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Automotive News & Views How The 35 mpg Law By 2020 Will Affect The Cars We Will Drive
538 messages, Last post on Jul 31, 2008 at 6:28 AM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: hpmctorque (Dec 22, 2007 4:18 pm) I think you are right. Many here like to blame all the woes on the oil companies. While some have large reserves, many are buying oil on the open market to refine and sell to US. If we are buying 66% of our oil from other countries, that is not the fault of the oil companies. Most of the oil we buy is state owned and controlled. If you want to bad mouth our oil suppliers we need to say how greedy, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia are. Then you add all the fickled states like California that have to have designer gasoline that adds a lot in the refining process. Oh, and now they have to add ethanol to keep the folks in the Midwest happy and growing more corn. The real greed can be traced back to the guy at the pump that thinks we should have gas cheaper than anyone else in the world. That does not endear us to the guy paying $6 per gallon. I guess if we were to develop more of our known reserves we could take a little bite out of the foreign oil producers. Still just a short term solution. |
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Replying to: hpmctorque (Dec 22, 2007 4:18 pm) |
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Reasonable people can disagree on what motivates brilliant people to accomplish great things. I think the hierarchy of motivating factors and traits vary from brilliant person to brilliant person, Viciousness and greed could be the primary motivating factors for some (although I doubt even that's true for many), but not for others. Whatever moves inventive minds, it'll be required in spades to achieve energy independence.
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Replying to: hpmctorque (Dec 23, 2007 5:55 am) On the other hand, it doesn't take much effort or brilliance of mind to drive 5 mph slower or turn off a few light bulbs. Conservation must be a dull bullet since many people seem to be relying on a silver one to bail them out of any energy crunches. Even if you go into full-on land on the moon mode, that's still going to eat up a decade. Shoot, it took two decades just to up CAFE a bit.
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Replying to: steve_ (Dec 23, 2007 6:58 am) There are people that believe the silver bullet exists and if you elect the right politician we will have access to it. Trying to conserve myself I ran into an obstacle. I was going to change out the incandescent light bulbs in my Hampton Bay ceiling lighted fans. I put in 2 new CFL lights and they flickered off and on. So I was stuck using 60 watt incandescent. There has to be millions of those fans installed in American homes.
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Replying to: gagrice (Dec 23, 2007 8:08 am) I figure burning night lights (or using lighted switches) is cheaper than breaking a few toes now and then.  I'm curious to see what the LED craze will have on car lights in general. |
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I agree on the need for conservation, but I think that a fuel tax increase, with offsetting sales tax decreases, would be a much more effective and efficient way to achieve conservation than the 35 mpg by 2020 law. When all is said and done, the 35 mpg law is unlikely to be more effective in achieving its consumption reduction goals than the '75 CAFE law has been. Sure, fuel economy went up, but consumption went up even more. The new law could have a similar unintended effect. How? If the law succeeds in improving fuel economy, which it will (in conjunction, lest we forget, with ~$90/barrel oil), it will put downward pressure on oil prices. And what happens when prices go down? Well, demand increases, of course, and greater demand = greater consumption. Look, I don't presume to know what the net effect of the 35 mpg law will be, but I think we squandered an opportunity to do something better.
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Replying to: hpmctorque (Dec 23, 2007 8:50 am) One thing I have noticed is evryone is focusing on things that already in place like, diesel, hybrids, smaller cars, etc. One thing that we have lost in the auto industry esp. the domestics is innovation. The fact that the 2008 Ford Focus is by far the most efficient domestic small car at 35 mpg highway is pathetic. I was at a small car museum in VA (associated with one of the cavern tours) and back in 1930, there were cars that achieved over 20 mpg. As far as fuel efficiency, we have not come very far in the past 80 years. I've been doing some research and there is the technology out there to increase the fuel economy of each car by close to 40%. This is without changing anything in the current car design. The problem is the oil companies are making so much money at our expense, they aren't interested. Hopefully with this new standard, the auto manufacturers begin to become more innovative and Congress realizes that they also have to be a part of the solution. Of course if they stop taking money from the oil companies, it would also help. |
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"The problem is the oil companies are making so much money at our expense, they aren't interested." Who designs the cars we buy? Who selects and buys the cars that are on the market? Why are the oil companies "the" problem? I'm not suggesting the oil companies are saints, but they're not satan, either. Incidentally, I've never been associated with the oil industry. I just fail to see logic of assigning so much of the blame on the oil companies and so little on where a lot of it may belong - ourselves and our choices. Also, if the oil companies are hugely profitable, we can participate by investing in them, to the extent that their actions will not be at our expense, or even to the extent that it could be to our benefit.
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