Could They Sell This Today?

[Eric]

The Sprint is just to show you that it doesn't take much high tech to get good mileage. It met the rules for it's day.

I love CAFE standards, but I wish they were more strict. I like low gas prices.

How would higher " more strict" c.a.f.e. lower fuel cost?
Vehicles get almost a 3rd on average better fuel mileage than the 80's and fuel was 99 cents. then.
Why do large chains of retail able to sell product cheaper ?, because of volume of sales
WHY was the chevy small block hop up parts cheaper ? volume of sales from volume of units in service.
As fuel use goes lower and lower, the sheer volume of sales to divide the refinery cost across drops. Forcing the price per gallon to go UP not down.
Fuel prices have never been about supple and demand. CRUDE market price, yes but not the end products made from it.
In 2008-2010, people in the USof A traveled less than they did in 2010/11/12/13/14/15/16/17/18. because of lack of money and faith in the economy, yet fuel prices did not drop to 1.29 a gallon from the stuff piling up from people not traveling and a huge amount out of work.
Odd how that works, when the talking heads repeat over and over again ,it's supple and demand.
If in2020. for example ,50% of the vehicles on the road daily became electric. and new gas models all went to turbo 4's including mall crawler trucks (anything smaller than.an 1 ton) and the national fleet mpg of the gas models went up 10mpg.
Fuel prices at the pump will not have dropped , they'll go up WAY up.
The refinery cost per gallon goes up from lack of spreading it across million more gallons sold. and fuel taxes would go up to keep the till full, The retail outlets, you know gas stations, would need to make more on each gallon as the volume of sales drop, if they plan on staying in business.
This is simple business 101.
In no way would higher café regs. or even a fleet of electric and everyone moving to fuel sipping cars and trucks. fuel be cheaper.
Race fuel is silly money a gallon. why. lack of volume of sales, it doesn't cost 5 -7times more to produce it. but the volume of sales isn't there.
And before some cluck claims but but e85 is cheap. take the government gimmies away from corn fuel growing and production and it won't be so cheap. take ethanol out of pump fuel , causing a huge drop of volume produced to be able to divide the production cost across and see it go up to race gas cost.

Volume of sales, lowers the retail price of everything. from retailers being able to buy it for less and then sell it for less than the small mom and pop place can buy it for. to the chain burger place that can cook you a burger while paying employees and overhead for less than you can make yourself one at home. or a egg muffin/etc.

Any time volume of sales drop, prices go up.

[Eric]

The Sprint is just to show you that it doesn't take much high tech to get good mileage. It met the rules for it's day.

problem is it never meet todays regs. emissions and safety.
some cars in the 80's got 40mph. the metro got 50. the vw rabbit got very good mpg. but they all were tin can's that didn't get that mph at 65-75mph it dropped like a rock at those speeds.
At 55 my Metro got close to 50mph. driving on highway at 65 it was 43mpg. and that was with mixed driving, an all highway tracking it have been a bigger difference.
My sisters rabbit wasn't as bad of a drop but, it had o/d and should've done better than only a mpg more than the metro.

People didn't buy vehicles using a safety star metric's yet either .
It never sell today even if they allowed it out the door.

[Eric]

Remember that without the mid-point reset, the CAFE standards will increase ~ 1 mpg per year through the middle of the next decade.

And why you see the v6 Camaro dead, the same with the v6 mustang.
Trucks ,4x4, 4 door crew cab mind you with 2.7 liter v6 and in g.m.'s case a turbo 4 banger.
The v8 in a performance vehicle, heck even a truck that is less than a 1 ton is going to be very very costly to buy.
Heck after the 2019 model year, you will not be buying an F-150 with a v8.want a v8 you'll need to step up to an f-250.
I can't see g.m. not following this trend, as they need to force buyers out of the v8 pigs, that are mall crawlers, that never get used as a truck. sorry a few bags of mulch twice a year isn't using it as a truck.
If I was to pull out my crystal ball, I would not be shocked if the new ford ranger, ends up being the f-150 and the full sized trucks start at f-250 and up. of course this will depend on if the rangers mpg is better than the 2.7v6 f-150, if not. it will die off, as they are not producing a reg cab model, and that is just plain stupid. That is where that thing would shine.
a 2 or 4 wheel drive smallish reg cab truck. They'd sell fleets of them. but no. all that is coming is ,bloated four doors and not just one sized four door cab either. there is 2, and both have four full doors.
I can't understand why g.m. didn't ship over the tooling for the ute when they shuttered Holden. This thing with say the turbo 4 of the Camaro or without a turbo ,would be just the ticket for many fleets that need a truck bed at times, or all the time but don't need the tank of a truck todays trucks have become. They could name it, oh, I don't know. um an ,well, el,camino. Wait. that not work. no matter how hood it be, it get the cold shoulder. so maybe. something else.

[squirrel]

heh....volume of sales lowers production cost on stuff we manufacture. It does not lower the cost of resources that we need to get out of the Earth. think about it.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

heh....volume of sales lowers production cost on stuff we manufacture. It does not lower the cost of resources that we need to get out of the Earth. think about it.

It depends on supply and demand. Right now is a great time to drill and frack a horizontal well because the infrastructure supply price and supplies are favorable. But those who believe in the centrally-planned hands of bureaucrats over free markets will never be convinced.

Some might conclude there's a certain elitist hypocrisy to favoring antique 7 mpg blown big blocks for the special few and tiny three and four cylinders for everyone else. Not unlike the "environmentalists" who jet around in private aircraft. Or those who demand feel good stuff like banning plastic straws even as they live their throwaway lives on Chinese imports from Amazon . . . .

Nonetheless we are deeply and irrevocably divided. And I'm ticked to death that my V8s offend the hypersensitive . . . .

[Gateclyve Photographic]

And why you see the v6 Camaro dead, the same with the v6 mustang.
Trucks ,4x4, 4 door crew cab mind you with 2.7 liter v6 and in g.m.'s case a turbo 4 banger.
The v8 in a performance vehicle, heck even a truck that is less than a 1 ton is going to be very very costly to buy.
Heck after the 2019 model year, you will not be buying an F-150 with a v8.want a v8 you'll need to step up to an f-250.

The future sucks unless we change it.

I can't understand why g.m. didn't ship over the tooling for the ute when they shuttered Holden. This thing with say the turbo 4 of the Camaro or without a turbo ,would be just the ticket for many fleets that need a truck bed at times, or all the time but don't need the tank of a truck todays trucks have become. They could name it, oh, I don't know. um an ,well, el,camino. Wait. that not work. no matter how hood it be, it get the cold shoulder. so maybe. something else.

I suspect it was because they either believed it could not be classified for CAFE as a truck or because other regulatory compliance was just too expensive.

[squirrel]

Some might conclude there's a certain elitist hypocrisy to favoring antique 7 mpg blown big blocks for the special few and tiny three and four cylinders for everyone else.

The funny thing is, very very few people want to drive antique 7 mpg big blocks. Anyone who wants to, can. Read the story in Hot Rod on my chevy...it mentions that I spent the price of the cheapest new car, to build it.

I'm all for it....bring on the fleet of blown AWB cars! I'm waiting!

I'm still waiting!

I'll be waiting forever!

[Deaf Bob]

The Sprint is just to show you that it doesn't take much high tech to get good mileage. It met the rules for it's day.

I love CAFE standards, but I wish they were more strict. I like low gas prices.

830 cc. Not ci, cc. 3 cylinder. Got more air to the carb and a bigger exhaust and did not lose mileage but made it fun to drive.

[Eric]

heh....volume of sales lowers production cost on stuff we manufacture. It does not lower the cost of resources that we need to get out of the Earth. think about it.

When the overhead of the station you pump the fuel from, doesn't drop but the volume of fuel sales in gallons does, they have to up the profit per gallon. to meet the overhead.
THAT doesn't change. so, less fuel used will never = lower gas prices.
guess time will tell.

[squirrel]

supply and demand...drop demand, prices go down. until supply drops, but that requires will on the part of the suppliers.

[silver_bullet]

830 cc. Not ci, cc. 3 cylinder. Got more air to the carb and a bigger exhaust and did not lose mileage but made it fun to drive.

Some of us affectionately remember those pocket rockets!

[silver_bullet]

Now they're killing the Hayabusa, so what are we gonna do with the Smart cars?

[squirrel]

Now they're killing the Hayabusa, so what are we gonna do with the Smart cars?

tip them over, like cows, of course!

[silver_bullet]

tip them over, like cows, of course!

[RockJustRock]

Getting back to the Price Of Performance, some new Corvette pricing info came out today. I think most of the world has been ignoring the ZR! hype because they are focusing on circuit lap times rather than quarter mile times. But the pricing is spectacular. $40K to go from Z06 to ZR!. Blows right by that $100K price point to $120K.

http://www.thedrive.com/news/25569/2...500-price-hike

Even a hungry dealer has a hard time making THAT look like a good deal.

http://www.jackburford.com/blog/corv...-corvette-z06/

And the motoring press can be SO cruel.

http://gmauthority.com/blog/2018/12/...-is-hilarious/

Finally Car and Driver should make HellCat LSR racers feel REALLY good about their purchase choices. Even with the race fuel.

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2019-chevrolet-corvette-zr1-instrumented-test-review