New Bill for higher gas efficiency, great cooperation between Dems & Repubs!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Brilliant... a bunch of lawyers who have never created a single piece of technology in all their collective lives are banding together to tell engineers, whose lives are devoted to such developments, what they have to do. :barf:

How about all the engineers get together and tell the legislators how to run the government! We can't have that now, it would actually work!
 
Musk,

The problem is that I believe the car manufacturers have seriously opressed ideas and engineering advancements which would result in greater fuel efficiency. They have no motivation to do anything different. They suck up money and make a few asthetic changes to appeal to buyers and that is it.

Think about it. I have a 1972 Mustang Mach 1 with a 351C, carbeurated...it gets 11.5 mpg on 91 Octane. A friend of mine has a 1967 Baja Bug. It gets about 22 mpg. My 1996 Bronco XL with a 302 that I gave to my mom when I moved out...it gets about 14. I had a 2001 Explorer, 15 mpg. Considering the rest of the advancements in society, you have to be Shizitting me that they can not come up with a bit better change than that in 20 to 30 years!!!

It is about DAMN time that someone hold their feet to the fire and demand change. After all, this is what we elect our political leaders for...to represent our needs and wants as Americans.
 
How about competition holding their feet to the fire?

People are buying hybrids in urban areas not because the gov't is telling them to but because it makes sense given gas prices. As usual overseas manufacturers are leading the way now not only in mileage but in quality. Note Toyota has passed GM...

Fuel efficiency increased after the crunch 30 years ago not because the gov't mandated it but because the market demanded it. The big three may not have immediately responded but Japan did. The best thing that happened to American automotive was Japanese competition.

Over the years though gas prices have remained relatively low. As a result people more and more bought the larger gas guzzling SUVs and large vehicles that they wanted to. It was a market choice to buy fuel inefficient vehicles for the last 20 years, not a matter of industry refusing to provide them. Strangely when I go to Europe I see a great many fuel efficient vehicles. Turbo diesel sedans and station wagons perfectly suitable for Americans if they decided not to go with their Suburban Assault Vehicles. They never embraced them though because we wanted those big gas guzzling tanks. After all, gas was cheap and a big car was a status symbol.

Your Ford Explorer got 15 mpg, who twisted your arm to buy it? Did the CEO of Ford hold a gun to your head and force you to buy an inefficient vehicle or did you like the looks and features on it while not giving a hell about fuel efficiency?

This is America and being inefficient should be your choice as long as you foot the bill for it.

People don't accept responsibility for their decisions here anymore though. It is easier to blame the car makers for filling their showroom floors with the vehicles the public wanted to buy. It is easier to blame the politicians for not forcibly removing a choice from the public that they are paying for now. It is easier to blame everyone but oneself.

As usual though it comes back to some lawyer in office deciding that "they" need to go fix the problem. The public stands with them shouting that "they" need to solve the failings of the communal stupidity that nobody wants to accept responsibility for. As one of the engineers who inevitably become the "they" who have to solve the problems created by the short sighted reactionary lemmings of this world I would be happy to get right on it. I and others like me though would appreciate it if some lawyer who can't even practice, attended an ivy league school boffing sorority girls and living off their trust fund before assuming their hereditary political title while understanding nothing of technology would stay the hell out of our field and not dictate what must or must not be done according to their time frame in order for them to gain a photo op and secure re-election!
 
Without giving global warming anything more than this mention:
  • Transportation is vital to this country's economy.
  • Transportation relies on gasoline.
  • Most gasoline comes from imported oil.
  • Imported oil is easily disrupted by exporting countries.
  • Many of the exporting countries have a rather strong disliking for us.
  • China is working very hard to secure more oil for purchase.
  • Therefore, reducing oil required for transportation, already established to be vital for the economy, is a valid governmental function for the general welfare of the nation.
What I wanna see are incentives for telecommuting to work. Reduces oil use, cuts down on rush hour traffic, everything people want. The software they're coming out with for it is getting better and better. Tax incentives mean more people do it, means more money for software developers, means further improved software, means further demand, means ability to remove incentives. Boom: Happy time.
 
It is the fault of the automotive manufacturers for buying into new-and-amazing technological feats in automotive powering only to later buy it out, make people sign confidentiality agreements and sweep it under the carpet then locking everything having to do with it into some safe somewhere. Lacking the R&D and implementation of better fuel efficient vehicles has saved car manufacturers billions of dollars. If they can make money on what they have, why upgrade. Musk, you are correct...but why have they not made an SUV that gets good mileage until only recently when forced to by foreign markets and competitors?

Answer: Money. It is cheaper to just sell what you have instead of coming up with something new. Oil companies pay them off and it creates an even greater incentive.

As far as my Explorer...I bought it because we have bad snows here. I like to drive up mountain trails that require light 4WD trucks where I can get away from the idiot population a little bit. But, because of mileage, I got rid of it and now drive my new Chevy Cobalt I got for just under $10k. It gets about 30mpg average, would have liked more, but again, what can you do? I didn't have $25k to spend on a VW with a Turbo Deisel. They no longer make Geo Metros. But, now, I can't drive more than 15 during snow or on ice. No more trips up the mountain roads.

So, yes, the car manufacturer's ARE restricting me, and it is time we mandate their output. We mandate food quality. We mandate healthcare quality. Why not mandate the quality of fuel economy from auto makers? Especially when it will better the US Market, lower oil consumption, and offer more of a selection to buyers who would like more than a sardine can to drive around in while considering fuel economy.

I don't even care about being green or global warming. I don't burn plastic or styrofoam. I don't do things unecessarily really to disregard our environment. I keep my heater low in the winter and air conditioner high in the summer. I try to keep my outtings to one trip with multiple destinations, without driving ot the store, coming home, leaving to the mall, coming home, going out to dinner, coming home...etc... But, my energy consumption is relatively small compared to most people. It is just how I live my life, it isn't really that I make a big effort doing it. My monthly utility (gas/electric) bill is about $35. Water bill is about $8/month. I only drive roughly 12,000 miles per year. But, I don't really even think about global warming. I only do what I do because it saves me money.

But, I really encourage mandating companies whose products are used on a huge scale to better their output when it is obviously lacking due to selfish reasons.

Now if we can just do the same with the fuel companies bouncing the fuel prices around like a basketball off the Royal Gorge Bridge.
 
I agree with taking different approaches to this problem.

Incentives for telecommuting, tax breaks for buying fuel efficient vehicles, etc. Provide INDIVIDUALS incentives to make THE CHOICE to be more efficient.

Legislating future technology is ridiculous. These guys have no clue when it comes to science and technology, yet they spew out garbage telling the scientists and engineers what to do. I would love to see some politicians with science and engineering degrees, because I doubt a single politician in DC could pass a simple entry level calculus class. There is plenty of market competition to drive research for fuel economy, we don't need this junk.

I want Tb ethernet over copper (that works with my existing Cat6 wiring) and Gb internet access available to every home in the US for $10/month. Sure, everyone wants that, lets legislate it!
 
It is the fault of the automotive manufacturers for buying into new-and-amazing technological feats in automotive powering only to later buy it out, make people sign confidentiality agreements and sweep it under the carpet then locking everything having to do with it into some safe somewhere. Lacking the R&D and implementation of better fuel efficient vehicles has saved car manufacturers billions of dollars. If they can make money on what they have, why upgrade. Musk, you are correct...but why have they not made an SUV that gets good mileage until only recently when forced to by foreign markets and competitors?
Click to expand...

Please ... think about this for a minute ... given the current struggles of car manufacturers, let's suppose suddenly GM comes out with their new generation of Suburbans that get 30 MPG! With NO loss of power!

Those suburbans, unless outrageously expensive, would sell like hotcakes. GM sales would surge and other companies would have to scramble to compete. Just like American companies spending billions to scramble and compete with Hybrids.

The Amerucan Automotive companies are damned sure willing to spend money to make money. They're not stupid. If they had these awesome and practical technologies, they would develop and use them.

Just a rumore that GM had a new engine system that would get 20% better gas mileage would make their stock shoot up. And believe me ... there's nothing company executives like better than their stock options shooting up.

Free Market works when given a chance.
 
Free Market? What's that?

I am taxed when I make money. I am taxed when I exchange money. I am taxed when I spend money.

Large corporations are not struggling because they know their CEO's will be bailed out by our government if times get tough. (United Airlines)

No one comes to save me if I make non-practical business choices which drive me into bankruptcy.

We are absolutely NOT a fair, balanced, free market.

And yes, they are stupid, because they have just recently been coming up with Hybrids and such, but only AFTER they started feeling the hurt of lower sales numbers.

The Mazda RX-8 with the motor drive that looks like the profile of a football with teeth in around the inside, the one that gets better mileage because it takes less torque to turn such a cam inside of a motor...a friend of mine was working with the engineers who originally came up with that kind of design back in the early 70s. He showed me calculations, paperwork, pictures, drawings and sales brochures. He has tons of this stuff in like 2 large cardboard boxes. This was nothing new with the RX-8. He told me the original engineer who was the major investor was bought out by GM in 74/75 and the whole project was gone. The engineer he told me about never talked about it again and moved away to some other state. The design only resurfaced again by a foreign manufacturer in what was it? 2003/4/5 that the RX-8 came out?

I have no doubt GM bought it up and later sold it to Mazda (who is now owned by a big part by Ford) to make a bit of money.

You can't believe everything you read in press releases and new reports, but I saw it with my own eyes, and seeing is believing.

They were also toying with the "W" design now seen in Volkswagons. But, they didn't get too far into that.
 
I lost a lot of money and a vacation, which doesn't come around often enough, because of these idiotic government standards. I had a GMC Jimmy that had a motor in it that was too small for the chassis. GM put 'er in there to meet fuel milage standards for "X" amount of SUVs. It fried on me while on a road vacation, found out the sorted details later, those were time bombs. Not only did it run less efficietly when it suffered premature wear but it costs resources to make replacement motors, last I checked. Typical government feel good legislation.

One other point seldom mentioned. They often get low fuel consumption rates by lightening the bodies. Your chances of surviving an accident is greatly reduced as the mass is decreased. I wonder how many lives have been lost in order to make a handful of legislators feel good about themselves?

And I don't buy the conspiracy theories on buying out technologies so they can sell more inefficient vehicles.
If someone did it in their basement why can't some other company?
 
Large corporations are not struggling because they know their CEO's will be bailed out by our government if times get tough. (United Airlines)

No one comes to save me if I make non-practical business choices which drive me into bankruptcy.

We are absolutely NOT a fair, balanced, free market.
Click to expand...
Er hmm, not all companies are the size of UA and if they go under the same people complaining about an unfair market place will be complaining about all the jobs lost. And when you declare bankruptcy you ARE being bailed out! We don't have debtor's prison anymore.
 
Did you know Tesla Motors was offered a buyout by Ford (I believe it was) back in their early stages?

And, I while I can declare bankruptcy, rarely would I be eligible to keep my company, my employees and my own payroll. Besides, bankruptcy then ups the interest rate for everyone. Again, I would not call that free or fair market.
 
I'd feel a lot more sympathetic towards revance's argument that Congress didn't understand automotive engineering if they couldn't call experts to testify, and if the technology for more fuel-efficient cars didn't exist already. Car manufacturers, for whatever reason, are quite content to continue to manufacture less-efficient vehicles (likely because everybody has an excuse for why they need or deserve a bigger vehicle). The collective action problem is a very real thing, and if everyone was driving around in lighter cars, then we'd be just as safe as we are now driving heavier cars.

I also must point out about the "conspiracy" theories of oil companies buying out patents: they would have a financial incentive to do so. And if it was already done once and patented, then the oil company as the patent holder would be able to prevent it from being produced by anybody who re-invented it independently.

Jaser: Let me get this straight... GM sells a poorly-engineered piece of junk to you, and you blame the government? Not that I think the fleet averages are much good anyway, but don't you think that GM could have... you know... done a good job rather than cutting corners?
 
The US auto makers have had the capability to produce average mileage of above 35mpg for decades.
But just like when they threw away an insurmountable lead in world auto production during the sixties, US Auto makers are so short sighted that they need a kick in the ass to do something that's in their own self interest.

The alternative is of course letting them flounder around for a few decades trying to keep up with the rest of the world.

We're not talking about an engineering here, we're talking about a bunch of fat cat corporate bureaucrats.
 
I also must point out about the "conspiracy" theories of oil companies buying out patents: they would have a financial incentive to do so. And if it was already done once and patented, then the oil company as the patent holder would be able to prevent it from being produced by anybody who re-invented it independently.

Jaser: Let me get this straight... GM sells a poorly-engineered piece of junk to you, and you blame the government? Not that I think the fleet averages are much good anyway, but don't you think that GM could have... you know... done a good job rather than cutting corners?
Click to expand...

Having a patent on a technology and keeping it a secret doesn't prevent a company from a similar development and
at least publicizing the fact, perhaps even going to court like so many software companies do.

Yes, I blame the government for the micro-management, GM's motor was a good one in a lighter body but to sell a particular model (like a Jimmy or Blazer) a percentage had to meet the artificial requirements. The 4 liter motor couldn't do it at the time. Don't get me wrong, I blame GM too, maybe they all did it? The point is that's the kind of thing that happens when government gets involved on that level. The market place does a much better job of meeting public demand.
 
The high MPG cars are out there.
The problem is that no one wants them.

Did they factor in how many additional deaths will result from smaller lighter cars?

For over 50 years the auto makers have been accused of killing off technology.
It has been a very long run of BS.
If any manufacturer had some new miracle technology they would be using it to beat the crap out of the competition.

You might want to loosen your aluminum foil (tinfoil is rather pricey).
 
More forced government control of the formerly free market.

Bush doesn't care about "efficiency" or saving oil, give us a break. Bush cares about expanding federal power and control.

If bush gave one whit about reducing consumption of oil, he would have ordered parts of the gigantic federal empire in urban areas that 10% of the new government vehicles they buy must be one of the MANY hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that are on the market right now by 5 different automakers. For the cost of a few bureaucrats' bonuses, hydrogen fuel stations for these federal vehicles could be built. Hydrogen vehicles are just waiting for someone with a little bit of leadership and courage and then they will take over the market in a few years after the initial surge.

The CAFE standard came mostly from democrats and their desire to use government force to legislate the reality they envision, kind of like passing a law that says the sun is now made of cheese. Sadly, the republicans have not abolished the CAFE standard.
 
The Mazda RX-8 with the motor drive that looks like the profile of a football with teeth in around the inside, the one that gets better mileage because it takes less torque to turn such a cam inside of a motor...a friend of mine was working with the engineers who originally came up with that kind of design back in the early 70s. He showed me calculations, paperwork, pictures, drawings and sales brochures. He has tons of this stuff in like 2 large cardboard boxes. This was nothing new with the RX-8. He told me the original engineer who was the major investor was bought out by GM in 74/75 and the whole project was gone. The engineer he told me about never talked about it again and moved away to some other state. The design only resurfaced again by a foreign manufacturer in what was it? 2003/4/5 that the RX-8 came out?
Click to expand...

Mazda has been using rotary/wankle engines for years. the RX-7's had them since the 70's. No conspiracy to cover them up, I assure you. Rotaries arent known for good gas mileage either.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top