What Are The Dinosaurs of Detroit Thinking?

Ultimately the consumer will pay for these increases in fuel economy. The market has dictated that we want more fuel efficient vehicles, therefore the Senate's bill is just political grandstanding. With politicians, perception is more important than reality. Products like the Prius sell better because of their green image. Never mind that the company also produces the Land Cruiser and Tundra.

— lewissalem (View Profile)

Posted on 7/27/2007 10:08:55 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 3   

The way gas prices have been rising, we may not even have to hike gas taxes to decrease demand. I have to agree with you that legislating fuel efficiency is the wrong approach and will only give our economic adversaries an advantage as they are already ahead in market penetration with fuel efficient cars.

— EnnNorak (View Profile)

Posted on 7/28/2007 2:17:43 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

Detroit is hurting but the bleeding will get worse when they start falling further behind other manufacturers in regards to economy and emmissions and the technologies around it. Porsche and Ferrari are attempting to increase fuel economy while boasting performance, which their output of cars is much lower.

Why is that Detroit cannot spend money into technologies that will see that they are competitive in the future? And not neccesarily ensure but atleast give them a better chance if consumers are wanting changes. What happened to Bob Lutz' 'if they want it we will build it' mantra? I guess it never applied to expensive engineering for the environmentally aware but rather than for cheap tactics of selling large heavy desireable vehicles from truck underpinings and common shared parts.

— richardp996 (View Profile)

Posted on 7/27/2007 10:27:17 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: -1   

Umm, maybe everyone forgets, you cannot just get better fuel economy because some stupid politician says you have to. 40% increase is massive. I'd like to see most people on this site try to figure out how to do that. Truth of the matter is, detroit sells lots of SUV's and trucks. Pure physics dictates that more energy is required to move a more massive object.

I do agree with increases in fuel economy, yes I do. However, I cannot stand politicians jumping on the "bash detroit" bandwagon. If these politicians have such great ideas, let them come to detroit and engineer the cars themselves.

— neutral (View Profile)

Posted on 7/27/2007 11:00:14 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 6   

From a cultural standpoint big trucks and suv's are higher profit makers then small economy cars. The big three have to deal with much higher production costs because of the unions and healthcare.So to produce a small economical car or invest in technolgies that promote better gas mileage simply adds more to production costs and makes it more difficult to make a profit.Ford right now says it's too expensive to produce diesel vehicles.Why? It has to be for the reasons I list above.The foriegn car makers simply have an unfair advantage here.Also the big three believe that there is a good market for high performance RWD american cars and it's easier to make that profit on those cars.

— mini22 (View Profile)

Posted on 7/27/2007 4:49:05 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

Wow, I've never seen so many "know it alls" in my life.

— IAmaRealAmerican (View Profile)

Posted on 7/27/2007 5:27:12 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 2   

a 40% improvement may seem huge and unattainable. but that's NOT like trying to get 40% better than say, 35 mpg. it's 40% of CAFE, which is only in the 20s.

to get it isn't that difficult. just requires a product MIX shift away from guzzlers.

— XYZZ (View Profile)

Posted on 7/28/2007 6:25:29 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

I've noticed that no one seems to want to mention the fact that despite the "gas guzzler" status of many of Detroits trucks and suvs, they still sell well and are still deflecting even the best competitors from japan. We can't just make someone buy a smaller car. Here in Texas, trucks are quite usefull because not everyone goes to work at highrise building in the middle of a city. Plus, vehicles like the Suburban and Expedition make sense for a lot of the medium to large families that are more prevelent in the south. If you tried to cram a 5 person family and all their crap into a prius, you'd need 2 of them. Plus, we like to tow this down here. Horses, boats, trailers, etc. The way to make people stop buying large vehicles is to limit family sizes, and you know it was such a good idea in China.

— komododave (View Profile)

Posted on 7/28/2007 2:31:59 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 2