I am not "crying about the price of gas" at least not yet. But as consumers we owe it to ourselves (and our posterity) to push auto makers to produce the most fuel efficient cars possible, and if they can make a car that consumes less gas that’s great, if it consumes less gas but still turns out the same power that's even better. But what if, instead of making a 255 or 200 hp engine, you took the new technology in a 200 hp engine and made a 170 hp engine, then you would have even better fuel economy.

Why do I care? Because remember I said I am not crying about the price of gas yet... consider:

http://www.ems.org/nws/2004/01/28/oil_supply_short

or

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0322-31.htm

or (for those of you who don't trust liberal progressives such as myself)

http://www.energybulletin.net/3168.html

The summary of these articles is as follows:

1. Demand for oil keeps growing as the economies of the World grow.

2. Available supply is huge BUT...

3. Supply is decreasing and more importantly supply is not growing as quickly as demand, in fact by 2007 it is expected that supply will start decreasing producing

4. Demand that is far greater than supply hence

5. phenomenal oil and petrochemical prices

You think $3/gallon ($1/L) is bad? Just you wait, a barrel of crude oil sells on the Chicago Merc for $55 (approx) today. Goodman Sachs (a very respected Wall Street investment firm) expects the price of oil to be $100 - $135 / barrel within 2 years! (Other more pessimistic Bay Street and Wall Street analysts are predicting $150/barel in that time frame.) Assuming a linear relationship between the price of oil and the price of gas, that would suggest roughly $9/gallon or $3/L by 2007.

Efficient use of my 2001 A4 I can squeeze as much as 8L / 100km, or in a 200 km driving week, I put $16 in the gas tank, by 2007 I will be paying $48 a week. If the trend holds, a tripling in price every two years, I am looking at almost $150 a week in 2009 when the extended warrantee gives out and I have to buy a new car. When I do get a new car I will have to consider the price of gas four years after the buy date, $1350/week or $67,500 / year. I don't care how pretty the car is, at that price I am keeping my roller blade bearings clean.

Realistically, do I expect the price of gas too shoot up so high? $9 / gallon in 2007 sounds pretty likely, however, $81 / gallon in 2013 seems pretty unlikely. The higher the price of gas the less people use it. We can already see the trend in the decline of SUV sales, for the first time in 20 years SUV sales are actually dropping. Eventually auto makers of all sorts will be hit by the same trend... oh well. Does this forum have plans to discuss the new Audi running shoe?

MJC

 

looks way better that way

 

i like the new horsepower they r putting out, but i dont like the design at all