This was not meant to be a discussion of fuel price was it?

There are many other reasons to want improved efficiency. For one thing it is just sloppy bad business to not try and offer a more efficient product. Efficiency is so fundamental that it is one of the developments that is most likely to drive paradigm shifts.

If we all start driving vehicles that use half or less the amount of fuel, it becomes a lot easier to mandate things like biofuel use. Fossil Fuels can be made illegal/restricted and kept in the ground as the moronically obvious carbon sequestration that is going to be needed more and more obviously.

With application of will, we can make all the changes necessary. How much do we need to get kicked in the butt before we make changes is the question.

 

This was not meant to be a discussion of fuel price was it?

There are many other reasons to want improved efficiency. For one thing it is just sloppy bad business to not try and offer a more efficient product. Efficiency is so fundamental that it is one of the developments that is most likely to drive paradigm shifts.

If we all start driving vehicles that use half or less the amount of fuel, it becomes a lot easier to mandate things like biofuel use. Fossil Fuels can be made illegal/restricted and kept in the ground as the moronically obvious carbon sequestration that is going to be needed more and more obviously.

With application of will, we can make all the changes necessary. How much do we need to get kicked in the butt before we make changes is the question.

As far as I know, I am on double secret probation for my supposed injection of politics into these threads, so I have to be careful here.

But, to be more accurate, I wish you would change the phrase "application of will" to "application of guns". It is, in the end, what you really mean.

 

As a Prius owner, a couple of comments.

At 6K miles driven we have avereaged 45MPG in mostly city driving (this from the trip computer)

We typically get 55MPG on highway driving.

The reason the Prius can get such good highway mileage compared to a comparable gas only car, is that is running off an engine that would be entirely inadequate without the electric boost for acceleration and hill climbing. Put the same 98 HP engine in a subcompact, and you would get great mileage, but no one would buy it because it would have no power.
It also has the lowest drag coeeficient of any mainstream car, which helps with highway mileage.

Bob

 

Sure I'll take that bet. It took 50 years for gas prices to break the $1.00 point, and in the next 40 years, prices jumped to almost $4.00.

And in that 50 years gas prices when from $0.20/gal to $1.00/gal, so they went by by a factor of 5 in 50 years. You are claiming that, since then, they went by by a factor of 4 in 40 years. Nothing too earthshattering, there. Though it hasn't been 40 years since they hit the $1/gal mark, it's been barely 30, which does show that the average trend is higher, but that average is driven by the change over just a 5 year period.

Gasoline prices broke the $1/gal mark in the 1980/81 time frame. I remember that well because I got my license in Jan of '81 and the very first time I had to put gas in my car was also the very first time that we had to pay over $1/gal. By the time I graduated high school in '83 I was lucky to find gas for under $1.35/gal. And I remember these same things being said back then. The old rules don't apply. Gas will be $5/gal within three years. We'll never see gas under $1/gal ever again. In 1998 I was working with a group of teens that had just gotten their licenses in the previous year and they were outraged when gas prices when from $0.77/gal to $1.00/gal and wanted me to join them in promoting a national boycott of oil companies by agreeing not to buy gas on one particular day a week (Mondays, I think). I had no sympathy for them at all. Not only were gas prices significantly lower in absolute dollars than they had been 15 years earlier, they were barely half what they were after adjusting for inflation. Besides, the notion that not buying gas on Monday but, instead, buying it on Sunday or Tuesday is going to send some powerful message to the oil companies was absurd.

Then in 2008 (October, if I recall) I had to drive from Denver to Montgomery, Alabama for a weeklong conference. Gas prices were just under the $4/gal and we were being told by all the experts that the era of $3/gal gasoline was over and that it would be over $5/gal by the end of the year. On the drive back I was buying gas for under $2/gal.

We'll never see $1.00 prices again.

Probably not, unless we have a significant depression. But so what? We won't see minimum wage back at $3.35/hr again, either. The absolute cost is irrelevant, it is the relative cost that matters.

I fully expect we will see gas under $3/gal before we see it above $5/gal. I would not be too surprised to see gas prices dip under $2/gal again, but I'm not gonna hold by breath on that one.

 

This was not meant to be a discussion of fuel price was it?

It's part and parcel. People make decisions based on incentives and perceived best interest. You can't pretend that fuel prices don't play a major role in those perceptions no matter how much you might wish they didn't.

If we all start driving vehicles that use half or less the amount of fuel, it becomes a lot easier to mandate things like biofuel use. Fossil Fuels can be made illegal/restricted and kept in the ground as the moronically obvious carbon sequestration that is going to be needed more and more obviously.

With application of will, we can make all the changes necessary. How much do we need to get kicked in the butt before we make changes is the question.

What you are basically saying is that you want to use the heavy hand of government in order to impose your notion of what is best on everyone else. But are you really willing to just accept the heavy hand of government then being used on you to impose on you what I think is best?

 

Originally Posted by WBahn
And in that 50 years gas prices when from $0.20/gal to $1.00/gal, so they went by a factor of 5 in 50 years. You are claiming that, since then, they went by a factor of 4 in 40 years. Nothing too earthshattering, there.

Not exactly. We were discussing gas prices in whole dollar terms, which are an arbitrary measure, and not a good point of reference for the math. I was illustrating that the $1 mark is history, never to be seen again. To look at the numbers more closely, gas prices rose from 25cents in 1919, to 36 cents in 1970, for a rise of 44% in about 50 years. In the next 50 years, prices rose to around $3.00, a rise of 733%. So, you have 44% for the first 50 years, and 733% for the next. May not be a big deal to you, but for families with strained budgets, believe me, it's a big deal.


Quote:

Then in 2008 (October, if I recall) I had to drive from Denver to Montgomery, Alabama for a weeklong conference. Gas prices were just under the $4/gal and we were being told by all the experts that the era of $3/gal gasoline was over and that it would be over $5/gal by the end of the year. On the drive back I was buying gas for under $2/gal.

And how long did that last? Within a few weeks, gas was over $2/gl. In one year, 2.60/gl. In two years 3.00gl and in a few more weeks, gas peaked at almost 4.00/gl. Gas rose 7 years out of 10 between 2002 and 2012. Prices were above $3 4 out of 6 years between 2007 and 2012. And the price broke the $4 mark 4 times since. Since early 2005, gas was under $2 for only a few weeks in late 2008. Since early 2007 gas was under $3 for about a year and 3-4 months, in 2009/2010

Quote:

Probably not, unless we have a significant depression. But so what? We won't see minimum wage back at $3.35/hr again, either. The absolute cost is irrelevant; it is the relative cost that matters.

Again, absolute cost is irrelevant to you. Not to many others. Wages aren't tied to either the CPI nor the minimum wage ( except for those actually making minimum wages, and they are already behind)

Quote:

I fully expect we will see gas under $3/gal before we see it above $5/gal. I would not be too surprised to see gas prices dip under $2/gal again, but I'm not gonna hold by breath on that one.

I'd be shocked if either of those happens, unless we have a double-dip recession.

 

Sorry that I went so far and unsubtle regarding political policies, but complaining about fuel prices and wondering if a more fuel efficient vehicle is worth it, seems to me like people complaining that the price of Cocaine is too high, they might need to find a way to cut back.

 

Sorry that I went so far and unsubtle regarding political policies, but complaining about fuel prices and wondering if a more fuel efficient vehicle is worth it, seems to me like people complaining that the price of Cocaine is too high, they might need to find a way to cut back.

You don't have to use cocaine to drive back and forth to work.

 

We'll never see $1.00 prices again.

If you look at prices corrected for inflation, gas prices peaked around 1920 and also 1979. Only recently did corrected prices break those levels.

 

Sorry that I went so far and unsubtle regarding political policies, but complaining about fuel prices and wondering if a more fuel efficient vehicle is worth it, seems to me like people complaining that the price of Cocaine is too high, they might need to find a way to cut back.

So, what is your point? Are you saying that someone that is looking for a way to mitigate high gas prices should run out and buy a more fuel efficient vehicle no matter how much it costs?

 

Somewhere out there are two economists arguing about which transistor to use in a circuit.

This is an electronics forum, and I feel its pages are better spent discussing technology and science, while others discuss economics elsewhere.

People don't buy hybrid cars to save significant amounts of money. They buy them as a statement. That statement is usually either "I care about the environment." or "I think this thing is cool."

I tend to believe automtive engineering teams have explored all available options and have usually designed damn good vehicles (esp. toyota). Everything hybrid always seems to come back to energy storage limitations. I honestly cant think of anything I could do better. Maybe increase the efficiency of the gasoline engine with a turbocharger and waste heat recovery.

 

Somewhere out there are two economists arguing about which transistor to use in a circuit.

This is an electronics forum, and I feel its pages are better spent discussing technology and science, while others discuss economics elsewhere.

So.... you are saying that in threads where people are talking about whether to choose, say, a 555 timer approach over a microcontroller approach that the relative costs should never be mentioned or discussed? You must be, since you are saying that, since this is an electronics forum, that we should focus on technology and science while others discuss economics elsewhere.

Economics is inextricably intertwined with technology and science. People can propose pie-in-the-sky technological solutions to problems all day long, but doing so is pointless unless those proposed solutions are economically viable, or likely to become so. Thus you need to discuss the economic factors in order to understand if it is not economically viable, whether that is likely to change, and would needs to happen for that change to occur.

Keep in mind that if you think the pages in this thread are a waste of your time, then you are free to ignore the thread. There are lots of threads I ignore because I believe they are a waste of my time.

 

I avoid driving. I have managed without even owning a car for over 20 years. To me, comparing cars and fossil fuel to cocaine is a reasonable exaggeration for the purpose of making a point.

No. I don't think you need to go out and get the most efficient vehicle at any cost. I do think you might want to question the whole economic systems that makes everyone "need" a vehicle that will have to be replaced and fueled. That is the healthiest economic system as currently measured and the effect of increased vehicle ownership in China is an example. Is China going to be a better place when 25% of the population is driving? Uncounted costs and profits make economics into a very dubious science, especially considering the unwarranted godlike level influence it has on the policies that we all live by.

For laughs you should see some of the analysis of the economic benefits of crime, including all those police officers that are employed and the prisons that have to be built. You can also check out my favorites; what the economic benefits of more disasters due to climate change are. Bigger and more frequent weather disasters like floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes will create a boom in the reconstruction and rehabilitation industries. Yes, these are actual economic bright spots. One persons costs are another persons profits.

 

Economics is inextricably intertwined with technology and science.

My gripe is that the government is inexorably entwined in the "EV science" which is resulting in REALLY BAD science.

One of the things that allowed me to succeed in 30 years in the electronics industry was accurately knowing when something was dead on arrival.... and the all electric car is such a creature. It has a plethora of "gotchas" and hassles and very little to recommend itself save the fact it does not emit exhaust.

But, as you pointed out, economics is king in the end and that is the problem with EVs and to a degree, hybrids which also could not exist as a product without government bribes to buyers.

The AEV is built entirely on the sturdy base of ATAMO (and then a miracle occurs) where they will somehow discover, tiny, ultra light, super power batteries that are cheap as sand. Well... no, they won't. But even if they did, there remains the ultimate problems: you have to plan your trips in 200 mile increments followed by 3 or 4 hour charging breaks.... and your path of travel must follow the path that is "charted" by places that can recharge your EV.

The EV is going to follow these phases:

1) The "Jay Leno" market (now) where EVs are sold to people who want one because it's cool... or green... or new and don't care how impractical it is.

2) EVs will be sold under contract to idiot governments (like california) who will spend truckloads of taxpayer money to buy them for state vehicles.

3) Car companies will be forced to build and sell EVs in state like cali where law has mandated car makers sell a certain percentage of zero pollution vehicles. So, car makers will be forced to build EVs (and sell below cost) as the "price of admission" to get to sell cars in the state.

4) Final phase: people get used to paying $5 for gas, the #1 buyers get bored with their new toys, people realize what a overpriced ripoff they are and the EV goes the way of the steam powered car.

 

It's true an EV is problematic for a single car family, due to their limited range. But there would seem to be a market for them as a second car for commuting and local trips, assuming they can be cost effective for those purposes. Never having to buy gas or change oil or antifreeze is a big plus.

And I would think they could be practical for short delivery tasks such as local mail delivery.

 

But there would seem to be a market for them...

If there truly was a market for EVs, then their research/design/production/sales would not need to be subsidized every step of the way.

 

For laughs you should see some of the analysis of the economic benefits of crime, including all those police officers that are employed and the prisons that have to be built. You can also check out my favorites; what the economic benefits of more disasters due to climate change are. Bigger and more frequent weather disasters like floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes will create a boom in the reconstruction and rehabilitation industries. Yes, these are actual economic bright spots. One persons costs are another persons profits.

Or that food stamps and welfare create jobs.

This is called the Broken Window Fallacy.

The destruction of wealth (in any form) generally results in a poorer population. Statements to the contrary are used to sway an uninformed electorate one way or another on political issues. But, like junk science is not science, such economic fallacies are not economics.

Economics is a science, and can be practiced just like Engineering or Physics. And there are *some* economists that do.

 

You don't have to use cocaine to drive back and forth to work.

But it doesn't hurt.

 

This thread has gone so far off-topic, it hurts.

 

You don't have to use cocaine to drive back and forth to work.

But it doesn't hurt.

Actually, it depends on how long the drive is...