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Automotive News & Views Has CAFE reached the end of its usefulness?
507 messages, Last post on Oct 27, 2009 at 11:49 AM
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Replying to: nippononly (Apr 02, 2009 7:27 am) I have no further choices except to drive fewer miles, change jobs, move domicile, etc. |
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I am not totally against raising gas taxes, I just think that if they do it now there will be mayhem in the streets. I am researching all-electric powertrains cars constantly now, planning to jump off the ghastly bandwagon as soon as the purchasing time is right. That could be years and years and years, but I am looking for that time to come. Excited about it, actually. 
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I certainly think so!
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Replying to: carfanforever (Apr 02, 2009 1:06 pm) Ove the 30 yrs that the current system has been in place it hasn't stopped the vehicle makers from making SUVs for those than want them, trucks for those that want them, midsizers for the bulk of the population and small cars and hybrids for those that want them. In addition it has saved billions of gallons of fuel and it's kept upwards of $25 to $50 Billion in our pockets that hasn't gone to oil companies and Saudi princes. So where is the 'bad'.
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Replying to: kdhspyder (Apr 02, 2009 1:51 pm) Becuase look at what this latest revamping of CAFE has done to the product plans of the D3. It has for all intents and purposes decimated GMs plans for Zeta, it's Trucks, and it's Muscle/Sports car program. Like it or not, those are the vehicles they know how to do best, and that earn the company positive buzz among car buyers, something GM could use every ounce of. It also has hurt Ford vis-a-vis their global RWD program, but since Ford is a little better at making smaller vehicles than GM (But still not as good as the Euros and Japanese) they were hit less hard by it. I think this was the plan all along, and that the haters of big V8 vehicles in Washington just bided their time to put something like this into action.
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Replying to: nippononly (Apr 01, 2009 8:20 pm) Your memory has failed you... for shame  Tata owns Jaguar and Land Rover, thus their inclusion on the list as the "manufacturer" (or, the parent firm). kcram - Pickups/Wagons Host
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Replying to: carfanforever (Apr 02, 2009 4:05 pm) Did you miss the fact that it was the price of fuel that jumped over $4 a gallon last year that was the real cause of the D3 getting out of SUVs and trucks. The new CAFE regs that you're worried about aren't going to take full effect for 11 more years!!!! It was the price of fuel and the shift of the US buying public since 2001 that put the D3 where they are now. CAFE had nothing to do with it. The old CAFE regs from the early 80s were still in effect all through this decade as GM fell apart. In the 90s GM made $Billions in profits with the same CAFE rules in place. All of a sudden this decade GM is a rotting hulk losing $Billions with the same CAFE rules in place. Nothing changed in CAFE while this transformation took place. CAFE is the easy excuse that losers search out in order to place the blame for their own incompetence. You can't make $Billions on one hand then lose $Billions on the other hand under the same rules then place the blame on the rules. The cut backs you noted were decided by the managment when they finally recognized that they had made a horrendous error by emphasizing BOF vehicles too heavily. The vehicles you noted as being the strengths of the D3 are in fact their weaknesses. The muscle cars do create a buzz in enthusiast circles. Agreed. But when those 12 enthusiasts buy their vehicles the vehicle maker is left with a near empty plant that can't be filled because the huge majority of the population has no interest whatsoever in these dinosaurs. The D3 can't make profits by being specialty boutique builders of low volume muscle cars. That was a luxury for a different time in the 70s when they dictated the market. Now the buyers dictate the market. In the meanwhile over the last 25 or 30 years we've saved billions of gallons of fuel not burned up and kept $25 to $50 Billions here at home instead of donating it to Big Oil, Saudi princes, Venezuelan dictators and Iranian terrorists. All the while during those years especially in the 90s GM was raking in $Billions in profits. Now what was bad about CAFE again?
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Replying to: kcram (Apr 02, 2009 4:44 pm) kdh: A gas tax just takes more money from my pocket with nothing gained in return. Well, you are to be applauded for being ahead of the curve, but you DO still benefit in that the higher gas tax stops gas price spikes from happening as often and as high as they will with unchecked consumption. And even with a Prius, gas price spikes DO affect you, what with all the miles you drive for work. |
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Replying to: nippononly (Apr 02, 2009 8:43 am) I wrote about my experience 2 summers ago in an earlier post. I was visiting one of the caverns in Virginia and they had a small auto museum next door. They had models from the beginning of the era through the 40's and 50's. The interesting thing is some of the cars built in the 20's and 30's got 20+ mpg. I'm sure that was at a constant speed on flat land but it leads me to believe that maybe we have gotten all we can get out of the internal combustible engine. I would think we would be farther along 80 to 90 years later. |
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Replying to: kdhspyder (Apr 02, 2009 8:24 pm) The Zeta-based cars are not body-on-frame. They use a rear-wheel-drive layout, but they also use unibody construction. Same with the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger and Challenger. kdhspyder: The vehicles you noted as being the strengths of the D3 are in fact their weaknesses. The muscle cars do create a buzz in enthusiast circles. Agreed. But when those 12 enthusiasts buy their vehicles the vehicle maker is left with a near empty plant that can't be filled because the huge majority of the population has no interest whatsoever in these dinosaurs. The D3 can't make profits by being specialty boutique builders of low volume muscle cars. That was a luxury for a different time in the 70s when they dictated the market. Now the buyers dictate the market. The Mustang was selling over 100,000 units annually. It has only recently dropped in sales because Ford is getting ready to unveil a new one and the market for ALL vehicles is down (Toyota is offering incentives on the Prius). The Pontiac G8 is a sedan; it's not a "muscle car." It can be used as a family hauler. The G8 flopped because: a. GM hasn't bothered to promote it; and b. it is being sold as a Pontiac, which is a dying brand. It should have been sold as a Chevrolet, which would have given it a much larger dealer body and immediate tie-in with Chevy's trucks and the Corvette, not to mention the upcoming Camaro. kdhspyder: In the meanwhile over the last 25 or 30 years we've saved billions of gallons of fuel not burned up and kept $25 to $50 Billions here at home instead of donating it to Big Oil, Saudi princes, Venezuelan dictators and Iranian terrorists. All the while during those years especially in the 90s GM was raking in $Billions in profits. Making vehicles more economical only makes them cheaper to drive, as long as gasoline prices stay low (which they did until very recently). Gasoline use continued to climb. It was only within the last year that gasoline consumption actually dropped. The average annual mileage per vehicle in the U.S. climbed from under 10,000 miles in the early 1970s to over 12,000 miles by 2006 (the latest year for which I could find figures). Even that trend is deceptive - there are more vehicles per household. So more people are driving, which results in fewer miles being added to an individual vehicle every year, but still ups the overall number of miles driven (and amount of gas burned). The total number of miles driven had continued to increase until the double whammy of $4-a-gallon for unleaded and the collapse of the housing bubble reversed the trend last year. kdhspyder: Now what was bad about CAFE again? It didn't work, and it also caused some unintended side effects (namely, the shift to trucks and SUVs after the death of large, rear-wheel-drive passenger cars).
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