Obama’s $1,300 car tax
Nobody in the White House is going to call the president’s “mileage and pollution” plan what it is.
It’s a $1,300 car tax. On the working class. On the middle class. On everyone who has responded to the government’s consumption-mania incentives — loosened credit, tax deductions — and bought/planned to buy a new car without taking into account these unanticipated costs:
President Barack Obama wants drivers to go farther on a gallon of gas and cause less damage to the environment — and be willing to pick up the tab.
Obama on Tuesday planned to announce the first-ever national emissions limits for cars and trucks, as well as require a 35.5 miles per gallon standard. Consumers should expect to pay an extra $1,300 per vehicle by the time the plan is complete in 2016, officials said…
…Administration officials said consumers were going to pay an extra $700 for mileage standards that had already been approved. The comprehensive Obama plan would add another $600 to the price of a vehicle, a senior administration official said.
The extra miles would come at roughly a 5 percent increase each year. By the time the plan takes full effect, at the end of 2016, new vehicles would cost an extra $1,300.
That official said the cost would be recovered through savings at the pump for consumers who choose a standard 60-month car loan and if gas prices follow government projections.
Let’s all deliver a collective snort in response to yet another self-delusional bureaucrat’s promise that yet another massive government intervention will produce cost savings:
“[T]he cost would be recovered through savings at the pump for consumers who choose a standard 60-month car loan and if gas prices follow government projections.”
All together now: SNORT.
Totally missing from today’s discussion of imposing stricter mileage standards: the potentially lethal impact. For years, free-market analysts and government statisticians have warned of the deadly effect of increasing corporate auto fuel economy standards.
Sam Kazman at CEI explained in 2002: “[T]he evidence on this issue comes from no less a body than the National Academy of Sciences, which issued a report last August finding that CAFE contributes to between 1,300 and 2,600 traffic deaths per year. Given that this program has been in effect for more than two decades, its cumulative toll is staggering. CAFE has this impact on safety because it restricts the production of large cars. Large cars are less fuel efficient than smaller, similarly equipped vehicles, but they are also more crashworthy in practically every type of accident. The first major analysis of this issue came in a 1989 report from researchers at Harvard and the Brookings Institution; since then, a number of other analyses, by government and private researchers, have confirmed the conclusion that CAFE kills.”
Attention, House Republicans: Demand that Obama own up to tradeoffs. Demand that his administration make those costs transparent.
Let’s have some Cheerios-level truth-in-labeling on President Obama’s risky $1,300 car tax, shall we?
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It would be simpler to just replace ZERO with someone who is smarter.
I’m NEVER going to buy a new car anyway…if they ban used cars, I am in trouble…but they won’t.
They could put a $50000 increase on ‘em, I could care less.
Big Auto, get it yet?
This administration is less transparent than Bush’s was!
Wait ’til you start paying for Universal Healthcare- this will seem like chump change. Bend over America, and grab those ankles….
First it was “Death and Taxes.” Now, it is “Death by Taxes”.
It’s not that he is not smart; “It’s just that he knows so much that isn’t so.” – Ronald Reagan.
If we made the cars out of cardboard, they wouldn’t weigh as much and would get better mileage.
duh1 is trying to repeal the laws of physics AND economics.
What a guy!
Is he going to give up his convoy of suv’s? Is he going to continue to fly across the country just to make a big production out of signing another piece of nanny/socialist legislation? Is going to continue to order pizza from MO to be delivered to DC?
And if you don’t drive on federal highways and if you stick to town and state roads, will you be subject to federal rules about cars?
This has not one thing to do with the environment. This and almost everything Obama is pushing through is about control.
Don’t forget that while paying an extra $1,300 per year in these taxes while increasing your mileage by a whopping 20%, Cap and Trade will see to it that gasoline prices will increase about 150% at least.
The term is Snowball Effect.
To meet those standards say goodbye to trucks, SUV’s and minivans….what are people going to do with their campers? Chevy Malibu is a great car but you can’t tow anything with it.
Yes, Gov programs have unintended consequences. And, I am curious as to how the $600 and $700 cost increases were arrived at.
One way to increase mpg is to make cars lighter (and potentially more dangerous in a crash). Yet, there are other ways to increase mpg, too. Going from eight cylinders to six, from six to four, using hemispherical cylinders, computerizing the engine to use fewer cylinders at higher speeds. Pretty much using existing technology.
Accepting the premise that the cost of autos will go up is too easy. It may happen, but show me how.
Accepting only one way to increase mpg is also questionable.
It will create lots of jobs in the spare parts / after-market business. Mandating a radical design change in cars, especially the engines, will result in mechanical systems that don’t work nearly as well.
Remember the late 70s & early 80s, that golden age of automobiles? Me neither.
It is all smoke and mirrors as is 90% of the Green Movement. An individual with a private car, with a private home, with a private pension, private wealth is a threat to the Collective. Force them unto public transportation and they are easier to control.
Obama is forcing Detroit to make cars we don’t want and is trying a Cap and Trade policy to make it impossible for Detroit to make those cars. Build all the windmills you will–they will not power smelters and assembly lines.
Force us onto public transportation and eventually these private homes, private vacations and private lives become impossible. Work, live and relax with several thousand of your closest State appointed friends.
No, there are no unanticipated costs here-they know exactly what they are doing. Private Lives as with Private Property are not condusive to the Collective. Frank Marshall Davis taught his student well.
On May 19th, 2009 at 7:32 am, zyzzyg said:
IIRC, Cadillac used this design in the early 80s, but the engine was a real dog. Have there been examples that worked well?
We should probably add in the cost of more UAW bailouts. This isn’t going to be good for the car business, so we’re going to get hit on both ends here.
Looks like we’re going to be paying more for everything anyway. Maybe the government could just take our pay checks and give us a small allotment, you know, for things like milk and bread? Then we’ll be the feudal serfs the democrats want us to be.
There will be no savings at the pump.
Prices won’t follow projections because the government doesn’t control the price…yet.
Plus, thanks to the increased efficiency, the savings will disappear as all states (and eventually the federal government) will raise their motor fuel taxes to recoup the lost revenue from the more efficient vehicles on the road. Either that or the GPS “tax per mile” system that Obama says he won’t impose, but many states are seriously looking into….
After all, we have to make sure that the rich pay their fair share of taxes, so they’ll have to get the GPS units first.
Well, he did say he’d roll back the tides and heal the land. Natural law should be small potatoes for him.
So we will pay more to a buy a car that will fold up like an accordion in a simple fender-bender. I guess I’ll hang on to my 1998 Honda.
How will that help the economy?
I’m thinking it was a best guess, and it wasn’t just for the efficiency standards – it’s also for CA’s (and eventually EPA) CO2 emissions standards. Detroit spent a lot of money developing emissions to reduce CO, now the natural byproduct of combustion is a problem! So we’ll have to install CO2 scrubbers on the vehicles.
Side note: The SMART car is a 3 cylinder, and it doesn’t get the new standard MPG in the city. How smaller can we get these cars???
Here are some suggestions for fixing the economy:
Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan.
You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:
There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:
1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings – Unemployment fixed.
2) They MUST buy a new American car. Forty million cars ordered – Auto Industry fixed.
3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage – Housing Crisis fixed.
It can’t get any easier than that! If more money is needed, have all members of Congress and their constituents pay their taxes…
I think this could work. It couldn’t be any worse than Obama’s plans.
Some woman from the Government was just on F&F talking about this. She said “We are giving the consumer what they want”
That’s right, the government knows what we want in a car, and they are forcing the car companies to give it to us. This should work out great. Let’s put the State in control of all decisions and get it over with.
On May 19th, 2009 at 8:03 am, jbh45 said:
I often wonder how it helps the environment, legislating cars and other machines into artificial obsolescence. Scrap an old machine with plenty of service life, replace with legally compliant rushed design. Seems like a waste of energy and materials.
forest, that was Carol Browner. She is Obama’s radical environmentalist energy policy head.
I just about blew a gasket when I heard her say they are giving consumers what they want. Hmmmmm…..the government telling us what we want.
They also have a cash for clunkers program they want to push through too. It’s something like, you turn in your used car and the govt. gives you $3500 toward a new car. Wow! Huh? $3500 towards a $30,000 car!
First of all, the govt. has no Constitutional power to do that and second of all, $3500? Really? So they want to put us all further in debt by forcing most of us to borrow $26,000?
I’m sticking to used cars.
Maybe I’ll take a mechanics course at the local community college so I can keep my used vehicles going and those of my friends.
I’ll go you one better. I designed an add on device that can be installed on any vehicle of any type that increases fuel mileage. For instance, I was getting about 15 on the hwy with my ford truck, but now get 22-23. Cheap, easy to make, wouldn’t cost squat in production or installation, but just try the patent process! Also, somehow, I suspect automakers don’t want this on the market..even though I equally suspect they have the same thing on a shelf somewhere, probably invented by someone else some years ago (there’s lots of smarter and more creative people out there than I am.) All of it boils down to $$ for someone…..
That’s the administration’s statement. I think that if they say the price of a new car will rise $1,300, then we can expect it to actually go up $5,000.
Don’t forget to add sales tax on to that $1300.
On May 19th, 2009 at 8:06 am, ErinF said:
ErinF for President! A million dollars to quit my job. Do you need a kickback from someone not quite 50 yet?
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s a serious lowball of the price. Since Priuses, Yarises, Fiats, and the ilk are the only cars that meet the new standard, the auto manufacturers are going to be able to charge even more for them.
Plus, if someone dares make a Caravan or a Canyon (to think nothing of making a Silverado or a Corvette), the fines for inevitably missing the CAFE standards will be out of sight.
I look for the average econobox to cost somewhere north of $30,000 (not counting the effect of inflation) by 2016.
In the fascist collective, individual rights…to the extent they are allowed to exist at all…are subservient to the collective good.
They will take my F-350 SuperDuty when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers…and after I’ve run over a lot of their golf-carts during the battle.
Detroit and the other car-makers have been wringing tiny percentage improvements out of the limits of engineering for decades. They have a strong motive to produce clean, efficient engines…and they have. The limits of engineering are very close to having been met. The laws of thermodynamics are not to be violated by even BIG BRO.
Americans buy the clean, efficient engines the auto-makers produce, and bought them, in the vehicles we want. The market says that SUVs are EXTREMELY popular, and that Americans want to continue to buy them.
BIG BRO does not care what you like. He will tell you what you like, and then you will like it, even if it kills you.
You mean like the ones the police in Wisconsin can stuff under (and then retrieve from) my car parked in my driveway without a warrant?
Don’t you guys have rattlesnakes in Wisconsin?
I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to add a tax (paid through registration or inspection fees) on older cars. That would give people “incentive” to buy the governments’s new cars.
I have 3 hybrids and get some of the best mileage on the road of any car except a very few. My vehicles are also SULEV vehicles ( super ultra low emission vehicles). I pay enough to replace the batteries in them and I’ll be damned if I am gonna paid a cent to Obama. He can kiss my a$$.
I’ll just hang on to my 2000 Silverado, and my Chrysler Sebring. To get good mileage, my Harley-Davidson Sportster gets over 40 mpg and is a lot of fun to ride.
Some Obamaniacs with whom I work said he would not raise taxes on the middle class. Only on “The Rich”. I wonder what they’ll say about this proposal?
Is someone writing all this down? We need to keep track of everything this socialist jackass does so it can be undone when a conservative is in the White House.
And if I don’t like what he does with automobile regs, I won’t buy a new car.
I was almost killed because I was driving a small car and the truck driver didn’t see me. The 18 wheeler hit be from behind… pushed me out onto the highway…then another 18 wheeler coming down the road missed me by 2 feet.. at 60 mph… So I bought an SUV.
So no thanks Mr. Presi-dunce. I’ll choose what I drive. You will not choose for me.
For ragspierre…engine efficiency isn’t even close, which detroit and some in congress MUST know. First, for ex., all intakes are rough cast…lots of friction to get air into the burn cycle which cuts efficiency in some engines by up to HALF. Second, exhaust management (catalytic converters) really rob power and mileage both (can get around that with an exhaust add on which doesn’t reduce cat efficiency yet improves mileage.) But that wasn’t enough. Nah, they now program your vehicles ECM with very specific parameters (which you can change for about 300 bucks) that LIMIT your mileage just in case your vehicle is a fluke and gets better than average for its’ class. In short, the typical mileage you get is by design, it’s deliberate, it’s WRONG, and obama will dig deep into our pockets to get more money for advancements that detroit (and some mechanics and inventors like me) can give you today. THAT galls the h_ll out of me!
I think Germany has a People’s Car – isn’t that what Volks Wagen means? We will all be driving around in little cars that are too small for us – have to cut back on the family size. Control, control, control.
Check out the movie Brazil sometime and you will see what the future looks like. I thought it was science fiction of what the future would never look like…but I think it has now become reality.
Truly a weird but enlightening movie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil
LMAO…. Look on the road. Americans want pickups, SUVs and sports cars.
Obama is dictating that troubled US car companies build cars that very few want and that they don’t build very well.
Yeah… that will really get the car industry humming again? Not……
What this means.. if it happens, is poor sales, poor reliability of hastily produced, problem plagued new designs and yet more Tax Payer money needed to bail out the auto industry.
Obama’s Socialist Utopia is a disaster in the making.
This is a major part of the problem. Shelby Steele–
We are being rapidly converted into a fascist economy, and these are what we have leading the “loyal opposition”…?!?!?!?!
I hate to regurgitate this, but elections have consequences. We reap what we sow. Now, time to start weeding the garden over the next few cycles before all this crap becomes permanent.
Let’s be honest here: 95% of voters are
100% clueless in politics. So Obama took this election through his manufactured culture of cool, smooth talk, empty mantras, and a big fat assist from the corrupt media. Now the masses that voted for this socialist are starting to get it, and we should see big changes in 2010.
This will SO help Detroit. Unlike Toyota and Honda, who have been making huge “hemi” V-8′s and other such gas-guzzling smoke machines, Chrysler has been making fuel-sipping hybrids and tiny cars that barely effect the planet.
Oh… right… I have that backwards, don’t I? It’s Chrysler that’s been selling “Hemi’s,” and GM that sells Hummers, etc.
Nice move, Chauncey.
You know what would really help? Force Boeing to make an electric airplane. Or Intel to make a computer that runs only on solar panels. I’m sure the rest of the world will “play fair” while they struggle with these challenges.
You’re doing great, Premier. The economy will be fully screwed in just another year or two.
Chillaxe everyone! Obama’s just fulfilling biblical prophecy, you know, “Carmageddon”!
I’m not too happy about that either. It’s like when carter was prez….one the one hand, it took a carter to show just what a mistake the public was making in voting for such a schumck, but it brought many years of pain for EVERYONE. Even if we take back a house in 2010, a lot of damage will have been done, and I just don’t know at this point how much of it will be reversible. These problems with the car companies and mortgage institutions were several years in the making, could have been addressed and fixed, but a dem held congress and lame duck prez didn’t get it done. Inside the beltway it’s politics as usual, because the complacent and LAZY public just aren’t hurting enough to get up and do something about it yet. Like with the military, we’re beginning a defense drawdown…and every major war has been preceeded by such a drawdown. We’ve got sites like this one by MM raising the alarm, laying out the facts, but not enough people are reading it and then doing something about it. We’re back to hunkering down, trying to take care of our own, weathering the storm, and hoping there’s enough left afterwards to build off…so much crap that could have been avoided.
So in two years they will have to start building cars using technology that doesn’t exist yet. obama is the best CEO of GM EVER!!!
All day yesterday the MSM breathlessly repeated that the fuel economy standards have not been touched since 1985. Therefore, he scores big with those not paying attention, thinking that finally the guy tackles problems that have been left undone for more than 20 years. What a hero! He cares about us, and the planet! And he gets things done!
I’m going to puke.
In the liberal world, these deaths are simply human sacrifices to Gaia; the victims and their families should be honored that Gaia should choose them.
As usual, they were wrong. The last bill was in 2007.
You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:
Oh My God, LBJ is BAAACK!
There’s a thought. Another one is returning the GPS transceiver to the police department (they’ll be wondering why the target spends so much time at their coffee shops).
I have heard that before.
Never seen it in action but heard it.
As I said in comment #37, I can get better mileage on anything…I can improve mileage by 30 to 50 percent for about 100 bucks. IF I CAN DO IT….certainly professional engineers with millions in R&D have already done it.
How does Cap & Trade figure into the cost of manufacturing cars…Hmmmmmmm?
Remember, Obama said he’d cut taxes for 95% of the people that pay taxes. To pay for these cuts, he’s going to raise taxes everywhere else. These programs have to be paid for somehow.
Obama lied and the country cried. He’s the lie that keeps on giving – one lie after another.
There are many new vehicles that use cylinder deactivation. It works fine with todays technology….but the mileage increase is pretty minor.
Want to tell us how?
“[T]he cost would be recovered through savings at the pump for consumers who choose a standard 60-month car loan and if gas prices follow government projections.”
The only thing missing from that statement is, “yea, that’s the ticket!”
Yes…and no…lol. I’d like to get a patent and sell the thing to a reputable company that would mass produce it rather than sell out to a oil company that would put it away. However…I’ve imposed a deadline on myself. If I can’t get through the red tape before Thankgiving, then I’m going to draw up plans, copyright them (so no one else can and then shut it down) and publish it as free access on the internet so anyone who wants can do it for themselves. My desire to make a buck may get over-ridden by obummers desire to STEAL a buck.
Well – another nail in the automobile industry coffin.
These new demands smack of the old Soviet Union 5-year plans – and look how they worked out.
Anybody with a brain stem has already figured out that they’re going to have to keep their used cars longer – because they cannot afford to buy new (if they did, Chrysler and GM would still be inept but profitable and out of bankruptcy).
Now with a $1300 ‘green tax’ to raise fuel economy, even fewer will buy (BTW – since when do we accept the initial cost estimate on anything the government says. I’d triple that $1300 cost estimate). And the spiral goes downward – fewer cars produced to cover tooling costs = more cost per vehicle – more cost per vehicle means fewer buyers – and the companies wind up broke yet again.
Real hope(less) change.
PS – since my guess is that we’re going to rely heavily on hybrids to make the fuel economy go up – where’s the plan to build new cost efficient electric generating facilities?
By the way, I’ve tried to get help on this through my local congress critters, and they don’t seem to have any interest in it. Maybe it’s because I live in Ohio, where cars are made…hmmm. Makes a person wonder.
We can pick apart Obama policies till the cows come home, but I consider the chief targets to be public education and Lamebrain Media – enablers of liberals that sit on their butts in DC and dictate to us all how it’s gonna be (be it healthcare, environment, social issues, etc.).
Hey America – get your head on straight!
So now no one making under $250,000 buys cars?
That’s okay. No one will be able to afford food, heat, electricity or gas under Obama’s regime so why not make cars more expensive, too?
Hello, Third World America. But hey – at least we’ll all be equal in poverty.
I’m getting real tried of Obama meddling in the free markets. If he had just let the car companies reorganize under Chapter 11, everyone would be much better off. But he couldn’t stand for that, as the unions would have taken a “haircut”; now we are all going to pay for it. All he did was delay the unions’ concessions, and in the process, destroy two American car companies.
Well, I’m never going to buy a car from the Government Motors Corporation or the Obama-Fiat Motor Company. In fact, I’m not going to buy a new car, period. I will not be an enabler of this ‘Progressive” strong-arm government.
The other day, I received a call from a charity looking for donations. Since it wasn’t one I would have contributed to anyway, I had some fun. I told the caller that I no longer give any money to charities, period. She asked why?
I said that under our new “Progressivist” government, I would be needing to hoard all of my financial reserves for my family. I wished her luck and commented that charities don’t exist under Socialist governments; charities are a product of the benefits of free enterprise. She was silent. Who is John Galt?
I told my son-in-law the other day that thanks to voters like him who voted for a democrat congress and President…in five years or less, he won’t be able to afford a loaf of bread. He thinks I am exagerrating. I wish I was!
Isn’t it the “Car Czar” who is building a multi-million dollar mansion on top of Indian burial grounds on Martha’s Vinyard? I am particularly interested in that, as I have Indian ancestors buried somewhere out there!! Plus, the neighbors are fighting this. Guess who will win? Not the citizens of the Vinyard, you can be sure.
Has anyone considered the fact that Cap and Trade will raise the price of gas, too? So despite the possibility that reduced consumption could lead to lower prices, there will be an artificially created increase in the cost of fuel due to…… Government Regulations.
And since when have government projections ever been anywhere near accurate anyway?
Michelle “More Tale Of the TARP” from Cinie’s World. Who was in cahoots with who what did John McCain know?
Zero is brilliant. He is doing what he wants. He told us that’s what he wants to do. He doesn’t care if we think he’s stupid or socialist. He and his don’t care what we think.
He is successfully dismantling our Constitution while we jaw about trivial issues and allow our attention to be diverted by the ‘Crisis of the week’.
Obama HIMSELF considered this. He said energy prices would SKYROCKET under his policies.
So when none of us can afford, well, anything, what will he tax next?
These dolts will never learn…
it’s not the economy, it’s my economy! It all comes down to what I can afford, if I can afford it, and whether or not I feel like it’s something worth spending what little $$ I bring home on my paycheck.
And idiots wonder why no $$ are circulating…well duh. I’m not buying it when all this other tripe that is taken out of my income.
try these:
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj227/BlueStar91/Amazing/p50sale.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/02/06/article-1137269-034F45C0000005DC-467_468x301_popup.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2129/2071924945_5076e29cc1.jpg
What kind of standards will apply to the private jets and limos for the enviro-terrorists who are forcing this on us?
you greedy ameriKKKans are destroying the environment by drivng SUVs…so in order to save the WORLD…you have to drive little boxes like they do in europe…
be thankful we still allow you to drive at all comrade!!!
The whole point of his administration and those pulling the strings is to eliminate the free markets.
They will be exempt, don’t you know. They create the standards for us to follow. Submit, obey or else!
Except for the Party Leaders and approved Glitterati of course. Special Privilege for Special People and all that. Bill Ayres Camps will have central heating.
You greedy ameriKKKans well stocked? Don’t forget water.
But people who are stupid enough to vote for HopenChange are also stupid enough to trade in a paid off car for a new one that gets better gas mileage and comes with a hefty payment and then brag about the money they save on gas.
It’s the dumbing down of America that’s doing us in.
Meanwhile…
W
The Political Class is broken.
The problem is in the gears of the machine.
Rags, agreed; but also in the lack of folds on the brains of the voters…
Yes, as I recall, while the populace suffered, Lenin, Stalin, the Soviet leaders that followed and their circles of power lived quite well.
Leadership will always retain privileges not shared by the general population.
A pessimist knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Most Americans will understand the reason for high mileage standards. You can go telling yourselves that it’s a plot by the Stalinist Democrats in collaboration with Kim Jung Il, Hugo Chavez, and Charles de Gaulle (who’s no more dead than Elvis) to enslave Americans.
Hey, libs, feeling all hopey-changey yet?
Remember, there are always some animals more equal than others. They’re usually called P-I-Gs.
Has anyone calculated how much wealth and tax revenues will be lost and more importantly how many lives will be lost due to the smaller cars that will be produced as a result of these idiotic regulations?
Arrogant and stupid is a very bad combination and Obama and his minions prove it every single day.
So… when are they going to come up with gas mileage and tailpipe emissions standards for trucks? The smaller the cars on the road, the less of a bump the truckers will feel when they run over them. They don’t pay much attention to cars anymore as it is.
Exhibit A.
I think you’re right. Most Americans will understand that it’s more about leftist ideology and the urge for power than anything to do with the environment, fuel efficiency or safety.
zyzzyg:
You have some things right, you can reduce cylinders, been done. Computerized cylinder shut down, been done and we know how much that costs, it also introduces more unreliabilty in the ignition system and computer system and yes, that will get better. Hemi’s have been done and do not improve efficiency that much plus they are much more time consuming to machine which means more money and more energy to produce making them not very green.
When new standards are introduced here is what happens in the auto industry, first, reduce horsepower, next, reduce weight. Lastly, spend the next 10 years trying to get back the horsepower you lost, repeat. The new mandates are for 2016, the auto’s can only meet them by removing weight because cars set to be in production for 2016 are well into there developement phase, to redevelope now means they won’t be ready. New cars don’t appear in one year, it takes a tremendous amount of pre planning. Todays cars were on the drawing board 10 years ago.
forest #22, I saw that too, and the first thing that left my mouth was “BULL$*T, if that were true, explain why so many of us buy huge SUV’s & trucks?”
[Can't help the 'language', I spent too many years married to a former Marine!
]
I wonder what interest rate they used in that calculation? 19% or 20% like what’s coming when our government debt instruments get downgraded to “junk”?
On considering it, I think the real agenda is clear: we’re supposed to ride bicycles like good peasants do.
The US Government had their chance back in 1974 when OPEC put an embargo on oil to develop a national energy policy. Both Dems and GOPs dropped the ball. Probably because of all the kick backs from big oil and detroit. The US Gov’t was blindsided and after 7 presidents later we have to put up with this dictator who is forcing it down our throats. I am not going to make this a priority when the gov’t had their chance 35 years ago.
There is no way in he@# I will allow my children and grandchildren to ride in one of those death traps on the highways! NO WAY! There is no protection in those tin cups. My daughter rides a motor scooter to work in the summer. She lives in a small town and can take back roads to work. The scooter only goes 35 mph and is not allowed on the highway. That is saving her a lot on gas. But in the winter, and when family needs to be transported, she drives a van. With kids and a dog…you need a big vehicle!!
Kinda funny, when you think of it. China is becoming more capitalist and is making and buying cars, and we’re on our way back to bicycles. I guess we’ll just import all of the bikes the Chinese aren’t riding anymore.
lgm; I couldn’t care less that you think I’m a ‘pessimist’, but I will never let someone else determine what has value for me.
I will make those choices myself and you can ride your bus to Gehenna for all I care.
You will have no choice but to buy a small car (if you can) when gas is taxed above $5 a gallon. He will econoically force us into whatever he wants.
i am bad – economically
The combination of new CAFE standards and already outrageously high insurance rates spell the end of the road for the American muscle car and V8 engine, and that’s a crying shame.
Boldly designed cars with V8 engines, both sedans and sports coupes, have been a part of the American culture and landscape since the beginning of the twentieth century; they’re empowering and quintessentially American. The rush of a V8 engine under one’s foot is both exhilarating and inspiring: they are the stuff dreams are made of for young and old motorists alike, creating aspirations for the former and reminiscences for the latter.
They create a sense of invincibility tempered with a greater sense of responsibility and safe driving, and afford confidence to those who need it most.
These cars speak to our freedom to travel whenever and wherever we want, safely and comfortably, and to the vastness of the American landscape. They are representative of the self-determination and individualism that helped transform this nation, linking us closer together, and that is uniquely American. One has to but look at the fins on a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado to know this is true.
The loss of the V8 engine is the loss of another piece of that part of our culture that separates us from Europe. It is the emasculation of the American driver and a loss of choice in what he or she drives. And that’s a shame.
That’s why I still drive my 6-litre, 8-cylinder Cadillac.