Kingcoal wrote:The problem is in the way cars are used, not with cars themselves. Remember Honda CVCC? Back in '72, you could buy a Honda Civic that got about 40mpg. The problem is that people didn't want them, so the Civic grew and grew and grew until reaching it's present size which is about the same as a '90 Accord.
The one car per person highways that we have today will become a thing of the past. Put four people in a car and you get rid of three cars. Even if the combined mileage of those three cars is 30mpg, you realize a large gain in gas conservation even if the one car that those four people are in is only getting 20mpg. Add to that the fact that reduced traffic means less stopping and starting and your mpg goes up ever further.
I wouldn't want to be in the auto business right now or in the future. They are looking at reduced sales from now on. To make matters worse, there is a worldwide glut of auto manufacturing.
Yep, and this was a result of the late 80's into the 90's love fest of cheap gas. The cars just kept growing. Then the car got reclassified by the EPA standards from a "compact" to a "mid-size" due to the volume calculations thus messed up the CAFE ratings.
And capacity issues, I still kept the Ward's Auto Editorial that was writing on the way back in the mid to late 90's. It showed the auto industry had a 60M/year capacity worldwide, but only 45M/year in sales. You could shut all the US production down and still keep the worlds sales need. However, the US production was at 100%+ at that time due to demand and sales in the US and EU were "flat" (meaning it was high, but will not be "growing" once demands leveled off).
SO they targeted the Asian market heavily to keep the under-utilized plants going over there. All the OEMs did this whether they were US, EU or Asian based. On top of that, more plants were built for these "emerging markets" even though there was enough capacity.
What I questioned back then was, so now we target "emerging markets" and demand for petroleum will increase, there will be even more competition for the petro. A crazy cycle to disaster. Now the disaster is here. No one in the industry factored in the demand for petro into the equation.
So I am riding it out, saving money, and preparing for the "meltdown" and getting out of the industry. I was at a "dying" prototype shop up in Detroit last summer to evaluate them for a program I am doing. The shop owner sold out to some "suited" investors and retired to San Diego. One of the investors said "Yes, the industry will come back". I just looked at him in his suit, I did not bother to respond. We gave the work to another shop in town, a shop that was forward looking in the state of the auto industry by targeting other industries. That shop is riding through just fine.
THE SIMPLE LIFE: One frozen pond, a few sticks, a little round puck, and a bunch of rowdy kids.