Marty Nemko is the “The Bay Area’s Best Career Coach”, and a contributor to The Atlantic as well as U.S. News, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle. So what makes him qualified to sound off on raising the CAFE standard to 100 MPG.
Nemko’s column, dubbed “Driving Is A Freedom: The Case Against Making Gas More Expensive”, Nemko dismisses some of his readers’ previous suggestions to raise gas prices. Why? Because it wouldn’t help reduce global warming but cause the price of everything to rise.
What would be better, Nemko suggests, is smaller, more fuel efficient cars. Says Nemko
I would raise CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards so that every vehicle manufacturer’s fleet of cars and light trucks would, by 2025, average 100 miles per gallon. (Automakers have already agreed to 50 mpg.)
Yes, that would mean that until a breakthrough technology arrives, more new cars would be small, which would cause some increase in car crash injuries. And yes, to accommodate apartment dwellers without a place to plug-in their car, we’d need to expand the network of electric vehicle charging stations that the taxpayer created a decade ago when it was thought electric cars were nigh.
Nemko backs up his proposal with more questionable assertions
In addition to abetting energy independence and decreasing carbon footprint, the 100 mpg mandate would mean our cost-per-driving mile would dramatically decrease because of the better gas mileage and because the lower demand for gas would force oil companies to cut the price. Those cost savings benefit all of us significantly, particularly the poor–and with 100% certitude.
TTAC readers know that buying a newer, fuel efficient vehicle, let alone a hybrid, EV or alternative fuel vehicle rarely nets any significant savings compared to a well maintained older vehicle – and based on anecdotal evidence and observations, gas prices rarely tend to fall as much as we’d like, though they’re quick to rise with the price of crude oil. Finally, “the poor” are often the patrons of used car lots, in particular the “buy here, pay here” kind that charge usurious interest, rather than the new car dealerships that offer lower financing rates, provided the applicant has decent credit.
Aside from the fact that Nemko said nothing to indicate that he is aware of the difference between “adjusted” and “unadjusted” CAFE numbers, the whole suggestion seems arbitrary and poorly thought out – sound familiar? Regulating Americans into smaller, more fuel efficient cars, via CAFE isn’t a viable solution, to the point where Nemko seems to be talking out of his ass. By publishing unsubstantiated, pie-in-the-sky proposals, The Atlantic is lending de facto credibility to sound-bite theories that hold little substance.
100 mpg? Impossible. And are we saving money per mile if the vehicle costs three times as much and triples you car payment?
John
100 MPG CAFE is far from impossible. If we shrank cars down to the size they used to be and made them as powerful as they used to be, we would probably already be at 100 MPG CAFE given current technology.
The issue is really that it’s pointless. Every drop of oil that is not consumed in the United States will be consumed somewhere else in the world. We used to be able to make a large, worldwide difference by changing our oil consumption. Those days are gone.
The trick is “can we build a car the size of a Dodge Charger”, yet make it reach 100 mpg?
I’m sure it’s possible with carbon fiber and aluminum blocks, but, someone actually will have to come up with the technology to pull it off.
I’m not driving some little Hyundai – and being uncomfortable just to save a dollar on gas. I want a decent sized car for family and womenz.
True, even if the US had that kind of influence on the global fuel market, production would be scaled back to match demand, thus keeping the price stable.
A real advantage to it, though, is how it would reduce the trade deficit. That keeps more money in our economy & reduces inflationary pressures, meaning the Fed can keep interest rates low and the economy humming.
Being an expert in one field, does not make you an expert in another. When will we start ignoring these bloviating morons when they step out of line?
Why doesn’t he just tell us what he thinks makes the best cheeseburger and the return to his circle jerk of fellow experts pontificating outside their expertise?
My favorite is when Stephen Hawkins starts telling us about something other than Nuclear Physics. He might have a brain the size of London, but if he isn’t exposing facts about what he is an expert in – I don’t give a rat’s patootie about what he has to say.
It is high time for these people to learn their limits and blog like the rest of us behind avatars so that their opinions and comments can stand on their own merits. Or, in the case of this one, not.
Hawking.
Stephen Hawking.
And are you suggesting that these people have no right to have an opinion on something other than their perceived field of study?
@JK32123: “100 mpg? Impossible. And are we saving money per mile if the vehicle costs three times as much and triples you car payment?”
It doesn’t have to be that way. You can build vehicles lighter.
For instance, I owned a vehicle that regularly achieved over 50 MPG on the highway (as high as 63 MPG in one case, cost me $5400 new (including taxes and fees). It also had a better power-to-weight ratio than most sports cars. It achieved this without any exotic technology. I won’t say that there weren’t a few trade-offs made to achieve this engineering feat. Here’s a video of it cruising in the left lane on the highway:
Now, I’m not recommending that we all go out and buy 500cc motorcycles, but the situation isn’t bound the parameters that you think it is.
Here’s Jeremy Clarkson reviewing a machine that might get you thinking about the possibilities:
Not quite impossible but not easy.. the new Toyota hybrid concept gets 95mpg if tested by the EPA, but this is a Yaris sized car, heroically light.. a small diesel from Europe wont do it either, and it wont meet pollution reqs anyways, besides being way too slow.
This will require plug-in hybrids such as the Volt, the Prius plug-in does not have a battery big enough to break the 100mpg barrier… I believe it averages about 80mpg, Volt is well over 200mpg average.
As the tech stands now it will cost an extra $10k to get that performance.. perhaps an electric range of 20 miles or so before the gas engine turns on. Probably within 10 years the premium over a regular hybrid will drop to $2k or so.
The efficiency will walk lock step with the price of fuel. There are many other things Americans will change before they give up their cars. They’ll eat in more, go out less, buy less stuff, etc. America will all start to look and function more like Europe over time where distances are shorter and efficiency is king – to a point. Even Europeans like creature comforts despite hig energy costs. They just adapt their budgets to allow it.
We can legislate a push for efficient but it’s not politically viable to tell the country that we all need to get 100 mpg overnight. The President can sign legislation that encourages a 10 mpg improvement over 5 years and it can happen.
Let gasoline climb b/c the Chinese are buying more fuel or the value of the dollar is sinking and people will adapt in their own ways.
Looks like it’s time for Detroit to dust off that old 100 mpg carburetor…
You mean the one my uncle invented? Too late, man – he went missing in ’73, on his wait to a meeting with Mobil execs.
I have the 100mpg car, just need a real investor, check my detail response at the bottom of this Post!
To get 100 mpg, cars must be very light.
Carbon fiber can make them light, but carbon fiber does not crumple, and does not absorb collision energy.
Today, the collision death rate for small cars is double that of larger cars.
Please look at my auto bumper inventions at
http://www.safersmallcars.com
and help me get the car companies to talk to me.
Carbon fiber can make them light, but carbon fiber does not crumple, and does not absorb collision energy.
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
“Carbon fiber can make them light, but carbon fiber does not crumple, and does not absorb collision energy.”
Have you ever heard of formula one? Carbon fiber does “absorb” collision energy when it’s designed to. It doesn’t crumple but rather it shatters and in doing so disipating the impact.
Carbon fiber would be a great material for building cars. Some supercars are already proving that. But, for now it’s still pretty expensive and would require a new way of thinking in the automakers’ engineering departments.
But can you repair a carbon fiber car after a collision? I don’t think anyone is going to buy a totally throwaway vehicle. I’ve seen alot of supercars in multiple pieces after a crash. Anyone able to fix that despite the high value of the super car?
if the air bags deployed, its likely your new “conventional” car will be written off by the insurance company anyways.
Collision death rates for small cars are gonna be higher because:
#1 there are more of them on the road than larger cars
#2 Larger cars and SUV’s hit harder and defeat their collision protection technology.
MY ANSWER:
DON’T BUY A SMALL CAR – IF YOU WANT TO LIVE.
Some of us prefer not to live in fear. Some of us take that whole, “home of the brave” thing seriously.
But feel free to cower away. Your cowardly vehicle choice threatens everyone else on the road. Way to go.
Hey, it’s just one guy’s opinion. Haven’t you ever had an ill-informed opinion? If US oil use drove prices, decreased demand might make a difference. But of course US usage is not the driver it used to be, not with a couple of billion people in China and India thinking seriously that they want on the automotive bandwagon.
Not that increase CAFE standards aren’t a good idea. I don’t know if 100 mpg is feasible, but it’s obvious to me that cars can easily get better than 50 mpg; I know that for certain because I have one that gets 50 mpg even when I don’t try very hard. I don’t give much credence to the doubters, especially if they work for US car makers. I heard the same song when CAFE and EPA first started setting limits, and somehow, after all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, we ended up on the other side of that struggle with cars that are orders of magnitude better than the ones that came before. Could it be done again? I don’t know, but, as Mark Twain said, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Does anyone know the theoretical mpg limit for, say, a 3500lbs car in the city? I know, a lot of assumptions have to be made. But is 100mpg for an ICE in a 3500lbs car even attainable?
In the city you can use public trans, a bicycle, a zip car etc. Why bother lugging 2 tons around?
@ Mark P: But car prices, as a percentage of individual gross income, have risen sharply as a result, such that an ever-shrinking percentage of the Citizenry can afford a new car or a newer used car.
@ probert:
Because in the city core, most cities’ public transportation either blows or is non-existant. Very few cities have trains or subways; buses frequently run late or take an unreasonable amount of time (because they seem designed to take the most circuitous possible route from where you are to where you need to be; bicycles are frequently unsafe; zip cars are frequently unavailable or grossly inconveniently located. Individual cars are still the most economically efficient option for most folks most of the time. You do realize that this is a car enthusiasts’ site you’re on, right?
Didn’t this site report a few months ago on some study done somewhere that indicated that most people drive up to whatever their gas budget is? That is, people drive more when gas prices drop, yes, but they also drive more when they move from a 20 mpg car to a 30 mpg car, because the same amount of gas money goes further. That was cited as the very reason why the gov’t is so eager to raise efficiency across-the-board.
Q: In the city you can use public trans, a bicycle, a zip car etc. Why bother lugging 2 tons around?
A: “Insulation” and schedule freedom. One major problem with public transportation is safety from the urban public that rides it. The mass of a car provides some protection not available outside its locked metal enclosure. The other major problem is public transportation doesn’t go where you want to go when you want to go, forcing people to waste time waiting for the bus or train.
While I’m skeptical of giving up the car, I can see downsizing from a 2 tons beast to cars closer to 1 ton. Lots of room for incremental efficiency improvement.
Bicycles are a death wish in many major cities and don’t work when too well out when there is ice, slush & snow. Zip cars don’t have affordable rates for 1-2 days at a time. Public tranpsort takes FOREVER to go anywhere and doesn’t run 24/7 on all lines in most cities.
I took public transport for 10+ years in Chicago. It’s fantastic to see how much time it actually takes to get anywhere. I used to go 10 miles to school & it would take me 75 minutes. 3 years ago I went 7 miles to work and the shortest it took me was 42 minutes where I could car it in 20-25.
Going out on the weekend with friends & need to get home at 2am? Good luck (or Enjoy that $80 taxi ride every weekend….)
Theoretical limit? I’ll give some equations without numbers.
Kinetic Energy = 1/2 x Mass x Velocity(squared)
The more massive (heavy) a car, the more energy (fuel) it takes to get it up to any speed.
Force = Mass x Acceleration
A heavier car needs a more powerful engine (Force) to get the same acceleration as a lighter car.
The air friction force goes up as the square of the frontal area of a car, so a narrower car has less air friction to overcome.
A big and heavy car will have a problem getting 100 mpg.
By the way, carbon fiber can make a car lighter, but carbon fiber does not crumple in a collision- it cracks.
Crumpling reduces g forces on passengers. Crumpling is good.
Cracking is bad.
“By the way, carbon fiber can make a car lighter, but carbon fiber does not crumple in a collision- it cracks.”
It splinters rather then crushes but dissipates crash energy all the same.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfnECuWduE8
If for some reason it’s not letting me post a link google Formula 1 Crash Test Video
>> “but carbon fiber does not crumple in a collision”
Actually, you can build a crumple zone with carbon fiber using a honeycomb structure, but metallic microlattices are even lighter than carbon fiber and are perfect for absorbing shock in a collision.
They problem for now is the cost. But, as material science advances, the costs will come down and we’ll gain newer lightweight materials.
With a Prius Cd of 0.25, a frontal area of 4 m^2, and at a constant 30 mph, I calculate the theoretical limit at 640 mpg. Double the speed (for highway) and you 1/4 the mpg. Add in acceleration (for city) and it gets a LOT more complicated.
Add in the Carnot Cycle inefficiencies, and you’re within spitting distance actual MPG of the Prius.
BTW, the lack of the heat -> motion conversion on EVs is why they get such high MPGes. In wheel-to-wells terms, they’re about the efficiency as the Prius (for now), because that conversion happens at a powerplant somewhere. But, with an EV, you’re agnostic about which fuel source you’re using — and you could be running off of nuclear or wind or PV.
Good news! You can buy a 110 mpg vehicle today for just over $3000. Just a few downsides: The Honda PCX scooter only has two wheels, no roof, no doors, and a top speed of 56 mph. And you need a helmet. But hey, 110 mpg.
Joking aside, I think this illustrates the physical limitations of the ICE quite nicely. Mass rules. The 100 mpg ICE-powered car, with 4 doors, 4 seats, a roof and highway speed seems to be out of reach.
“Mass rules.”
Exactly. The issue isn’t size–it’s weight. Instead of worrying what the theoretical limit is for a 3500 lb car, let’s find a way to get the same car down to 2750 lb without adding much cost.
Make the whole car lighter, and the engine can be smaller without sacrificing accelleration. Hills are less of a problem. Brakes can be smaller because they don’t have to dissipate as much energy. When mpg goes up, the gas tank can get smaller. and if every car is lighter, there is less energy to do damage in collisions.
I think the Volt weighs 3700 lbs or there abouts. Just saying. :)
You know this demand makes sense, because 100 is such a round number that it must be feasible. I think 1000 is rounder and makes even more sense. Actually, 3.14 makes a lot of sense, too.
awesome dude
This would force GM to unleash that 100mpg carburetor that they’ve had tucked away for all of these years.
What’s that? Everything is now FI? Oh snap!
Because, hey, everyone likes pie
A car with a 3.14 MPG carburetor might be prohibitively expensive to run, but it is feasible, and would probably be a hell of a lot of fun.
I don’t think gasoline will be much cheaper than it is right now until it’s completely obsoleted as a fuel, and nobody wants it. Then it will become inexpensive, and after that, it will be exceedingly difficult to find, if you really want some. And this may be 50 or 100 years in the future.
“A car with a 3.14 MPG carburetor might be prohibitively expensive to run. . . ” but it would give the math/tech nerds the chance to work pi out to 10,000 places.
Isn’t the 3.14 mpg carb called “dual Holley 4-barrels”? I’m pretty sure my HS buddy’s 1970 440 Roadrunner got about that mileage running wide-open.
3.14 does make a hell of a lot of sense. Happy Pi day!
The government has sole access to a very proven technology that will reduce the demand for gasoline, force people to consider alternatives, and even convince them to change their lifestyles.
It’s called “tax”.
The people have sole access to a very proven technology that will reduce the demand for more taxes, force politicians to consider alternatives, and even convince them to change their wastrel spendthrift ways of buying votes.
It’s called “voting them out”.
Consequently, even as we comment, Steven Chu is busy denouncing himself.
Sorry, not one penny more in any taxes from any source until government starts RIF’ing the deadwood.
Agreed, Chuck. Taxes are never the answer.
I’m all for voting them out but what’s the use of voting in the same two parties over and over and over. The guys on the ticket just represent the face men for the parties. The party is who has the real power.
How about a new party to choose from? How is what we’ve got any different than when we made fun of the Soviet Union or any other dictatorship where people could vote but only had one candidate to choose from.
Whether you vote Republican or Democrat, you are still getting duped just the same.
We in the U.S have a one party system masquerading as a two party system. I think of it more as an albatross.
“The party is who has the real power.”
that is why you should always vote the party, not the man.. Parliamentarian governments make this much clearer than our system.
I suspect that the higher vehicle costs that would likely result from such a program would effect a general slowdown in the rates of automobile production. This would obviously have wide-ranging implications that run contrary to the currently dominant premise (false or not) that a ‘healthy’ economy must have ever increasing and accelerating rates of growth (at least that’s the current ideal as I understand it).
Nemko is actually on the right track, and it is sad to see resistance to something with such readily realizable hypothetical advantages.
Used cars are better than new cars for saving money, but used cars do not meet the needs of the auto industry, the American manufacturing sector, or even consumers. The current industry paradigm is to charge more MSRP for items that generate higher upkeep/operations expenses, like bigger engines, alloy wheels, low-profile tires, leather, and scores of electronic devices. The goal is for automobile companies to capture fuel expenditures with advanced powertrain technology, and for industry competition to encourage the auto manufacturers to split the difference with consumers.
However, there are two problems with Nemko’s analysis. First, CAFE is not an effective piece of legislation. It needs constant adjustment, and it doesn’t reward activities beneficial to the US. CAFE merely punishes undesirable behaviors. You want your kid to be healthy so you ban twinkies. He replaces them with diet soda. You needed him to eat his vegetables, and you should have created incentives along those lines rather than dumbing-down legislative policy in the name of political convenience.
Second, the problem with fleet fuel economy is not the mileage ratings of the vehicles, but the way Americans spend their transportation budget. Who cares if consumers buy two $50,000 Hummer H1’s that return 5mpg. If those same consumers drive 95% of their miles in Prii, have they injured the country?
So the problem is not that companies build and sell 15mpg vehicles, but that consumers are dumb enough to drive 12,000 miles per year in inefficient vehicles. Gas-tax looks like the solution, but punishing negative behaviors doesn’t mean smarter decisions will result. Consider a two-SUV family. Suppose they ditched one of their $30,000 SUVs and turned it into two economy cars. Isn’t everyone better off? Automobile manufacturers increase production. Consumers have high transportation potential and lower fuel costs while still owning a utility vehicle and the status that comes with it. The arrangement is only incompatible with the current cultural paradigms which often teach people to sacrifice transportation output for other concepts defined by automobile marketers.
“Used cars are better than new cars for saving money”
That’s not true anymore.
Depends how used you are talking about.
The easiest and cheapest solution is not to change the car, but the driver.
Why do people drive 15k or 20k mi a year? Transportation is non-value adding. A lean system would eliminate it as much as possible.
– Promote telecommuting–it not only reduces fuel consumption, but frees up people’s time and reduces traffic for people who have to drive.
– Align housing and employment. We have massive master-planned communities where thousands of professionals live, but not a single professional job center is located near them. Instead, they drive into a central business district. I live in the suburbs, and I work in the suburbs. That alone cuts my fuel bill in half.
RE telecommuting
You’d be shocked at the resistance to this. I sell industrial controls and power transmission parts. I don’t make sales calls, we have no outside sales department. I drive to the parts warehouse to sit in from of a computer and answer email (Gmail based), answer the phones (voice over IP) and enter quotes (in an HTML based system that I can access from practically any internet browser anywhere in the world). I floated the idea of telecommuting to my boss, even taking a small pay cut to do it and was shot down, very quickly and without much consideration. I guess I need to be up here put my hands on a part in the event that our entire warehouse staff is out on a smoke break…
Hell, sometimes I even work on large quotes at nights and over the weekends… on my MacBook sitting on the couch in my boxers.
We have housing next to my employment it just gosts 4x as much as where I live 30 miles away. I’d be hundreds of $K underwater if I bought a house (I couldn’t afford) next to work. Also: What happens when wife/husband have jobs 20 miles in opposite directions? Where do they live?
telecom: Not practical for many jobs. Just got reduced here from 1-2 days a week to 0 for most employees.
Neither of these solutions are workable for the current population….
Maybe the solution is to emulate the Chinese company Foxconn. Their workers all live on the campus in dormitories. The worker’s commute is a walk around the corner. Sort of like Urban Monad.
@ Redav
You’re right; however, my post was predicated on the growth of the automobile industry and the preservation of automobile travel. If those two considerations were dropped, the US could rapidly reduce energy and commodities consumption, but I see the current consumption function, not the nature of automobiles or driving, as the problem for the US.
Telecommuting, public transit, and urban planning are all superior to increasing automotive efficiency, but I’m not necessarily convinced that society will perceive itself to be better off.
We decided to live in a small town for the same reasons – short commutes. We’ve had big city friends try to break out their transportation costs – frequent vehicle replacement, maintenance and fuel bills that approach their mortgage payment (even back when gasoline costs were lower).
100 mpg is impossible in my car, even when going downhill with the engine off… the trip computer just says 99.9.
Awesome.
Funny mine does too, is there a recall for this?
Like the oil companies would let anything like this happen to threaten profits.
Lower prices.
LOL.
Please don’t subscribe to the ‘Big Oil Price-Fixing’ conspiracy theory held by so many people.
If you’re a Big Oil company, and you want to compete, you’ll sell your product at a price lower than the other guy. Because if he can sell gas at $2/gallon, he’ll have a flock of customers and you’ll have none if you’re still selling gas at $3/gallon.
Oil companies are profitable because we want – but don’t always need – their product. It’s the same with season ticket holder who gripe about how much sports figures are paid. If people stopped going to the games, the prices would drop. It’s basic market economics.
Ummm… OPEC is basically a price fixing organization. That’s what they do.
And sure – OPEC is not “the oil companies” – but the point is that Big Oil does absolutely increase or decrease production to maximize profits, and they absolutely respond strategically to maintain their empire.
“And sure – OPEC is not “the oil companies” – but the point is that Big Oil does absolutely increase or decrease production to maximize profits, and they absolutely respond strategically to maintain their empire.”
Yes, it’s just that they’re acting independently and feeding in to a very liquid market (pun intended).
They really do things like throttle back production on existing wells so that they can sell the product later, at a higher price. No conspiracy needed — just a bunch of analysts who can make educated guesses about the future!
I’m not trying to defend the oil companies, and they sure are profitable. But the regular oil companies (BP, Exxon etc.) get kicked around by the state-owned companies that actually own most resources (Iran, Saudi, Venezuela, Russia etc.).
If you noticed most of the private oil companies had to merge in the recent years just to be able to have multiple large and risky projects (deep sea, in countries where assets easily get ceased, horizontal drilling etc.)
If you think being an oil company gets you rich easily, why are you still wasting time commenting on TTAC? :)
Generally, as gas gets cheaper, Americans will burn more of it – either by driving more, or by purchasing less-efficient vehicles.
On the other hand, Americans are willing to pay anything for a gallon of gas. [See Ford F150 sales].
This graph shows the inflation-adjusted price of gas and how it affects miles driven per year:
http://mbostock.github.com/protovis/ex/driving-full.html
The graph appears to show a general trend towards more miles driven annually, regardless of gas price, with a few exceptions. This is probably a function of suburban sprawl and less dependence on mass transit.
So I think the 100 mpg goal is not only unattainable as a fleet average, but will not solve the problem.
BTW, as gas mileage increases, so does the sensitivity of calculating it. People will be crying about their “120 mpg” Elantras only getting 113 mpg in 2025, because they were able to squeeze an extra 0.2 gallon into the 3-gallon gas tank.
Yup, econ 101.
But, my personal demand for driving has a pretty strict cap. I live close to work, so if I drive as much as I could possibly want to drive, it’s hard for me to exceed 100 miles a week for the necessities. Add in a couple of 2000-mile road-trips, and I’d be very hard-pressed to exceed 9k miles in a year. And my demand for driving is highly inelastic — I need to get to work, my kid needs to get to daycare. And seeing family is very important.
(My personal-demand limit were much higher when I lived in other situations — I’ve driven as much as 25k/year when I lived farther from work and had a different kind of job.)
It gets even complicated when you add in the paradox of thrift, though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift
(Many days I bike to work, as I did this morning! Beautiful day! So, I can go through a week driving 0 miles, but then my wife has to take the kid to daycare so it doesn’t really count.)
With CAFE-style adjustments, this should be a piece of cake:
-Base car: 25 mpg
-Add typical CAFE formula adjustment: +10 mpg
-Add E85 capability: +20 mpg
-Add special low-drag aerodynamic sealcoat, i.e. Turtle Wax: +12 mpg
-Add NHTSA-approved rear deck spoiler (windtunnel-tested!): +18 mpg
-Add extra-large battery (permits driver to listen to radio when parked without idling): +15 mpg
-Add tinted windows (lightly tinted, law enforcement friendly) to reduce air conditioning usage: +15 mpg
-Obtain pledge from owner that tire pressures will be checked annually: +5 mpg
Hell, I’m already above 100, and I haven’t even mentioned the real-time MPG gauge, leather interior and high-efficiency seat belts. Bring it on.
!!!
Also from the Atlantic, forced drugging to accept Global Warming and donations to Oxfam!
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/how-engineering-the-human-body-could-combat-climate-change/253981/
100 MPG? How hard could it be? My girlfriend was getting 75-90, and that was the early ’80s. Of course she was on a Puch moped.
After 5-7 years, the poor would start to benefit, as these things would begin to be traded in. But that assumes such a mandate would work. On that score,
a bridge o’er to Brooklyn’s incredibly swell
and to Nemko, for two hundred dollars, I’ll sell
I’d normally would discount 100 MPG as a pipe dream.
But when ”The Bay Area’s Best Career Coach” says it can happen, then sure, I’m aboard.
Considering that San Frans unemployment rate over the last year has NEVER been lower that the national average, who exactly does this tool coach?
I think you answered your own question. People who actually have careers, don’t need as much coaching as those who are out of work, or out of what they see as their ideal work. I can see “career coach” being a particularly lucrative field in San Francisco, at least as long as you don’t coach your clients to get into career coaching and compete with you.
But this does give me an idea – next time I need career advice, instead of seeking out a career coach, I’m giving Trilby Lundberg a call.
100 MPG and cheap gas? Why stop there? Why not 200 MPG and free gas? 300 MPG and the gov’t pays us to use gas?
Not to mention, the US uses about 20% of the world’s oil, of which 27% is used for transportation. So even if we stopped using gasoline completely it would only knock off ~5% of global demand- which would certainly be picked up elsewhere and would hardly put a dent in prices.
Articles like this are exactly why people need to keep quiet on matters they don’t know about. Dude is an idiot.
Men in hell want ice water.
Do they get it?
Hell, no.
I will agree that buying used these days isn’t going to save you much, especially if buying a 2-3 YO car but go further back than that, the savings begin to add up, though not quite to the levels of the past either way.
It may not stay that way forever, but then again, if gas continues to climb, high efficiency cars will maintain their inflated values, whilst gas guzzlers will drop like a stone probably. And by guzzlers, those who only get low 20’s average at best.
Right now, my 03 P5 Mazda isn’t making much beyond 20.5mpg in slow rush hour traffic/city driving mostly but I know it can get as much as 31 highway and while not as much of a gas sipper, it IS an improvement over the Ranger and you only need to move up at minimum of 5mpg to reap the benefits, otherwise, the payback isn’t significant enough for the outlay.
That said, even the poor can find an older B or C segment car and I mean, 10 years or older that get significantly better mileage than their equally as old (or even older) Caprice or Impala or Caddy that maybe gets low to mid 20’s highway if they’re lucky on the highway for something getting at least 30mpg and many cars up through the C segment built in the past 15 years should hit around 30-32mpg, if not more easily.
But I agree, the older huge cars with poor gas mileage will gradually disappear as they get used up or simply traded in for smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles, even by the poor assuming gas continues to move up in price. Many stations here in Seattle are not at or above the $4.20 a Gal mark. I just paid $4.05 a Gal Monday for gas at the Chevron just below work in the outskirts area of Bellevue.
And I just saw my first Prius C in the wild this morning while walking to another site to assist them with a huge print project. It was bright red and it was making a left turn onto Denny Way, heading up into Capitol Hill in the rain.
My second car is a half ton truck. It’s parked about 25 days per month. If it magically got 100 mpg, I would save about $50 per month at $4 a gallon.
My mother is in her seventies. She only drives local roads in daylight hours and probably hasn’t been on a highway in a decade. If her CUV magically got 100 mpg she would save less than $30 a month.
Spending tens of thousands of dollars up front on additional government mandated ecofaggery would benefit either of these cases how, exactly?
So, you’re making an argument against “ecofaggery” based on corner cases?
Grow up, and get some perspective.
A current Prius with an EPA combined rating of about 50 mpg would have an “unadjusted” rating of about 75, as used for figuring CAFE. Just replacing the gas engine in a Prius with a diesel would get you about 100 mpg for CAFE purposes. How do get enough 200 mpg cars to average out the Suburbans, though?
not quite, the atkinson cycle engine used in the Prius is nearly as efficient as a diesel.. 38% thermal efficiency vs about 40% for a diesel, plus the electric transmission ensures that car is always operating at the optimum fuel economy point, something that is not practical in conventional diesels in the city..
There is a reason the Toyota and Ford powersplit hybrids get such good economy.. all the low hanging fruit was plucked 10 years ago.
Caboose the effective price of a car (weeks to purchase) went up for
1979 to about 1995 but has declined since then to about the 1979 level.
I’m curious, do you have any data to corroborate this? Very interesting to know a modern automobile is on a price point with detuned Malaise-era iron.
This shows one link to a chart:
http://www.freeby50.com/2008/11/history-of-new-car-costs-and-average.html
The cost savings attributed to driving a used car are typically realized when you drive the used car you already own and have paid for.
I drive a guzzler among guzzlers (12 mpg). I fill up once a week at damn near 80 bucks a tank as of yesterday. That means I spend in the neighborhood of 320 bucks a month on fuel. Its a 93 so insurance is cheap and it is pretty reliable though at 250k miles it isn’t always trouble free.
Still, I can’t see that buying something newer would save me anything unless my current vehicle starts getting more expensive to keep running. Even at a 150 dollar a month car payment by time I gas it up and pay for full coverage I will not save one cent. And at 150 a month there is no guarantee Ill get something trouble free unless I get a Corolla or focus with some cash on the hood new. But then Id have to go back to tent camping and still wouldn’t save any money.
This is easy… Just let the manufactures decide how long a mile is and how big a gallon is….
The new 2014 GM suburban! Comes standard with a 1 GM gallon tank and goes 40,000 GM miles between fill ups!
Stick to conning hippies, your UC Berkeley arts degree has apparently left you woefully unprepared to address topics involving engineering, physics or economics.
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When oil prices tripled in the early 2000’s, you would think producers would ramp up production to make a lot of money – but world production barely rose. The reason is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to replace depleted fields (not impossible, but difficult), let alone bring on new production.
The smartest thing we as a society could do is draw out the use of our resources, because it will buy us time to manage the limits to production and soften their impact.
If all we do is stand around arguing and blaming China, we will get caught with our pants down. Encouraging fuel economy through regulation and taxation are a smart policy. Instead of blaming China, why not let them take the fall when prices rise significantly?
On the surface this argument would appear to make sense given a rudimentary understanding of macro supply/demand economics. Unfortunately this absolutely does not apply to oil or refined fuels.
Prices in the mid-2000s rose because of a shock to the supply infrastructure of the Gulf-coast US producers, highlighting for an increasingly global audience the potential frailty of the supply systems for fuel products and increasing public fear. This FUD has created an enduring semi-panic that has supported higher prices. Combine panic an expectations of restricted supply from natural forces (never mind the power of stupid people backed by medieval theocracies) and you have a recipe for higher prices. Especially given that people are unable to change fuel demand substantively while maintaining a stable way of life, giving you a pretty inelastic demand over the short term.
Since demand is inelastic enough to prevent people from using less fuel when it is expensive (until given enough years to move, change jobs, or buy different vehicles), what makes you think that the market could consume a higher volume of fuel without dramatically depressing prices? Inelasticity works both ways. Just because production didn’t ramp up doesn’t mean that it couldn’t given the proper circumstances. And remember that having to rebuild from two major hurricanes weren’t exactly ideal circumstances.
A rudimentary understanding is all that is needed. The details are important, sure, especially when it comes to events like Katrina. But the macro-scale isn’t that complicated.
When a large oil field starts to experience production decline, the production has to be replaced by another field. Those new fields are tending to be smaller and harder to find (e.g. further off-shore), more expensive to produce and more quickly depleted.
There is tons of oil out there, enough to last us many years. But it’s getting harder to find and more expensive to produce, so production rates can’t keep rising forever.
Even if it does take decades (in my opinion it won’t take that long) to transition to fuel efficiency, is that really another reason not to do anything? To keep gas prices and the CAFE low, like nothing is wrong? I say to start now, existing technology can get us a long way.
Having lived in Tokyo for about 7 years ( in the past- now I’m in Dallas) I have developed a perspective on cars and public transportation that I offer for your comment.
I think that it goes without saying that living in Tokyo encourages the use of small high mileage cars and -even more so- use of public transportation. To make efficient use of a public train system in the US would require decades because it would require a complete rebuilding of our cities. Not just the train stations and tracks but the cities themselves. In Tokyo the most expensive real estate is NEXT TO a train station. You WALK from your home to the station and from a different station to your job. Shopping centers are built IN the train stations so you don’t have to walk so far carrying your purchases. There is usually very little public parking next to stations – more money is to be made from shops, office buildings, and restaurants.
As for cars they’re discouraged through taxes on size, displacement, gas prices, rigid expensive safety inspections, and parking restrictions ( you can’t buy a car until they measure your parking place at your residence. This includes the kei class cars which come closest to the Atlantic’s vision. 660 cc max and Hp limited to 66 and they can’t be more than 9 ft long or 4 ft wide. The biggest seller the Suzuki Wagon R gets about 43 mph on average (car-emissions.com).
Another interesting note that would also be true here is that while cars are tiny Japanese truck are much closer to American size. The cost of transporting goods would either have to rise substantially or trucks stay big. Don’t suggest that rail would compensate – remember Japan already has more rail than anybody.
So, my take is that even in a country where incentives are very high a 100 mpg car doesn’t exist. Yes the Prius is the most popular car there but even the smaller cars don’t achieve anything close to the magic number. Use of public transportation will take a transition of 3 or 4 generations even if the move from the suburbs and the mall to the city starts today.
So it’s not an unachievable fantasy, it’s just a reengineering of our country and our society that will take more than 100 years.
How high do you think fuel would need to get to kick off changes like this in the USA?
I have told friends that I look at Europe as a preview of $10 gasoline here but that we’d have to adapt quite a bit to maintain the American lifestyle without going broke. I spent three years living there. Slightly different priorities as you described in Tokyo.
All this talk about gas price makes me think about our company’s COGS. Fuel is a big input, no doubt, but it’s in the service of a greater thing: the widget that is made.
Why don’t we address the thing that is made with gas? Transportation.
I’d be interested in a pie chart showing how oil is used. I’d like breakthrough ways to AVOID using fuel in the first place. A 5 MPG savings on a 20-mile drive is nothing compared to never making that drive in the first place.
For instance, telecommuting. I could work from home 3 days a week if it weren’t for my company’s culture, and that’s rapidly changing. Over 50% of IBM employees telecommute full time. As the services sector (non-manufacturing, non-labor-based) evolves, mobile work is a potential game-changer. Best Buy already encourages a results-oriented-workplace that places near-zero value on physical location (although I’ll admit their recent quarterlies are atrocious, but that’s industry-based). Removing even 10% of rush-hour traffic would measurably reduce demand and cost. You could do this with flex time incentives.
How about shopping? Since I moved to Amazon Prime with free 2-day shipping, I rarely leave the house for anything but groceries. It’s a MUCH better use of my time to order diapers and batteries 2 days before I need them, and just haul the box in from the porch. Prices are rock-bottom too. We’re seriously considering non-produce grocery delivery, which is quite cost-competitive with free delivery over $100. Stamps can be ordered from USPS.com, and with a small scale I print all my package labels at home.
Not only do I free up several hours per week with the above, but there are days and weekends I don’t even start the car. My gas is used for seeing friends & family, pleasure driving, autocross, and ROI-generating things like attending business school and visiting the accountant. When gas prices rise 30 cents I don’t blink an eye. I’ve already reduced my gas expense so much, it would take a $2 jump to faze me.
We try to refrain from starting a car the whole weekend a couple times per month.
Here are mpg calculations done by a genuine physicist:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/100-mpg-on-gasoline/
My take is that a mid sized vehicle (C class) that seats 4 in reasonable comfort, e.g. the Prius will not get 100 mpg at current US highway speeds and traffic conditions simply due to air resistance, rolling resistance and the need to accelerate to and maintain highway speeds.
And I want a world where competent engineers design vehicles based on what people want to buy, and people have brains enough so that “career coaches” either find themselves another career or starve to death.
A world with no advertising? I think I might kind of like that as well.
Just kill off your TV subscriptions and magazines and it’ll reduce your advertising intake by a big chunk. We switched off the subscription TV and bought a Roku. Less consumer clutter in my kids heads which is a good thing.
Right on with cutting the TV. I bought a $200 PC for my living room, and cut all but the most basic cable. I get all the shows I want and none of the advertising. I don’t want my 1-year old growing up being told what he wants.
On a side note(maybe it’s been already mentioned), but it won’t matter in terms of cost for any of us if gas mileage were 100MPG. Gas prices would increase to compensate for our going to the pump less often and we’ll end up paying the same amount as before. Yeah, less gas will be consumed, but the price will not change significantly.