Was that projection by an investment firm (say, Goldman Sachs) that would stand to profit handsomely were that to happen?

I'm pretty sure we'll see $100 oil before we'll see $200 oil.

 

If it were just M-B doing this as a follow-on to the success of Toyota's hybrid marketing effort, then maybe we could chalk this up as an example of your second option. But I think it's more than that - you've got a lot of car companies making moves towards reducing oil consumption (including GM, which is dumping its nearly-nonexistant money into the Volt and much more behind the scenes), and you've got oil companies like Total and Shell stating that we need to find alternatives (the latter even put a date out there - coincidentially, it's 2015).

 

If more car companies were to make announcements like these we could see the price of oil plummet.

 

Announcements won't mean sh*t. Putting affordable and practical alternative transportation into showrooms will impact the price of oil. Talk will only drive up the cost, as it'll lend support to the idea that demand is outstripping supply.

 

Cadillac needs to take the same route. That is an aggressive goal though. I would like to see MB do it.

 

There's also a third interpretation of the announcement that makes it much more achievable, much less scary, and much more in-line with what GM and other manufacturers are already doing:

"Mercedes cars won't *require* petroleum products by 2015," could be interpreted to mean that everything they sell will be flex-fuel at a minimum. After all, if you *can* run gas or alcohol (or diesel and biodiesel), you don't *require* petroleum products.

That doesn't mean everyone will run alternate fuels, but the option will be there. And I do like having that option.

 

That's exactly I how interpreted it after reading the article.

 

Yes. I'm also not sure if we (the consumer) can't do anything about reducing the prices... like staging a world rally in protest of the high prices.

No, I'm not a professional protester but I got the idea from a news bulletin regarding truckies staging a 1000-strong vehicle protest, which blocked commuting to Australia's busiest city.

 

In other news; BMW to eliminate wheels by 2015.

 

AMC, Bricklin, and DeLorian already beat them to it.