Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:05:44 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Gas, milage, etc (was Air Engine)
In-Reply-To: <0af601c8a57b$a4fa80e0$0401a8c0@cspfr2>
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Re Eurovan and fuel milage :
One plan in the back of my mind is do a diesel conversion on one for
someone.
We'll just get the Canadian diesel inline 5 and matching trans out of
Canada, and it might all just bolt together.
Regarding the price of oil.
One analysis ........read about this in the Wall Street Journal........
It's recognized that the price of oil is on a Bubble curve now......a very
very servere bubble - and in all speculative markets, like real estate ,
perfect example...........when prices keep going up and up .....the bubble
affect, eventually it collapses.
This one analyst was saying oil will be back down to 80 a barrel by late
summer ( it hit a mid-day high of $ 117 per barrel recently )
...........another guy said 50 a barrel, though that's hard to imagine.
They are expecting some affect of less consumption due to high prices that
we currently have, and more oil production from places not producing as much
as they could, and that'll bring down the price of a barrel of oil on the
world market.
Somehow though .........if the price of a barrel of oil goes back down, say
30 % ..........I doubt the pump price per gallon will also go down that
much.
Another bottom line - Americans that can afford to spend a few hundred a
month on gas - don't mind spending it, and are not very concerened about the
environment or the long term overall picture of the supply and costs of
energy. Live for today, worry about it tomorrow if things go south, so to
speak.
Be interesting to see what happens.
Scott
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
BJ Feddish
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 12:53 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Gas, milage, etc (was Air Engine)
>> When they rationed gas in the '70's, we were forced to do just that, by
those long lines at the pump and limits of availability. Who was controlling
that at that time? Auto manufacturer's were required to sell down-sized
economy cars. The land-yachts were parked everywhere and you couldn't give
them away! We need to return to this method of limitations, to help fix the
mess we seem to have gotten ourselves into. <<
Absolutely.
The problems is when gas hit the equivalent of $3 a gallon back in '82 it
stopped right about there for about 20 years. Yes, VW, Toyota, Datsun, etc.
were making high mileage cars in the 70's and when gas got expensive people
were abandoning their American cars in droves and buying these gas sippers.
America tried to catch up with the Pinto, Chevette, Gremlin, and even trying
to "Desielfy" a gas engine with the Oldsmobile's. All were embarrassments.
I had a '65 bug and used to laugh my way past the gas stations. The problem
was gas stayed the same price up until pretty recently. So what happened?
The US car companies went back to making gas guzzlers and the Japanese and
German cars just improved performance and let their MPG start to slip.
Nobody cared about gas again. Had we headed down the same path we were
headed in '82 we'd all be getting 60 MPG right now. So what's going to
happen next? If gas continues to rise then more and more people will have to
abandon their SUV's and car companies will have to start offering cars we
want. If they had used the technology over the last 25 years to improve
mileage instead of performance we'd be in a better place. If gas prices
fall or stay the same over the next 10 years guess where we'll be? Well have
more US build "Hybrids" that get 19 MPG.
Ration gas? I don't think so. I have a Eurovan that gets crap mileage
around town. Matter of fact my '83 Westy only does slightly better. Why does
my Eurovan get crappy mileage? Because it has a 6 cylinder (my first 6 cyl
car I've ever owned) 206 HP engine and an automatic transmission. I like
driving vans; it's not my fault that they did not sell the diesel Eurovan
here with the 5 speed manual. That's what I really want and I can't get it.
The same goes for other cars. I take no responsibly for this van getting
crappy mileage; I bought what was offered to me. Build me a 35 MPG van and
I will go buy it, I don't care how slow it is. Build me a 5 speed diesel
Routan MV and I'm there.
What's my prediction? The bottom is going to drop out of commodity
speculation (Tech Boom->Mortgage Backed Securities->Commodities->(the next
bubble)) and gas is going to level off at some point and can all forget
about gas prices and go by a Hummer.*
Thanks,
Bryan
*Sarcasm.
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