Posted on 05/04/2018 7:25:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's been a bad couple of weeks for environmentalists who want to force Americans into battery-powered econoboxes. First, the Trump administration said it will likely freeze fuel economy standards. Then Ford announced plans to drop most of its passenger cars in favor of trucks and SUVs. Both are good news for consumers.
By 2020, Ford (F) says the only cars in its lineup in North America will be the Mustang and a new Focus. Automobile Magazine's New York bureau chief Jamie Lincoln Kitman complained in a New York Times op-ed that the decision means a "decade's worth of investment in developing more fuel-efficient cars is now taking a back seat to profit."
Actually, Ford is simply acknowledging what car buyers have been telling the company for some time now — that they are far more interested in larger utility vehicles than sedans and compact cars.
In the first quarter of this year, SUVs, vans and trucks accounted for almost 80% of Ford's sales, and passenger car sales dropped by almost 14% year-over-year.
Industrywide, utility vehicles accounted for more than 60% of sales in Q1.
Ford and other carmakers dropping or scaling back their small car lines are simply responding to consumer demand. Which is what they are supposed to do.
CAFE Nonsense
The second bit of "bad" news came when the Trump administration's EPA said it was planning to freeze federal "corporate average fuel economy" (CAFE) standards at 2020 levels, rather than let them continue to climb until 2025.
The "explanatory" news site Vox.com, for example, complains that if successful Trump will "bequeath America vehicles that guzzle more gas, have higher fuel costs, produce more pollution, and profit the dirtiest automakers."
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Sooo... How many more decades do you want them to go on ignoring the preferences of the customers? I know this is a difficult concept forLiberals, but businesses actually exist TO MAKE MONEY. They actually have a legal obligation to try their best to do so, or else they are failing their investors, and can face legal consequences if they screw it up badly enough.
Not every person or business entity exists to help you enforce your Utopian pipe dreams, Jamie.
Predictable Liberal Response: Then we need to manipulate consumer demand by imposing a Carbon Tax or somesuch.
It was all meant to stultify the populace.............
I’d buy a big ol’ slush box sedan if they still made them.
Democrats own the battery industry?
And frankly they are following the business model of Fiat Chrysler America if you look at it.
What I have read and or told ( non proprietary ) by my auto gnomes.
* Car type(s) are faddish, look at what has disappeared: The personal luxury car ( the Monte Carlo ), The Mini-Van rage is over, The Station Wagon, and you can name more, have all come and gone.
The new customer rages are: sitting up higher, room, and room for my stuff, and can "it" carry all our kids, their sports stuff and their friends and their stuff too.
CUV's SUV's do that.
A four Door Camary or Accord don't cut it and one of them I can't remember which is not selling.
Don't blame Trump, don't blame, bla bla bla, for once the consumers needs will be addressed without the CEO's of the big three wondering when he who shall not be named will use the power of three letter organizations against them.
I stand alone here on FR and I still say we are this close to an "E-Car" revolution and it will happen in the 2 terms of President Donald J. Trump and springboard the economy and the GDP under his watch even further. The 1st wave of them are here in 2020, 4 door Electric 4wd SUV's with "skateboard" ( under the floorboard ) battery packs with range up to 250 miles per charge. That is once a week if you do 50 miles a day as a busy mom running the kids around in it. If they steal sports suspension pieces from their parts bin, and w/ the low C.G. and 4WD it might handle quite nice and be fun to drive.
Insane government fuel efficiency standards made Ford chose not make cars anymore.
Jamie would have all of us driving Trabants.
You're alone alright. Until they can recharge the vehicle in 10 minutes or less, electric cars are just toys for idiots who buy the global warming bullshite.
I've thought for years that a diesel-electric hyrbid like that used in locomotives is really the way to go if you're interested in fuel economy, reliability, and durability. Unfortunately, leftists have been brainwashed against diesel.
As I said, many are trying to get the charge time down as well, and that is not without it's challenges aka extreme voltages / amperage to make it happen and literately water cooled charging systems, I have seen them on display.
FWIW, one of my gnomes noted those in the biz get it that this paradigm shift is coming, and to get aboard it or maybe it is time to retire.
On Diesels. I got to see the Prototype "Achates" opposed piston engine in a F-150 @ the NAIAS and spoke w/ the rep ( acutally an engineer ) on it. What was amazing beyond the potential of it springboarding to a 34 mpg vehicle w/ 480 lbs of torque out of 2.7l and 270hp that it was a Compression Ignition Engine Utilizing Gasoline I am still wrapping my head around that one, that is almost HCCI....
Well, no. Don't sprain yourself, lol.
For a typical commuter, plugging in overnight works very nicely and the range on full charge is a nonissue for running around town on errands during lunch or on the way home in the evening. This is a large market by itself.
I've seen some calculations regarding what it would take electrically to pump a battery as fast as it is necessary for it to be more than a commuter car that gets charged nightly. I sure as hell wouldn't want to stand near one of those things as it dumped that charge.
On Diesels. I got to see the Prototype "Achates" opposed piston engine in a F-150 @ the NAIAS and spoke w/ the rep ( acutally an engineer ) on it. What was amazing beyond the potential of it springboarding to a 34 mpg vehicle w/ 480 lbs of torque out of 2.7l and 270hp that it was a Compression Ignition Engine Utilizing Gasoline I am still wrapping my head around that one, that is almost HCCI....
Sounds interesting. Past time for more work on this idea IMO
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