Terminator Urges Detroit to Embrace Fuel Economy

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the current governor of California, urges Detroit to concentrate more on fuel efficiency.



If you like foreign films or want to find out how to harness your vehicle's force to Save on Gas make sure to read tomorrow's post.

Chevy Cruze : GM Plays Catchup

The new 2011 Chevy Eco Cruze is supposed to get 40 miles per gallon, or 2.5 gallons per hundred miles. That is very good for GM, but compared to Europe and Asia, which have had vehicles with this fuel economy for years, it is still playing catch up.



You want to read tomorrow's blog post if you're planning a trip to Europe. In europe you can rent economy cars that really save on gas.

Toyota President Planning for Peak Oil

Toyota is thinking ahead to a future of high gas prices driven by peak oil. That likely means they will be putting an emphasis on producing future models of cars that are very fuel efficient. This is a business model based on reality. On the other hand, here in the United States the big automakers are still having trouble breaking out of a business model based on extracting profits from big, expensive gas guzzlers. The US automakers already had a brush with death and were only saved by government intervention. It looks like they are less prepared for the future than Toyota and other competitors. Will Detroit go the way of the dinosaurs because it could not accept that saving on gas is a good thing?

End of the Hummer

So it looks like GM (Government Motors as they say) has decided to end the Hummer. In the newly dawning world of expensive gas there is no place for such a gas guzzler. As people began to realize this fact coupled with the current Greater Depression they simply stopped buying Hummers. They also stopped buying the other overly heavy fuel inefficient models offered by Detroit. Detroit's long term plan was based on profits from exactly these gas guzzlers, so they made and marketed many such models. The Hummer was iconic as representing this strategy taken to an extreme.

GM tried to trick the Chinese into buying the Hummer, but in the end China was too smart for that. In fact, when it comes to gas mileage and efficient fuel use, the US is among the dumbest countries around. China has shown a much better record recently and their refusal to buy the Hummer is a confirmation of that.

Good riddance to the gas guzzling Hummer. The US simply cannot afford to waste fuel like that in the expensive oil years ahead.

GM 2010 Flagship Vehicles

General Motors is going to base their year 2010 sales plans on larger vehicles, such as the Equinox, which is a small SUV. Although these vehicles have relatively good fuel consumption for their type, they guzzle much more gas than smaller cars designed for fuel economy. So after being hammered for building gas guzzlers in a world of rising pump prices, GM is setting itself right back up for the same punishment. Will Detroit ever learn?

Shell Eco Marathon

The Shell Eco Marathon is an automobile race, but instead of covering a given distance in the least time, the winner goes the farthest on a fixed amount of fuel. The idea is to build a vehicle that is as fuel efficient as possible. Most efficient vehicle wins. Included in the rules is a minimum speed: contestants have to average at least 15 km/h. The event serves as a testbed for trying out and displaying the fuel saving technologies and strategies of the future. I think we will be seeing more and more of this type of competition as gasoline gets more and more expensive.

Tesla Motors Plans to Widen Product Line

Tesla Motors is planning to develop an electric family sedan and a fleet minivan. Tesla Motors is the maker of the Roadster, an all electric lithium battery sports car. There are about 700 Roadsters in use today. Tesla will be using a $350 million Department of Energy loan to finance the development process.

Tesla Motors is a new company. It looks like we will need new blood to pioneer the frontiers of fuel economy ... the old established automakers have shown much less interest in the future. We will see how Tesla goes. Although their technology is interesting, they have until now very little market penetration. 700 vehicles is an engineering proof of concept but I doubt it is convincing for a marketing executive. The new models, including the family sedan or model S, are to be produced at an unspecified future date. It is not even clear that the factories that will make them are under construction.

Right now we are still enjoying pretty cheap gas. According to gasbuddy the national average is around $2.50 per gallon. I think we will see an explosion in interest towards electric vehicles the next time the price gets above $4.00 per gallon. And that $4.00 per gallon gas will return.

How to Measure Electric Car Energy Consumption

As the world begins a move to electric vehicles, we are working out how to quote their fuel economy. Remember when GM announced their new electric Chevy Volt was going to get 230 MPG? What they did was consider a trip of a certain length (set by the EPA fuel economy driving cycle test) and only count the gas used. Because the first part of the trip could use electricity from the battery, the first miles were "free" from the point of view of the gas tank. Of course that is very misleading, because the battery is still providing energy.

It looks like the EPA is going to regulate how automakers must report electric car fuel efficiency. I see that we are going to need it ... the automakers have already shown they are not responsible enough to manage this on their own. They have let the marketing department take the driver's seat and publish information that is not useful to consumers.

It seems that the EPA is still thinking about the best way to present electric car fuel economy data. One suggestion is to report two numbers: one giving the gas (normal internal combustion engine) fuel economy, and the other the energy use of the electric engine. At the root, I think this shows us that we should move away from thinking about gallons and towards thinking about Joules, the physical unit for raw energy. The most useful number would be energy used per distance traveled. In modern international scientific units this probably would be expressed in Joules per meter. It could be given as millions of Joules per 100 miles or something else a little more familiar to the American public.

At the end of the day what is being spent to move the vehicle is energy. In most circumstances the distance we want to go is the fixed given information. The natural measure combining these two is energy per distance traveled. Simple and it works for all types of vehicles: electric, hydrogen fuel cell or regular gasoline.

Cash for Clunkers Ford's Hero

General Motors has received a lot of scorn for converting itself into "Government Motors" but we must remember that Ford has also needed Federal help to stay afloat. Whatever you think of the Cash for Clunkers program, the beancounters at Ford like it. This is the quote that says it all (from the article in the link):

We were having a good month — and Ford's been having some good months lately — but the (clunkers) program really put us over the top for sure.

The bottom line is that the US auto industry is suffering all around. Without the Feds stepping in to save the day, all Detroit would be underwater. If you ask why, I will tell you that one of the biggest mistakes Detroit made was ignoring fuel economy. The oil price spike was big news, but over the last years we have seen consistently high gasoline prices. It looks like this will be a constant problem in the future. The price of oil is still historically high and could easily go higher. Detroit has to wake up and start making cars that sip gas at a rate that people can afford to pay.

If It Is Possible to Get Better Mileage, Why Don't the Automakers Do It?

Here is a video which asks the question if it is so easy to improve gas mileage, why aren't the big automakers already doing it? The video says it is because the automakers have a stake in the big oil companies. So they work something like the laser printer industry. They sell the cars (or printers) but also make money on the gas (or refills). Anyway, watch and see for yourself.

Whatever you think about the automakers and big oil, one thing is for sure: don't let this be an excuse for not trying to save on gas!