Hybrid cars no longer desired by US buyers.

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Even if I wanted a Hybrid car, mainly I don't have the moola to buy one.That's why I like my old wrecks. cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin
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Of course, people have slowed in buying hybrids since November (as per the article).

So many people fear for their jobs, and have lost money on their 401Ks, and stock portfolios, everybody is pulling the belt a little tighter.

And, not only that...since the price of gasoline has fallen, the urgency to "invest" in a more economic vehicle is no longer a priority.

Rest assured, the price of gasoline WILL go back up, sooner or later.

Reply to
HLS

Well, I for one am still considering a hybrid. This drop in oil price is temporary. Wait till the economy picks up. Then so will oil consumption, and price will go right back up.

I personally would support a Federal gas tax whose proceeds all go to R & D of alternate fuels. Every time oil prices get to high and we start getting serious on alternate fuels, something (even OPEC itself)drops the price of oil and we scrap all our development. So the next time oil shoots up, we start from scratch again.

Reply to
Don Stauffer

We don't need "alternate fuels." What we need to do is to tap our own vast reserves of existing fuels.

Reply to
Roger Blake

Are you referring to the gas reserves recently commercialized here in Texas?

There is plenty gas, here, but to use it most easily it should be converted in a Shell type GTL plant. Then it would still be an alternate fuel, I guess.

Reply to
HLS

Toyota is building a new factory in Blue Springs,Mississippi, near Tupelo, Elvis Presley's old home town.They will get the factory building completed, but, because of the bad economy situation, they will hold off on moving the production equipment into the building untill the economy picks up again.They intend to make Toyota Prius hybrid cars there, hopefully, someday.

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cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

That's not a bad idea in the short term, but what do we do when THOSE run out?

Petroleum is such marvelous stuff for making lubricants and polymers that it seems a shame to waste it all by burning it.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

I have an old set of detailed plans here I bought from somewhere back in the 1970s, how to hook up a govt surplus motor to a VW beetle car.Other old detailed plans I have here, How to hook up a Japanese three cylinder yard/garden tractor engine, and a few other detailed plans I bought back in the 1970s. cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

The government won't be able to come up with anything of value. It will just be another waste of people's money.

That's because oil isn't running out but a cartel business. If oil was a free market that wouldn't happen. The prices go up to make money and then the price is brought crashing downwards wrecking investments in alternative energy and harder to reach and/or process oil.

Reply to
Brent

What we need is an elimination of the regulatory and political barriers to entry into the energy business.

Reply to
Brent

You are talking about a time scale measured in centuries. There is no immediate, urgent need for alternatives.

It is not an "either/or" choice. Surely you must realize that many different products are distilled out of the same barrel of oil.

Reply to
Roger Blake

So, we should wait until there is? By then it'll be too late.

Yes, but we have more tools than just distillation. You want more light fractions, you can crack the heavy ones down. You want more heavy fractions, you can link the light ones up. It's versatile stuff, petroleum.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

I have worked in the oil industry for a lot of years. The reports, data, show that the "low hanging fruit" is pretty much gone, and that the world demand has about equaled the ability of the production industry.

Yes, some more fields will certainly be found, but nothing like what we had in the golden years of America's economy.

I think we are wise to think about conserving petroleum and looking to more renewable sources to fuel our transportation needs.

It will be, certainly, argued both ways, as is global warming. (And I believe in that too)

Reply to
HLS

With centuries to spare, this is simply not an immediate problem. People are treating this as though it's an emergency situation. It is not. Frankly if we start on alternatives 100 years from now there will still be plenty of time before "the oil runs out."

Bottom line is that burning gasoline does not mean we're throwing away the other products.

Reply to
Roger Blake

Some people believe in astrology and flying saucers too. It's your right to believe anything you want. Just don't try to force me to change *my* lifestyle based on *your* beliefs.

Reply to
Roger Blake

No, we need to relegate burning gasoline to the 20th century.

I'm no greenie - my winter car is a 10mpg truck and my summer car is a nitrous sniffing Trans Am, but IMO, we can do better and cleaner than gasoline.

Ray

Reply to
ray

I havent said anything about your lifestyle... You can believe in astrology and flying saucers if you like.

I prefer more defensible data.

Reply to
HLS

Roger Blake wrote: Just don't try to force me to

Why not? If your lifestyle needs to be changed to accommodate a tax on energy (or a tax on anything else) - that is your tough luck. You apparently already are well aware of this which is why you are attempting to get others to believe the things you believe. I would be curious to know where you think all these 100's of billions of dollars the Bush administration is handing out to bankers in the last months he is in office is going to come from. If not taxes that you will pay then where will it come from?

-jim

Reply to
jim

This is a commonly held belief that is short-sighted and naive. We will run out of oil. Maybe not in 10 years but it is surely a finite resource. We have vast reserves of natural gas, which is cheaper than gasoline by half. Why dont we run our cars on that until we figure out a way to power our cars with wind, solar etc. Even a backward country like Iran is years ahead of us on that, which is both sad and embarrassing. Should we drill more here? Maybe. But in the grand scheme of things it will only forestall the inevitable. Ben 'Flame suit on'

Reply to
ben91932

Because it won't be cheaper if cars were run on it. Natural gas has a storage issue with regards to the tanks required to store it and the pressures needed to get a sufficent amount in a reasonable amount of space. This then leads to fueling issues. Yes, it's been done, but it's not something that is likely to go over well with the moron majority out there.

There is a reason why gasoline is on top. There simply isn't anything better out there all things considered, well at least that we have access to. For all I know the military has a zero point energy device :)

The easiest way at present to get wind, nuke, and solar to power cars is to use that energy to produce a liquid fuel. Something like the processes that turn organic waste into oil or to manufacture ethanol. In essence a liquid battery.

Iran isn't a backward country by nature, it was turned into one. It's a country that has been surpressed due to a long history of outside interference and puppet rulership, interference mainly from the US federal government.

Reply to
Brent

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