Have gas prices affected you?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Hobbs

IMO, the real action should take place in the form of getting the U.S. less reliant on crude supplied by countries will are potential enemies.

"Less reliant" = Need to buy less crude, since practically all of the crude-supplying countries have potential enemy status

Requiring more efficient vehicles = People have to buy less gas, the US has to buy less crude

I don't see how this doesn't fall into your definition of "the real action."

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

lots of stuff

Agreed. I didn't intend for my last sentence to diminish my first two.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The Hummer H3 gets 20 mpg.

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Agreed. I didn't intend for my last sentence to diminish my first two.

i figured, i was just using your convenient statement to launch my own tirade.

[Hobbs]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

"Less reliant" = Need to buy less crude, since practically all of the crude-supplying countries have potential enemy status

Requiring more efficient vehicles = People have to buy less gas, the US has to buy less crude

I don't see how this doesn't fall into your definition of "the real action."

True. However, how much efficiency can we build into vehicles before we hit a brick wall. I mean, there is only so much more efficeint ways to burn fossil fuels (areodynamics, computers, better lubricants, lighter vehicles, etc.), right? After a while, some of the burden has to fall on the fuel manufacturers. They have to come up with better formulas which would eventually move in the direction of nontraditional fossil fuel mixtures. Right?

[russotto]

Originally Posted by Cyclefrance

What do you reckon...?

I reckon the article's fibbing you. CAFE applies to most light trucks and SUVs; it's just a lower standard. Only really big stuff (8000 pounds GVWR, I think) is exempt, and in SUVs that leaves you with the 3/4 ton Suburban (not the regular half-ton), the discontinued Excursion, and maybe one or two others.

[tw]

Originally Posted by marichiko

Nice try, tw, but no cigar:

Marichiko provided a chart that is suppose to be gasoline prices in 2005 dollars.
Chart is post #48

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, a dollar in 1970 is now $5.04. That means in 2005 dollars, a gallon of gasoline in 1970 cost $1.75. According to Mari's chart, gas was suppose to cost about $1.45.

By 1979, with gas at $1.20 per gallon, gasoline was $3.40 per gallon using Commerce Department numbers. It looks like the Commerce Department has revised their conversions down from that last time I ran these numbers. According to Marichiko's chart, that price in 2005 dollars was only $2.60.

In 1979, a barrel of crude was costing $35 per bbl. In 2005 dollars, that would be $94 per barrel. Price spiked in June 1979 to $40 per bbl which would be $108 per bbl in 2005 dollars. Current oil prices have risen sharply to only $67 per barrel.

Back then, as they so often do, the Saudis worked to keep oil prices down. So when world market prices were at $35, the Saudis were selling crude at prices of between $18 and $23.50 per bbl. That is between $48.50 and $63 per barrel. Prices for crude and at the pump were significantly higher then compared to today.

In another oil crisis of 1973, gasoline jumped to about $3.25 per gallon in 2005 dollars. According to Marichiko's chart, that price in 1973 was only $1.75. I have problems with Marichiko's chart whose origin is not known. Its numbers contradict the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Hobbs in post #64

I just find it interesting that in this time and age of technological advances that no one can come up with a valid, inexpesive, safe, clean alternative fuel. I mean, come on, why does the fuel we need to use have to include oil as a main ingredient?

Appreciate basic chemistry. Show me another fuel that can store the same energy per pound as petroleum. Furthermore, have you looked at petroleum molecules? We humans make complex structures with simple molecules of two or 6 atoms. Man has no practical way (yet) of making anything as complex as petroleum. We are very dependent on nature for complex organic compounds. Rather sad that a molecule so complex and wonderful, with so many interesting functions, is instead burned for heat. And yet planes really could not fly as they do today without petroleum. There just is no fuel that can store so much energy in so little weight. Furthermore, fuels such as hydrogen (hyped to the naive) just don't transport or store well meaning even worse energy efficiency.

The problem is making a fuel that can store energy without major loss AND can hold sufficient energy per pound. Nothing (at reasonable cost) comes close.

Our energy problems are so simple to solve. It’s called innovation. The solutions are based in efficiencies. Even back in the late 1970s, a maximum zed car (not much larger than a bathtub) using only a carburetor, achieved something like 1300 MPG. Don't even expect a gasoline driven car to achieve those numbers. But those numbers demonstrate what I had posted many months ago (search for a discussion about Horsepower per liter). Most of the energy burned in cars is completely wasted. Cars are that grossly inefficient.

When GM and Ford engineers developed new technologies that made better use of petroleum in about 1970 and 1965, well, what happened to those technologies? They were stifled until rescued by foreign automakers in 1990 and by Honda in 1980.

You tell me. Do you really believe we have not the ability to innovate, based upon lessons of history? Of course we do. So what happened to that $100 million dollars provided in 1994 to build a hybrid? GM still does not have a workable hybrid engine 11 years later. Do you still believe, based upon past and recent histories, that innovation is marketed in the American auto industry? Even when driven to the verge of bankruptcy, those companies still did not tap their archive of innovations.

So you tell me why. Did you say to America, "Keep making crap"? Or did you demand innovation; buy from companies such as Toyota? We stifled innovation when we buy 1968 technology machines marketed as 2005 monster vehicles. Too many so hate America as to buy GM products. Do you say anything when the neighbor says, "F... America" - and buys a Chevy? Well then how in hell are the car guys ever going to tap and use America's innovation pipeline?

Where is that hybrid that the US government paid 11 years ago to have built? Oh. George Jr tells us the solution is more oil. Where is that oil? Middle East and Central Asia. No problem. We will fix their nations. We will impose democracy. I guess that is innovation according to the Project for a New American Century.

But this is the most embarrassing part. Did you even know the simple science as explained in the newspapers (papers that actually report news)? A major problem is that some just think a solution must exist without first learning the underlying concepts - especially the numbers. If one really understood fundamental numbers, then one would immediately see through GM's lie about hydrogen as a fuel. And yet so many of us so don't first learn facts as to believe that GM lie. So again the problem continues.

The nation that was once a number 3 oil producing country was still importing over 50% of its oil - when the 1970s gas crisis hit. Now we import something like 70% of our oil - and don't worry? Furthermore, we now must import natural gas. Why? We consume double energy to accomplish same thing as any other nation. The solution is not more oil. The solution is doing everything smarter. As the Japanese always said, don't work harder - work smarter.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Hobbs

True. However, how much efficiency can we build into vehicles before we hit a brick wall. I mean, there is only so much more efficeint ways to burn fossil fuels (areodynamics, computers, better lubricants, lighter vehicles, etc.), right? After a while, some of the burden has to fall on the fuel manufacturers. They have to come up with better formulas which would eventually move in the direction of nontraditional fossil fuel mixtures. Right?

A 200+ horsepower engine under the hood. That massive engine needs how much horsepower to maintain 55 MPH down the highway? 10? So what happened to the other 100 HP? We must burn extra energy just in case a driver wants to accelerate? The inefficiencies are that great. Don't fool yourself. There is a massive inefficiency in cars. But it take time and public demand to discover how to achieve those efficiencies. The American public, encouraged by the current administration, repeatedly demands no such innovation. Cited previously were historical examples of what it took to rescue American innovations. Japanese. Government regulation. A few decades of delay.

Want to appreciate why solutions sit stifled? You make many demands and ask many questions, but demonstrate little laymen's grasp of the problems. Read that previous discussion about horsepower per liter, et al? Grasp every number as if it were a life jacket on the Titanic. Do you know why a radial tire that achieved double or triple mileage, and that increased fuel economy significantly was essentially banned from the US for almost three decades? Just another lesson of history that better puts your questions into perspective. Therein lies a trend that brings about another 'energy crisis'.

[Hobbs]

RE: TW

I never considered the chemestry aspect before. Harkening back to my chemestry days in school, I do remember descussions on this topic back than; the amount of potential energy stored in fossil fuels is phenominal.

I will also agree on the point of auto manufactures inability to embrace innovation. Like all manufacturers, car manufacturers are in buisness to make money, not make the world a better place. They change, they innovate, but to capture the current public market not to save the ozone or a spotted seal or something. When they felt threatened by foreign markets such as Japan, US manufacturers began to build better quality cars. When the public wanted SUVs, the manufacturer obliged. When we wanted minivans, they poured off the assembly lines like water. There is no current push for fuel efficiency by the public...yet. As fuel prices climb to and above three bucks a gallon, the cry will become louder for fuel efficient cars.

What I don't agree with is the fact that because I bought a 2004 Honda CR-V instead of a 2004 Ford Escape will stiffle and stunt US manufacture willingness to innovate is not entirely true. Like I said, car builders are driven by money. As gas prices climb, people are going to be less willing to buy large US built SUVs and trucks and begin looking at smaller Jap cars again. When the auto manufacturers see this trend, they will react and innovate, making US built cars more desireable than foriegn jobbies. Necessity is the mother of all invention (or inovation). In this case, the necessity is to keep the market and to make money.

[capnhowdy]

some interesting stuff at www.gasbuddies.com.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Hobbs

Like all manufacturers, car manufacturers are in buisness to make money, not make the world a better place. They change, they innovate, but to capture the current public market not to save the ozone or a spotted seal or something. When they felt threatened by foreign markets such as Japan, US manufacturers began to build better quality cars.

The purpose of a company is the profits only when the company has objectives equivalent to the mafia. Only organizations as corrupt as the mafia want profits; the product be damned.

For example, pre-1979 Chrysler was so driven to make money that, for example, windows would rattle in the doors. If management redesigned the bracket so that a parts supplier could make it correctly, then they would increase costs. It was cheaper to leave the bracket as is. A threat of bankruptcy was necessary to eliminate Townsend and Richardo - to get Lee Iacoccoa into Chrysler. So what did Iacoccoa do? He said finance is no longer the driving force in Chrysler. The product is everything. That bracket, et al was finally designed correctly. As a result, Chrysler was earning record profits in only 4 years.

Iacoccoa virtually laid this fact out in his book. But so many among us are so MBA brainwashed that we never saw what Iacoccoa was saying. That bracket story was told as a classic example of why bean counters and their finance oriented thinking is so destructive.

By worrying about the product instead of the profits, then companies stop losing money and earn profits. This goes right to the basic definition of a company - to make better products that advance mankind.

Examples are so long and numerous that it is amazing how many still let MBA school brainwashing distort their thinking. When companies worry about the profits at the expense of product, then they have no profits ... long term. You need only look at Apple Computer under Spindler and Sculley to see what MBA principles almost did to Apple.

Another example from the 1970s. Henry Ford, the anti-American, routinely made decisions from his spread sheets. He could not even drive a car and saw no reason to know how to drive. As a result, car guys designed their last car: 1965 Mustang. After that, all Fords were designed by bean counters. So what happened to Ford's profits? Gone. Why? Because the communist Henry Ford said profits are the purpose of this company. This caused much conflict between him and his son William Clay Ford. The latter is a car guy; not a bean counter.

First car designed by the car guys since the 1965 Mustang ......

1986 Ford Taurus. The Taurus saved Ford from bankruptcy. Why? Twenty plus years of cars designed to maximize profits meant Ford was unprofitable - cost more to build - failed more often - were intentionally changed to (in my case) result in a complete valve job in 10,000 to 20,000 miles

Don Petersen, who replaced Henry Ford (because we stopped buying Fords), demanded a car NOT designed by cost controls. He wanted the best they could do. Product oriented management. This change was difficult for Ford employees to understand. They had been told the 'purpose' was the profits. Suddenly the profits were no longer an objective. The product was everything.

In order to replace MBA mentality with product oriented thinking, Ford even brought the enemy of business schools back from Japan. "Quality is Job #1" is the result of bringing William Edward Deming back from Japan.

Why does 'profits are the objective' so destroy companies? David Halberstam describes the problem with but another example:

"The Reckoning" page 507
E-coat was a technique that Ford manufacturing development people had invented in 1958 to improve the quality of the paint jobs, particularly the rustproofing ... paint, electrically attracted to the car was pulled into the tiniest, hardest to reach crannies of the body. From the first the process was a stunning success ... Very soon it become the industry standard. ... Ford itself moved very slowly in installing the process in its American plants. It was an expensive technique ... That it was a much better process no one doubted. But when the manufacturing and product men pointed to its virtues, the finance men would point to the price. Somehow the manufacturing men would be unable to prove that E-coat would make a $4 million difference. ... In 1984, more than 25 years after Ford had invented it, [three years after the finance people were removed from positions of power and long after Ford had earned profits selling the process to other auto companies] the company got it into its last two plants.

The Ford system ... manufacturing people were ... politically and economically disenfranchised within the company. The finance people had their careers laid out before them: They never had to go out in the field and actually deal with the reality of making cars; instead, they found sponsors and they went right up through the ranks. ... By comparison a young manufacturing man would encounter a subcurrent of condescension and disrespect. ... Someone in finance who was the same age and performing equivalent would more likely be several levels above him in grade and drawing much larger bonuses; the total package might be three or four times as much.

Paul Weaver's 1978 Ford employment in "Suicide Corporation" page 54:
When I went to Dearborn, it worried me that I knew nothing about cars - that I didn't even own one. Wouldn't this be a handicap to a rising young auto executive, I wondered? The answer was no. People at world headquarters almost never talked about cars. Even the many colleagues who had risen through the ranks of NAAO and therefore had to know a lot about automobiles didn't show it. No one expressed any enthusiasm for cars that I ever detected. ...

What did interest my colleagues at Ford ... was the company's position in the auto industry. ... It often seemed that my colleagues would rather bear any burden or incur any risk than see a competitor gain the tiniest advantage. Issues like the character and quality of our products, or how customers used and felt about them, struck few sparks by comparison.

Exactly what happens - long term destruction of the company - when the company foolishly thinks finance rather than the product is more important.

I could write all day about dying companies and their MBA mindset bosses. The trend occurs so often that it is a more honest religion than organized religion. Finance oriented (rather that product oriented) companies die as a result of that MBA school philosophy; "the purpose of a company is its profits". What saves companies from the resulting communist mentality? Often bankruptcy with no government protection is necessary to remove bean counter types who destroy innovation and therefore the company. For a company to innovate, the product must be the company's #1 purpose - not its profits. "Quality is Job #1" means the product (not the finance) is the company's objective. As a result, a reformed and now product oriented company so often achieves record profits.

Chrysler demonstrated it after 1978. Ford in the 1980s. Apple Computer after Spindler was removed by what I am told were chains of four letter words from stock holders. A Board of Directors dominated by bean counter types had already approved Spindlers continued employment when stock holder reaction shocked those BoD back into intelligent thought. Profitable companies (long term) are product oriented because the profits are only a reward - and not the purpose.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Hobbs

What I don't agree with is the fact that because I bought a 2004 Honda CR-V instead of a 2004 Ford Escape will stiffle and stunt US manufacture willingness to innovate is not entirely true.

Reread what I wrote. Did you blindly buy American or did you act like a patriot - and buy using free market principles. You bought a Honda saying to Ford Motor that they need to listen more to car guys - less to bean counters. IOW by buying the Honda, you sent a patriotic message to the domestic auto industry. This will eventually let Ford innovators put 70+ Horsepower per liter engines in all Fords.

How do you make America strong? Buy the best (principles of the free market) and never blindly buy American. 'Buy American' only says "Keep making crap".

[russotto]

Originally Posted by tw

A 200+ horsepower engine under the hood. That massive engine needs how much horsepower to maintain 55 MPH down the highway? 10? So what happened to the other 100 HP?

It isn't produced. An engine with 200 (peak) HP doesn't produce 200HP and somehow waste the rest when it's not needed.

[Undertoad]

All the cars are 200 HP nowadays, even the efficient ones. Even the Honda Accord Hybrid is capable of 255 HP.