Gee whiz Wally, just give me the extra $125 per month. I'm sure I could find something to do with it. Heck, that would easily cover my insurance...and then some.

Huh? Toyota, Nissan, Honda, et al sell more cars because there are more foreign people here now then....I don't know....whenever?

That's a new excuse. Will have to write that one down.

Bob

 

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You have a penchant for bringing up liberals and foreigners every chance you get in only the most dramatic of ways. I'm starting to learn to appreciate it for the entertainment value.

 

So basically what you are saying is that if there was no CAFE the big 3 would/could/should build SUVs/Trucks with worse gas mileage than the *** brands instead of better in GMs case right now, and they would sell better? You think if the 8.1L Big Block replaced the E85 DoD 5.3L in GMs truck lineup GMs troubles would go away?

I think the fact that GM has one of the more efficient line of trucks is a huge plus. Fuel economy in econoboxes is one of the reasons import brands crush the big 3 in that segment. Maybe if GM used some of the more efficient Ecotecs they use in Europe in the US (like the 1.8L 140HP VVT) they wouldn't have to worry about CAFE so much.

I don't think that a more gas hungry base engine in Cobalts would help GM win sales back either.

Personally I'd like to see CAFE standards based on vehicle size and not the definition of what a truck is/isn't.

 

By "CAFE is the devil", I didn't mean that we should not encourage fuel efficiency. I just mean CAFE is entirely the wrong way to do it.

The market will force more fuel efficiency (as we started to see when gas prices crept up to $3.00/gal for a while). Like magic, sales of huge SUVs softened (though they hardly hit the floor), while sales of smaller cars started to go up some.

If there needs to be some enticement/coaxing toward even better fuel efficiency, you adjust the DEMAND side of the market, not the supply side. Forcing the automakers to build something that isn't being demanded simply hurts the automakers...

 

Consider this: In 1995, an LT1 Corvette at about 300 horsepower got about the same fuel economy as today's 500 horse LS7. Today we have the fastest Impala ever made, but the 5.3 that powers it gets about the same fuel economy as the top Lumina powerplant from 10 years ago.

Point: The technology that's giving us fantastic horsepower numbers can also give us very impressive fuel economy gains. We're getting to the point where horsepower can't or maybe, shouldn't (what purpose would be served by an affordable 600 horsepower Camaro?) go up much farther, so fuel economy numbers can start rising.



CAFE is the wrong way of going about increasing fuel economy. It puts the burden on the automakers to force the public to buy what it may not want to by taking all it's offerings and averageing the cars they actually sell.

The most effective way of reducing fuel usage (increased fuel taxes, which could go towards our roads & bridges or financing that billion-per-week fiasco in Iraq) would give some of our more "Goverment-Is-Evil....military and infrastructure is free" fellows instant cardiac arrest.

The best of both would be a fuel economy standard for each class of vehicle.

Hypothetical situation:
If something like this was enacted 10 years ago, a 285 horse LT1 Camaro would be replaced by a more efficient, and even more powerful 300 horse 5.3 V8 due to an increase in fuel economy standards based on class (higher horse engines would still be available in limited production).

There would still be a horsepower war (though less dramatic), but it wouldn't simply be throwing in a bigger engine that gets the same fuel economy.

 

With today's automobiles, there's no longer a very strong relationship between horsepower and fuel economy. Which is great when you want to increase horsepoer and a 505 HP ZO6 gets almost 30 mpg. But you can't have it both ways: you can't turn the argument around and say that reducing horsepower will increase mileage, because that's not really the case. With the combustion process being over 99% complete, fuel economy is primarily a result of aerodynamics, weight, friction, and other losses. Most (although not all) of those are largely independent of engine size.


I agree. As Joe mentioned, to effect control on the market you need to work on the demand side, not the supply side. This is also why the 'war on drugs' is a disaster, because the government is trying to stop the supply of drugs. As long as there is demand for anything, people will find a way to supply it.

As to what the government does with the money, well, that's beyond our purposes here. But suffice it to say that in Ontario, moneys collected by the governments for all things automotive related (gas taxes, registration fees, etc.) is somewhere around double what actually gets put back into our transportation infrastructure. The rest is slush money for the goverments to spend on their pet projects. So as much as I agee that gas taxes are the best way to promote conservation (disregarding whether that's the government's job to try to influence), I harbour no illusions of getting better roads in return.

 

Point wasn't reducing horsepower. Point was getting more fuel mileage with the same or slightly better horsepower.

Going back to the 5.3 as an example. It puts out more horses (just over 300 w/ Impala's single exhaust) and is in the ballpark as far as torque goes as the LT1 5.7 (which ran 285 with Camaro's single exhaust). But it also gets better fuel mileage.

Instead, we have a LS7 that produces a bit over 66% more horsepower than the LT1 at the same fuel economy.

The efforts have gone into increasing horsepower without hurting mileage. Now that we are in the historic stratosphere of horsepower & performance, this would be a really good time to focus on increasing mileage without hurting horsepower.

 

I don't believe people are stupid. They would know if a car is a gas guzzler in the truest sense. Just because an engine might be a V8 and power an SUV does not imply it is inefficient. People buy SUVs because that is what they WANT, not necessarily need.

What the media seems to confuse is the fact that GM's engines are 'old' by virtue of being an OHV design and large in capacity compared to the competing DOHC technology... I've never known that DOHC technology is the answer to the fuel economy crisis.

 

Horsepower does affect economy; it's a simple case of not being able to get something for nothing. Gasoline engines have relatively poor part-throttle fuel economy, some of which is attributable to pumping losses past the throttle plate (DoD helps with this, but doesn't eliminate the problem), and just because the combustion is "complete" (as evidenced by low HC and CO emissions) in no way implies that the energy has found its way to the wheels.

"MPG per ton" (JD Power's prefered means of tracking relative economy) has improved over the past decade, which does indeed point towards ever-improving means of extracting power without a negative impact on economy. Do not make the mistake, however, of assuming that there would be no benefit if power levels are reduced from today's levels.

What is obviously the situation is that customers are willing to sacrifice economy for power; what's also obvious is that politicians feel that it's necessary to keep CAFE around as a matter of popular policy (SCNGENNFTHGEN's arguments that "liberals" are somehow to blame ignores the 12-year Republican majority rule of the House). It's quite the interesting conundrum, and yet at the same time it's probably just another example of the tragedy of the commons.

 

I'm not saying there's no correlation between engine output and fuel economy; I'm just saying it's not as big as many perceive. Just as you can go from, say, 350 to 450 HP and only suffer a MPG or two, if you go the other way from 350 down to 250 HP, you shouldn't expect to reap huge gains in fuel economy.

 

That's a statement with which I can agree.

 

As if the media knows enough to start an OHV v OHC debate...

The last time I have heard anyone on TV outside of Motorweek mention either was...well...never.

But, hey, if the media is our new whipping boy of sorts, I'm down.

 

The main reason I do this, IS.......because IMHO they are screwing up this otherwise fine country of ours, in more ways than one. At least I'm entertaining, and in the process, if I can wake up some sheep, I'm helping my country...............IMO of course. P.S. Danny Bonaduce is a patriot!