gas price thread

[Voltron]

Why do you keep blaming industry for making what people want to buy?

If the market acted like it cared, industry would make wherever the hell people wanted to buy as long as the margin was good enough.

Where does the personal responsibility lie?

 

[The Toecutter]

Why do you keep blaming industry for making what people want to buy?

If the market acted like it cared, industry would make wherever the hell people wanted to buy as long as the margin was good enough.

Where does the personal responsibility lie?

The personal responsibility lies in the boardroom for deliberately refusing to sell EVs in the 1990s when those who leased them wanted to buy them, for deliberately manipulating the market through advertising and buying government regulations favorable to their profits, for deliberately refusing to meaningfully increase the fuel economy of its offerings even as far back as the 1970s fuel crisis when people were demanding it and for also manipulating government CAFE standards to give loopholes for larger vehicles, and for writing the regulations designed to keep competitors from either forming outright or offering their products to the public.

The industry builds what it wants people to buy, and manipulates the public's tastes. People then have to buy what is offered, or not buy. THIS is why Tesla grew so rapidly and has waiting lists months long. They built vehicles that were efficient AND didn't suck, when no one else did.

Your average Joe Sixpack who uses a 20-year-old Toyota Corolla to get back and forth to work 15 miles each way is not nearly as much to blame for this situation as GM, Ford, Stellantis VAG, Mercedes, Toyota, Honda, and their ilk.

 

[Voltron]

They used to make this Civic.. And some people bought it.


And every year others said "well I might buy it if it was faster." Or if it just looked flashier. And intimidated people more. And came with cushier seats..
And every time, industry said sure we can do that, but it will hurt the mileage.
And guess what consumers showed they actually cared about...

So now they make this Civic. Did industry force this on people?

 

[The Toecutter]

They used to make this Civic.. And some people bought it.

And every year others said "well I might buy it if it was faster." Or if it just looked flashier. And intimidated people more. And came with cushier seats..
And every time, industry said sure we can do that, but it will hurt the mileage.
And guess what consumers showed they actually cared about...

So now they make this Civic. Did industry force this on people?

Yes. They could have made the generation of Civic after the first into a streamliner, shoved an antiquated inefficient Detroit V8 into it, and got 35+ mpg on the highway. I bet people would have bought THAT in the late 1970s when everything else with a big engine was getting 14 mpg.

Load reduction is not rocket science. It is the single most significant thing that can be done to improve vehicle efficiency. YET we only see incremental progress on this subject, when it was known as far back as the 1930s how to make MASSIVE gains.

See the 1935 Tatra T77A. It has a drag coefficient of 0.21, the same as the modern 2022 Tesla Model S PLAID, currently the most aerodynamically efficient mass market car available.

 

[Voltron]

"Your average Joe Sixpack who uses a 20-year-old Toyota Corolla to get back and forth to work 15 miles each way is not nearly as much to blame for this situation"

From what I've seen of America, Joe 6 pack drives a new giant pickup truck, or the newest Hellcat or Charger retro muscle car crap show he took out giant loans on.

But he's still happy to bitch about gas prices being the things keeping him broke... On the way to go buy the newest Iphone.
I guess we have different views about personal choice. Seeing Americans as poor victims of sinister industry just doesn't match what I've seen about what Americans love to buy and then brag about

 

[The Toecutter]

"Your average Joe Sixpack who uses a 20-year-old Toyota Corolla to get back and forth to work 15 miles each way is not nearly as much to blame for this situation"

From what I've seen of America, Joe 6 pack drives a new giant pickup truck, or the newest Hellcat or Charger retro muscle car crap show he took out giant loans on.

But he's still happy to bitch about gas prices being the things keeping him broke... On the way to go buy the newest Iphone.

You must live in a rich area. That is not what I see where I live. The average car on US roads is almost 13 years old. Where I live, more common is used Toyotas and Hondas in that age range. The pickup truck and SUV drivers are more often than not driving the newist body style rather than an older one, however, but they are not the majority, even if they are ubiquitous.

 

[JackFlorey]

This is why used Toyota Camrys and Honda Accords retain their value so well. Those who cannot afford to buy new cars want something inexpensive to operate, fuel efficient, and reliable.

But apparently they also want something with "more performance and rear drive." That's the problem. There is no one solution.

 

[Voltron]

I live in California, where even if you're dirt poor, you'll saddle yourself with debt as you long as you think people are staring jealously as you drive by.

 

[The Toecutter]

But apparently they also want something with "more performance and rear drive." That's the problem. There is no one solution.

Going to rear drive, you lose an extra 1% to driveline efficiency. Not significant.

Cut the drag coefficient of the car in half and lose 700 lbs of unnecessary bloat, and you'll increase economy by more than 50% overall, a little less in the city, greatly more on the highway. AND you'll go a lot faster. AND it will be greatly less expensive to build without all of these features that are going to break later on and possibly brick the car without spending thousands of dollars to fix it at the Stealership.

If the Dodge Charger Hellcat were turned into a streamliner with a Cd around 0.15, math and a BSFC curve says it would exceed 40 mpg highway. And its engine is utter CRAP for efficiency. Bonus: acceleration above 100 mph would be even more ridiculous.

 

[Voltron]

Yup, all that it true.

I wonder why people buy them so much then?
It's almost like they enjoy knowing they're driving a big bloated un-aerodynamic inefficient piece of crap with terrible handling.

But they sure seem to like that feeling that the insane volume of the exhaust makes them hard to ignore when they're strutting around in it.

 

[The Toecutter]

Yup, all that it true.

I wonder why people buy them so much then?

Civics are prized for their relative reliability and efficiency compared to other offerings by the automakers. Of course they sold.

The potential for greatly more efficiency AND performance without greatly increasing cost is there, but that sort of vehicle was never offered. Instead, we get incremental improvements in these things, in spite of knowing how to streamline a car without sacrificing what makes it practical being extremely old knowledge.

If you took a 5-seater car, had a finished weight of about 2,700 lbs, and it had a drag coefficient around 0.15 without reducing frontal area vs a normal bloated modern Civic, using a modern 2.0L 158 horsepower 4-cylinder from a modern Civic, such a thing could exceed 80 mpg highway, 45 mpg city. If you geared it appropriately, it would top out at over 170 mph. This would also open the door to an affordable 200+ mph Civic Si without increasing power over the stock engine.

None of this is rocket science. Go to ecomodder.com, and you will see no shortage of hobbyists, that for a few hundred dollars and some sweat equity, have turned 35 mpg cars into 60 mpg cars, without sacrifice. The auto industry can certainly do better than that.

 

[Voltron]

BTW, don't think I'm letting industry off the hook for their illegal and immoral shenanigans. (F ck you Volkswagen!)
But consumers have known what they do for decades now..
Not seeing a lot of boycotts or consumer outrage.
So the dollars keep flowing in to those criminal coffers... Would you stop if you were them, making billions while suckers line up?
Or would you blame the suckers that have shown pretty clearly they don't care what you did.. but about whether those 2023 Hellcats are in stock yet?

 

[The Toecutter]

If I ran a car company, I'd do the right thing. Make what the consumer wants WITHOUT manipulating their tastes to suit my profits, and then make the best product I could, without regard for fads or planned obsolescence.

I'd build a 35-40 mpg 2023 Dodge Charger Hellcat. It wouldn't have the look people are used to, but it would be a crap ton faster, and at the end of the day, that's really what the buyer wants out of it.

I'd also build a low-margin $15,000 basic as hell EV with a 150 mile range, using LiFePO4 batteries. Design for reliability and longevity. Get the range not from increasing the size of the battery pack, but from load reduction. Efficiency begets more efficiency. Maybe build a performance version of he same for $30k. A slippery body with a 0.11 drag coefficient and 21 sq ft frontal area would only need 130 horsepower to do 200 mph.

Play around with this:

https://www.ecomodder.com/forum/tool-aero-rolling-resistance.php

 

[Voltron]

I think we both agree they could make what you describe.
We just disagree on who's fault it is that every time industry makes one approaching that, they sit unsold while ridiculous gas guzzlers are flying out the door.

 

[The Toecutter]

I think we both agree they could make what you describe.
We just disagree on who's fault it is that every time industry makes one approaching that, they sit unsold while ridiculous gas guzzlers are flying out the door.

They never made anything approaching that, not even close. Kind of unfair to critiscize something for never having sold when it was never available in the first place. Anything that gets good efficiency is designed to be an all-around penalty box, with no value added in exchange for the sacrifices made.

This is deliberate. The industry doesn't want to cannibalize sales of wasteful, higher margin vehicles. In the 1970s fuel crisis, when people were demanding better efficiency, we went from 12 mpg V8 musclecars to 14 mpg power-starved Ford Pintos and AMC Pacers. Downsizing the engine greatly and shrinking the car's dimensions didn't help much to improve efficiency when the weight, drag coefficient, and frontal area still matched the old guzzling musclecars. And the new "economy" cars of the period were also made deliberately ugly to discourage people from buying them. The industry then blamed fuel economy regulations!

The industry could have given us 35+ mpg V8 musclecars back then if it wanted to. You think people wouldn't have bought that? The U.S. industry decided against even trying such, and lobbied for more import restrictions and tariffs in effort to keep the Japanese out(which still failed). Those U.S. automakers that went tits-up were then bailed out with taxpayer money.

Two books that are worth reading, old, but every bit as true today as they were when published:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1122113.Taken_for_a_Ride

https://www.abc-clio.com/products/d4167c/

Tesla is the success story it is because it dared to be different and disrupt this model. Without Tesla getting EVs into the public consciousness, it is highly doubtful we'd have them available from any manufacturer even to this day. The Big 3 knew how to build something comparable to what Tesla did, 20 years prior to the existence of Tesla's first sedan, with technology not nearly as good as what Tesla had. Even the auto industries' internal marketing studies indicated people would have bought EVs in the 1990s.

We didn't get them until the 2010s, and only thanks to Tesla for daring to be a disrupter.

 

[Voltron]

They make this. How many Americans would actually buy one?

As I see it, people's love of flashy dumb inefficient crap will always outweigh common sense or any other force on what's available for sale.

 

[The Toecutter]

They make this. How many Americans would actually buy one?
download (10).jpeg
As I see it, people's love of flashy dumb inefficient crap will always outweigh common sense or any other force on what's available for sale.

They're not yet being delivered to the buyer, although you can place a deposit on one. Arguably, this company is still in existence largely because of all of the interest and would-be buyers putting their money up. It is also not one of the major manufacturers that I'm blaming. The company that is getting ready to produce the Aptera is actually trying to do the right thing.

The major automakers could have made something like the Aptera 40+ years ago.

Proof:

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/20...-to-drive-the-ultimate-self-isolation-vehicle

Although it was a scam, remember all of the interest that the Dale generated?

https://www.museumofamericanspeed.com/thedalecar.html

People really do want stuff like this. They've wanted it for decades. But the major automakers refused to let them have it all of this time, resulting in the environmental catastrophe and exacerbating economic dependence upon finite resources.

 

[Voltron]

Well, in America, it's government mandated that car manufacturers have to make a certain portion of their cars to be fuel efficient.
And every year they lose money on those cars sitting there unsold.
So doesn't real world results show in fact, that people who give a crap about pollution are too few to be a viable commercial market?

 

[The Toecutter]

Well, in America, it's government mandated that car manufacturers have to make a certain portion of their cars to be fuel efficient.
And every year they lose money on those cars sitting there unsold.

Those same regulations were written by the very auto industry that is supposedly being regulated. They granted themselves exemptions and exceptions for bigger and heavier vehicles, which places more-efficient platforms on unfair footing.

Teslas exceed those regulations, and they aren't sitting around unsold.

 

[Voltron]

Musk just convinced at lot of rich people an electric car can still be a status symbol, as long as everybody knows how much you paid for it.
And used a lot of government money, and skirted a lot of environmental regs, and health and safety regs for his workers, to get there.
And still hasn't produced that cheap mass market car he promised when he was angling for the loans.

 

[The Toecutter]

The Model 3 is comparable in cost to the average new car purchased in the U.S.

At the time the Model S came out, Tesla didn't have the production volume capability of other automakers, so the first products had to be expensive and niche by necessity. When significant components of a car are hand-made and there is no way to mass produce those parts, cost goes up accordingly.

A $15k mass market EV might look like a slightly-stretched 1990s Solectria Sunrise with an emphasis on drag reduction. This is how you get the battery and drivetrain costs down by requiring less of everything for a given amount of performance and range. If someone REALLY wanted to be a disrupter, they'd design a sub-$30k electric family sedan with 150+ miles range, rear drive, double wishbone suspension, and does 0-60 mph < 3 seconds and tops 200 mph like a supercar. A Hellcat killer. Using mass produced parts from a Mazda Miata and drive system components from a Model 3 may make that price point possible, and by keeping the car < 2,000 lbs and very aero, you wouldn't need more than about 250 horsepower to pull it off.

 

[Voltron]

I still see it as consumer driven I guess.
If people cared enough, they would either find a different way or do without, no matter what was being offered to them.
But the mass of people, by and large, prove again and again, they just don't.
You keep taking about what could be, and should be.
I'm just looking at what people actually do with their money.

 

[Voltron]

People want drugs. So despite billions in enforcement and draconian penalties, they find a way to buy drugs.

If people actually wanted efficient cars enough, even if industry is trying to sell them something else, they'd find a way to get them, no matter what it took. But they don't.
Even though you and I do.

 

[The Toecutter]

In the U.S., for most, the only "different way" available is bicycle(impractical in the winter or rain, often uncomfortable, takes too long to get somewhere, danger posed by sharing space heavier/faster vehicles), or nearly non-existent mass transit whose availability may not align with ones work schedule and which takes hours out of one's day to use. Ebikes that can keep up with cars are being regulated out of existence.

The fact is, in the U.S., there are no practical/convenient alternatives to the car allowed. People who can't afford to use a car are being forced to "do without".

"Do without" greatly limits ones prospects and life choices.

Lots of people are suffering because they can't afford fuel for their $3,000 clunker that they need to get back and forth to their $15/hour job that doesn't even cover their living expenses, let alone enough to have fun or save for the future. Getting rid of the clunker means they can't get to work. I suppose they could bike back and forth to work 2 hours each way, arrive all sweaty, and reduce their sleep time from 6 hours to 2 hours, but that's asking for even more problems. Even an ebike, when limited via statute to 28 mph, is a bit of a hazard mixing with multi-ton vehicles.

This is why I built an electric velomobile. I think that is a good base point for something that begins to resemble a solution. But again, I have no mass production capability and rarely any time to work on my own design. Building/selling such a vehicle to others is a bit of a pipe dream, even though I know how to do it.

The only consumers driving this series of problems are those too wealthy to even care and who can use their money to isolate themselves from the effects of their decisions. This is NOT your average person who has less than $1,000 in savings and drives a 12+ year old clunker.

 

[The Toecutter]

People want drugs. So despite billions in enforcement and draconian penalties, they find a way to buy drugs.

If people actually wanted efficient cars enough, they'd find a way to get them, no matter what it took. But they don't.
Even though you and I do.

Without money, you get no drugs unless you steal.

Without money, good luck building a fuel efficient car. I wanted one for decades. I was chronically without the money to build even the modest project linked in my signature. I designed my first EV conversion when I was in high school, but I didn't get a chance to work on it for more than a decade after designing it, due to lack of money. I missed out on dream jobs for not proving I could build something, because I never had the money to build it. This is why I say I should have dropped out of high school and sold dope, instead of studying to become an engineer and going into debt to finish college in spite of scholarships covering most of the expense. Selling dope could have gotten me the money I needed. Instead, I've wasted decades of my life being stuck in an industry I hate because I couldn't wait around to chase my dream job, and no one wants me for anything else because the U.S. has become this retarded economic caste system.

Needing to spend money to save money is a bit of a conundrum when your problem is a lack of money. This is why economies of scale are so important, to reduce material and labor costs. The major automakers have economies of scale. Your average Joe Sixpack doesn't. Nevermind the knowledge needed to design a vehicle in the first place being a prerequisite. You can want something as much as you want, but without the expertise to put it together, you won't get far.