what you fail to understand is that it doesn't matter if a truck is the cutting edge technology, if it isn't what the consumer wants to buy. Some people buy their trucks for actual work. Some people buy them for legitimate recreation purposes. Most people buy them because that is what they like. They like the way they look and the way they drive. If a company veers too far from that they lose the customer loyalty.

Customers want what they want and they won't let you tell them what they want. If customers really cared about fuel economy and technology the H2 would have never sold a single unit. We would all drive a Prius for daily drivers and work trucks would be small panel vans with fuel sipping engines. That isn't America. Maybe it will be someday, but not today.

GM's management sucks, but you act like they have a public that won't buy the product because we're all waiting for the next technological marvel. People buy cars that they like the looks of, that fit their lifestyle, and fit within their budget. Anything else is icing on the cake.

You are going to have to take your engineer's blinders off and try to understand the world around you is a world full of humans, not machines. Your ideas on technology and products may be correct 90% of the time but you miss the bigger picture 99% of the time.

[tw]

Originally Posted by lookout123

You are going to have to take your engineer's blinders off and try to understand the world around you is a world full of humans, not machines. Your ideas on technology and products may be correct 90% of the time but you miss the bigger picture 99% of the time.

You are saying exactly what those GM executives said in the 1960s - nobody wants front wheel drive. You are saying exactly what those GM executives said after DeLorean put a 5 speed in some 1975 Chevy's. GM said nobody wants five speeds and removed the technology in 1977. You are saying exactly what GM executives said about fuel injection and electronics ignition. Then it was finally demanded by government regulation. GM executives said nobody wants headlights and wipers controlled from the steering column. Then it was standard on what were then superior foreign products. GM executives said nobody wanted rack and pinion steering. So superior foreign products had it 20 years before GM finally reduced their manufacturing costs by also using rack and pinion. GM says nobody wants overhead cams - just another reason why GM engines costs more to build and require two extra pistons. GM said nobody wanted reclining seats. Finally I seen too much as did so many friends once I kept exposing these GM crap products. What happened? Every above item was strongly demanded AND eventually appeared on competition products. Costing controlling created diminishing market share from over 50% to the hard core 25%. Oh. One quarter of those GM sales are not to employees and employees of their suppliers - at discount. Only people all but required to buy a GM product are maintaining sales of cars that don't have what people really want.

Yes, 28% of American also believes George Jr is doing a good job. Same minority would also be in denial about GM for same reasons. Surprising – I still hear people say they finally bought a Hyundai,et al four years ago, did not realize how bad their GM products were, and will never go back. IOW GM’s market position will only get worse because even the hard core who will not change are conceding how bad GM products are.

If GM wanted to stop being a reason for high energy prices, GM would have pioneered a superior pickup truck that long ago using the same principles that made GM so industry dominate in the 1950. Well, with moderate gas prices, GM's pickup market has started crashing. What will happen to truck sales when gas prices become high? GM was not innovating 10 years ago. Therefore sales must crash to maybe below 50% now.

Why did GM so dominate the world auto industry in 1957? Because GM was doing innovation that "nobody wanted": including power steering, three speed transmissions, air conditioning, automatic transmissions, rotating valves that eliminated engine failures, multiport carburetors, etc. Later innovation was stifled by people who said we don't want all this stuff. Twenty years later, all this stuff began appearing in products that therefore became America's best selling products. But marketing still says the public does not want all this stuff? Nonsense. That ostrich mentality - marketing geniuses who don't even drive cars - is why gasoline prices increase.

I understand what you say. You are saying why gasoline prices must rise higher. Americans don't like change. Americans hate hybrids. Eventually Toyota et al will pioneer the pickup that GM should have done 10 years ago. Then another part of GM’s market disappears. How many times do we see this before we acknowledge why innovation was really what people wanted. Wall Street is now asking whether GM will go into bankruptcy first.

BTW, same question is being asked of Chrysler whose products also suck and whose fiinancial numbers are less public.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by lookout123

Customers want what they want and they won't let you tell them what they want.

I know what you are trying to say here lookout, but I don't completely agree. If what you are saying is true, then there would be no car advertisements on tv. Advertising works. Car companies routinely change the behavior of consumers by convincing them that they want something that they didn't previously know they wanted.

It doesn't always work for every product. Remember the Aztec? But it does work surprisingly well for most. Consumers usually give more weight to the "image" of a car than most practical concerns when they are buying one, and advertisements are very effective at portraying what the "image" of a car is.

[lookout123]

but they are advertising the image that they feel people want. that is why most auto makers have regional commercials. nearly all of them out here show trucks going through the desert and over rough rocky terrain. outdoor sports. in chicago i've seen the same vehicle be advertised as a sleek in city status symbol.

it would be a tough sell to convince those that like the rough and tumble image of trucks to buy a small, highly fuel efficient, front wheel drive pickup. it will happen eventually, but not until the public is ready for it.

[tw]

Originally Posted by lookout123

but it would be a tough sell to convince those that like the rough and tumble image of trucks to buy a small, highly fuel efficient, front wheel drive pickup. it will happen eventually, but not until the public is ready for it.

You don't see the word smaller in anything I posted. I have described a truck that is larger, weights massively less, and has a stronger (and longer lasting) drive train. That drive train in pickups today is the weak, low reliability drive train. It's the same 1960 technology that cars no longer use because it fails so often - too many parts - too exposed.

Hear pickups self destructing as they drive down the road. Hear that noise from its exhaust? That's energy being wasted and poorly machined parts vibrating more. Vibrations inside parts cause most wear and damage. Yes, the noise appeals to those with little intelligence - who know it must be better because it makes more noise. But then propaganda can make those types believe anything. Innovative products are first bought by the more intelligent. Notice the increasing market share something recent - Japanese pickups. A Japan clone is superior to a Chevy as the Japan clone mini-van took over that market. Well, it takes time for propaganda to get the easily manipulated to change their thinking. No problem. Toyota, et al will simply do to trucks what they did to cars. More American will end up working for foreigners. All traceable to consumers who encouraged GM to keep making the same pickup based upon a 1930 design with 1960 technology and some of the worlds crappiest drive trains.

Just like in the 1970s - GM, Ford, etc said we cannot improve on cars. They called themselves a smoke stack industry because bean counters cannot innovate. You would suggest GM cannot innovate the truck using the same 'ostrich' reasoning? Innovators always make new markets. Anti-innovators (ie communists) wait for someone else to take those markets away. Same logic also explained why GM, with a 70 Hp/liter engine originally designed in 1972 could not implement that engine even in 2002. Everyone else now uses 70 Hp/liter engines. But not GM. GM said their obsolete technology "was the image that people wanted".

If GM wanted to advance themselves, America, and reduce energy consumption; the pickup would be front wheel drive with all the massive improvement that come from such designs. But GM mentality is to stifle innovation and consume even more fuel. No wonder it takes government regulation to get any innovation out of GM.

[lookout123]

You should definitely create your auto line. And then when you've conquered that you should become a business management consultant and change the way companies are run. After that you absolutely must run for office so you can fix corruption in our political system.

you know everything so you'd be the ideal guy to do it. just as long as real life works like you think it will after reading a few books.