Another Thursday Thud!
The pundits and energy insiders are saying that we'll have $5/gallon gasoline by this summer. Of course, that's an enviro-whacko wet dream, they all think that it will get people out of their cars and onto crime-ridden busses and trains, or onto Holy Bicycles. It won't of course, any more than $5/pack cigarettes caused many smokers to quit.
$5/gallon gas WOULD cost Obama the election, that's a lock. When that price for fuel arrives, just watch how fast he drains the Strategic Petroleum reserve and jawbones the speculators (or has Gauleiter Holder toss them in the clink). Of course, he hasn't touched the SPR for any of the other price rises yet, but you can bet he will when his election's on the line...
And no, it won't drive any peeps into Government Motors showrooms to buy the now-$46,500 Chevy Volt, even though the Gummint just upped the ante on the tax rebate for it $2,500 to $10K. Chevy then raised the price $5,000, to show how much of a Team Player THEY aren't.
The Volt sucks, will barely get you to the grocery store and back on it's battery before it becomes just another under-powered gas-electric hybrid. Don't believe me, check the Internet for the data. Sold as a 40-mile battery-electric, the car, with careful driving, will get 25 miles before the engine has to run the generator to recharge the battery and power the car.
If any other car manufacturer lied about the car's mileage to the tune of 40%, you bet Holder's gestapo would put the boots to their front door and march off with their records, and frog-march an executive to the pokey. Not Gummint Motors though, the fix is in.
I considered buying a Volt once, when it was still in prototype testing, and there was a rumor going around that there would be an option available to power your house with the car in emergencies. If GM had had any smarts, they would have sold that option, and in selling the preppers the car, it would have smoothed over it's idiotic price point AND it's under-performance.
What makes you think the gubmint would let them sell that feature? The powers that be don't want people to have that capability, they want us all to be green, and rely on candles or some other idiotic bullshit.
Posted by: Will | February 17, 2012 at 01:19
Meanwhile you still can't buy a damned diesel for love or money. And the only ones around, like the jetta and passat, are emissions nightmares.
Posted by: og | February 17, 2012 at 18:35
I have a car 100% manufactured and built in Germany...and I am a Patriot. I tried many American made SUV's, and they're a piece of shit. I like it. It's paid for, but high octane fuel is recommended. It will do 160 all day long, not that I do. It is a nice ride. I'm keeping it. No way I'll ever go to a battery powered car...they don't work, period. Look, when the mechanic makes you an offer, it's best to hang on to it and take that as a compliment.
Gas is going to go higher than 5.00, and the cost of electricity will increase as well, and how in the heck do you take a long trip? How do you charge it? What if you have an emergency, and the battery is dead?
Heck, a golf ball sized chunk of uranium will drive a nuclear submarine for 20+ years. I would think a raisin sized chunk would drive a car for a lifetime, or longer.
We're in deep shit on so many levels, it ain't funny.
I hope you're right that if gas hits five, Obama is done. I'm not so sure about that. It going higher than five.
Posted by: Yabu (EOTIS) | February 18, 2012 at 11:15
Og, all the current GDI cars are better than my old Gen One 1977 Peugeot 504D, which smoked it's way across the US landscape for almost 200K miles before it fried the aluminum head (on a cast iron block) and was too expensive to repair. Yet, the car had good features. No one builds seats like the Frogs, and I could drive that car the 1100 miles from Riverside, CA to Portland Oregon in 17 hours, and step out feeling not too bad, then climb back in and return 3 days later. The vibration of the diesel engine was perfect for keeping my toddler asleep for the trip. For every praise, though, I had two gripes. The electrical engineers who designed the car's electrical system should all have been shot. The paint was horrible, and I had to repaint the car twice. Parts supplies were supposedly handled by either Pontiac dealers or Benz places, but both companies treated Peugeot owners as if they were fools, charging exorbitant prices for simple parts, such as the $125 motor-shutdown system which failed once a year, but could be replaced with a $19 tractor system with manual pull-handle instead of the "ignition" switch. Brake rotors were the usual Euro $pendy, at $100/disk. On salty Midwest roads, the rear disks, used for parking brakes, corroded badly, but you had to set them, because if a diesel is bumped in gear, it will start. The car was fantastic in the snow, and I could drive it faster on the UP's snowy roads than locals could drive their AMC Eagle 4X4s. It had IRS, and a highly tuned suspension. If the bloody car had more than 68 HP, it would have been happy on bad roads at 125 mph. Maybe I'm alive because it WAS underpowered.
Posted by: Rivrdog | February 20, 2012 at 22:33
Yabu, AMC built an Electric Concord prototype back in the 70's. It had a true 40 mile range before recharge. When you wanted to take a trip, you hooked up a small trailer which held some luggage and had a generator set in it, and the generator powered the vehicle indefinitely. The trailer cost half as much as the car as an option though. The vehicle was never produced. I had a Concord DL 6-cyl inline stick shift I used undercover and in plain-clothes assignments, and I liked the car.
Posted by: Rivrdog | February 20, 2012 at 22:43
If the fuel cut-off solenoid worked, it would not be able to start. That was what you used to shut off the engine, by starving the injectors of fuel. In fact, being able to turn off the engine with the key was the test.
Hmm, wonder if my dad's turbo-diesel engine is still sitting in his friends shop? Of course, finding a pickup body still in good enough condition to be worth the trouble of swapping it is going to be a problem.
ED. NOTE:
The fuel cut-off solenoids/motor drives (a solenoid started a drive motor or actuator, which pulled on a short cable to pull the fuel control back past idle to cut-off, and that action was activated by the "off" selection of the "ignition" switch) were badly designed, and they failed in the "on" position. When they failed, the only way the engine could be stopped would have been to raise the hood and manually operate the throttle to cut-off, or by letting out the clutch against the brake and stalling the engine out. I replaced three of them, but the last time, I had the Benz dealer put in a simple ag-type cutoff control and cable from a Wards catalog, and we used that for the last 6 years we owned the car.
Posted by: Will | February 22, 2012 at 02:11
That seems like a rather complicated system just to cut off fuel. The '83 Mazda pickup I bought new had a direct acting solenoid, that, IIRC, had a plunger that blocked a passage. It failed while under warrantee. With the key off, it would idle, but not develop enough power to move the truck. Once in about 10 years.
Truck went to El Salvador, I think. (somewhere in Central America, anyway).
Posted by: Will | February 23, 2012 at 19:15