Moog-Type-S

Lutz: CAFE standards will push prices up $6,000 per car
January14


Never saw this coming.
As if the cars were going to "magically" achieve high mpg with no cost increase.

silverf16

Lutz is a trash talker. I don't hear Honda or Toyota making remarks like the $6000 price hike. His propoganda talk is too late since the bill has already passed. Stop the complaint. Get with the program and find a cheaper way to implement it or get out of the business.

joerockt

Yea, but think of all the gas you'll save y0!

LuvMyTSX

Sure, there might be some additional cost for new technology and whatnot, but $4000-$10,000 per vehicle? Gimme a fucking break. What a whiner.

gavriil

If that's true Lutz then you should have been more careful with GM's union agreement. If it costs you so much more to meet this standard is because someone is getting paid to sit on their ass instead of working their ass off and pioneering. Stop the complaining and freaking find us some tech we can use so we dont sell our pants to OPEC and the rest of the rotten assholes around the globe!!! You've been a Marine for gosh sake!

Edward'TLS

Welcome back Gavriil. Bring us more auto news like before.

swift22

i call bs

biker

The cost of the car itself won't be that much different from today - it will still have an engine and 4 wheels. The only increased cost will be the engineering and a few costlier parts. The problem for GM and many others will be the new CAFE law will basically outlaw larger vehicles/SUVs on which they can make money. You can't get around the law of physics - there's only so much power available in a gallon of gas to move a certain amount of weight at a certain speed. Those limits point to smaller cars with less powerful engines.

Belzebutt

That's BS, he makes it sound like you'll have to pay $6000 for your next car. What will happen is that instead of constantly increasing hp, they'll increase fuel efficiency. Instead of paying $6000 more, you'll pay the same but get a slightly slower car. Big freakin' deal.

Texas

For you “youngers” on the forum, we have been thru this before. We will get some innovations and diesels may help BUT it will be smaller lighter cars (that we do not want) that will kill and injure more people than are being killed or injured now…i.e. do you want to hit that tree, bridge abutment or truck in a Pilot or a civic??

Congress rolled over to the greens while not letting the free market work this out and it will cost us in Dollars and lives (stats are out there)…The energy bill has no energy in it…..did they ever hear of drilling for oil…every decade our known oil reserves increase even with current usage….Rant over…buy your G8, Vette, SUV or truck now…free market please...

Steelers Wheels

Or a focus on weight reduction, which I would gladly embrace.. I'm getting sick of the fatties

charliemike

I'm absolutely stunned that this is your position. Way to perpetuate the Texas stereotype!

There is little to no correlation between size and safety. This has been dis-proven many times.

chill_dog

This is one subject that always gets me. New technology will not drive up the price that significantly. When you see a concept car at the auto show, they say the new technology cost $10k to make a 500hp vehicle get 35mpg. That's $10k for one unit. The cost is not $10k when the quantity is 10M units (ie. it's put in every car).

As for car size/weight, they have only been getting larger as time goes on (well, after the great reduction from the 70's). Most of it is tied to safety, which everyone wants and the government mandates. I don't see this trend ending.

mrdeeno

I think he's adding in not only the cost of technology, but also the cost of having to retrain stubborn line workers to install new components and whatnot. And considering how GM is behind the times in several aspects of efficient technology, it probably WILL cost them an average of $6k per car just to catch up with contemporary technologies.

Shit, it's probably costing Honda several hundred per car to engineer, manufacture, and install more gears in its trannies, which is why they are still sticking with 5-speeds.

gavriil

IF all vehicles will get smaller and lighter, then the discrepancy between vehicle size and weight, in theory, will remain the same. So what's the difference?

gavriil

Even if there is a 6K hike, then it should, in theory, only be temporary as this new tech gets more ubiquiteous.

biker

It would not be a problem for GM if everyone's car went up $6K - the problem for GM is that they already know that other car makers' impact will be much less than that.

Belzebutt

Right, because it's far safer to drive a Ford Explorer than it is to drive a Civic?
Do you have some stats to prove this? And as Gavrill said, if all the cars get smaller and lighter then we'll be ok, not to mention safety technology keeps improving. Ever seen a Smart car test crash?

The free market would work it out if it really was a free market. But it isn't, because it does not factor in the price of relying on foreign oil, the price of pollution, the price of sticking with oil until the end and then scrambling to find an alternative at the last minute, etc. All these costs are taken out of the car-buying decision and yet they are a direct result of the car-buying decision.

Texas

B...hit a tree in a civic at 60, hit a tree in an Bummer 5 0r 7 or pilot or tahoe and then give me a call....same with getting t-boned by a truck...oh and trucks are not going away as we will not all be smaller lighter as some one above said.......the studies or out there...ask you insurance rep....NHS etc...

Some missed my main point about free market and lettting market determine what we sell/buy... and the oil is available to us and it is the cheapest engery source for the world...folks we have china and castro drilling in the gulf for oil but we do not go there? Go figure...

I seem to see anti-GM and oil is bad in some of the comments...but the undertone of not giving a hoot about free markets and nanny state intervention ... shows a real lack of knowledge and what the results can be.....as I said we have been here before...I hope no one is so lost as to hope for gas price controls on top of high "cafe"....

So flame away about Texas this and that...but if you want a smooth sweet sounding V-8 better get it now....although I do have faith that we (gov/nation) will strike a reasonable accord on the energy/oil issue in the future?

http://www.caranddriver.com/carnews/...8s.html?al=104

Sorry, I am not to want or desire a V-8...let the gov decide what I drive (not to mention light bulbs) while doing nothing to solve the problem.... As for the Texas stereotype, I drive a TSX most of the time( to be upgraded to V 6 or 8 something), also have a V-6 Accord (nice), V-8 '83 Grand Prix (for the heck of it) and a Suburban for trailer towing, in and out of the pasture thru creeks, going down the beach, carry something large, bad weather, because I that is what I desire to drive...etc...free market and choice please...end of rant! away

The Dougler

iTrader: (1)

Lutz is a tool, maybe this will be enough to put GM out to pasture. When I see Ford making the same claims I think it might be more believable. Too this end, if GM had taken the time over the years to consistently develop new engine technology like every other manufacture, getting to these regulations would not be such a stretch, but now they have to do the R&D to cover the last 20 years of inaction and that's why it will cost 6000 per vehicle.

F23A4

Honestly, the skyrocketing price of gasoline/diesel precludes the need for any upgrades to CAFE standards. Be that as it may, mandated increased coorporate fuel efficiency standards is fine by me. As far as Lutz is concerned, he will need to be at these levels just to compete anyway. So, he might as well get with the program.

Although only a 3-5mpg improvement, my move from my 02 Maxima to my 07 AV6 was due secondarily to fuel economy (due primarily to handling). With an overall 17.5 mpg avg with our 05 Murano, its replacement has to be able to run in the low 20s (min) MPG-wise.

As far as the Safety-Vehicle Size correlation goes, here is a direct quote from The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety: "Larger, heavier vehicles generally afford better protection in crashes than smaller, lighter ones."

LINK

Brandon24pdx

LOL, those must be some pretty wet dreams you've been having latley. Wet indeed...

Brandon24pdx

Yutz is a rich, fat-cat status quo right winger. Of course he and his ilk aren't going to like this sort of stuff. GM will get moving along with the times with or without him.

Edward'TLS

I agree. The differences in front- and rear-impact collisions may not be as big between large/heavy and small/light vehicles. But side-impact collisions are very significant between these two extreme groups of vehicles.

It make sense because you get the crumple zones (engine compartment for the front and trunk compartment for the rear) for both large/heavy and small/light vehicles in case of front- and rear-end collisions. But in case of side-impact collisions, small/light vehicles offer little protection with their tin-foil-like sheet metal and thin-width doors, in contrast to the thick-metal-sheet, thick-width, heavy duty doors.

My wife once walked away unscratched, other than a stiff neck developed weeks afterwards, from a side-impact collision. A guy fell asleep at the wheel of his E320, ran a red light at an intersection, and drove at full speed straight into the driver door of my wife's car. My wife was lucky that day to have taken her dad's (also) E320. Her car spinned multiple times - as reported by the witnesses stopped at the intersection. The side and curtain airbags, and the thickass door all help saved my wife's life.

No one in my family buys anything smaller than a mid-side car. To hell about fuel economy. If I have to choose, safety is alway 1st. Nothing, I repeat nothing, is more valuable than our lifes.

gavriil

You have two good points which I totally agree with. Free markets should decide how big vehicles should be. However the flaw here is that when gas goes up for the guy that wants the Navigator and can still afford it, it goes up for heating and for the semis that carry our goods that go up because transportation cost went up. Oil is used by different industries for different, crucial part of our economies.

However free markets should stay free. The way out of this is technology. May that be finding more oil, or finding new ways to more our cars and hear our homes. And I am 100% sure the USA will, once again, find the solution, for everyone in the end.

The second point is that, gas went up a lot and the market still wants size in their vehicle. They want size and size means weight. Also more than half of the vehicles sold are trucks so yes the discrepancy may be bigger in the near future than before, as far as sizes of vehicles out there. I mean, heck, when you have an Escalade crash with a Smart ForTwo, it will be interesting. For both sides.

Again, technology and design regulations will find the way to have both the Smart guy (no pun) and the Escalade guy be as safe as possible for a few dollars more. Maybe a new airbag which will be external, maybe someone else, more crazy.

You're right we have been here before, although it was a different situation, the principle problem is the same. One thing is for sure, we will get out of it. Cars will not get slower, nor much smaller, because the market demands it. But technologies used will change a lot and current technologies will be refined by a ton. It's been happening for ever.

derrick

The point someone mentioned about what the 'free market' wants ... I see it like this:

Whomever can build the most "desirable" car (ie consumer's wants) with the current parameters set forth by the gov't, wins the prize (ie consumer's money).

It's very simple -- every automaker has to abide by these rules because the US is far too dependent on foreign oil. It's sad to think that cheap oil is a gawd (I don't want to use g*d) given right to Americans while the rest of the world has to pay $5+/gallon for gasoline. It's not like we all *have* to have big cars. Why can't engineers design more efficient cars?

And going what gavrill is saying ... through economy of scale (ie selling millions of cars), you don't think a company as big as GM can't figure out how to get 35mpg as a fleet average without 'jacking the price of each car by $6000? How about making smaller, lighter vehicles? Ford is using their 'Ecoboost' (aka turbocharging) engines to boost fuel economy. And Ford is broke! GM has way more money to borrow and throw around than Ford does.

I think Lutz is getting senile with his age. The auto industry has been lining the pockets of legislatures far too long (ie delaying energy conservation) and it's about time that the world's largest polluter (no, it's not China) start saving the planet a little bit and start to learn to save our natural resources.

fsttyms1

The problem i see (and where i think lutz is coming from) is for american car companies the bulk of their sales are still large trucks, which we all know are no where near the new regs. It will take ALOT of car sales with higher than average mpgs to achieve the #s needed. Getting to those #s i think is going to take alot.

I see it as a issue for all companies, GM is just openly complaining about it.

LuvMyTSX

Well, they could start by trimming the fat, so to speak. Get rid of some larger, slower selling vehicles like the Equinox for example, and come out with a new, smaller, more fuel efficient car like a Civic. It's not rocket science (well, maybe for GM it is, lol).

They could also start using any new technology that they've engineered for more fuel efficiency. They have to have something, so now's the time to start using it. Introduce diesels? More hybrids?

It doesn't seem all that difficult to me, honestly. A lot of it seems like a balancing act....you have to have more smaller, fuel efficient cars to balance out the bigger gas guzzling SUVs.

Black Tire

I think this up coming recession will force them to do so. And the gov't shouldn't help them because they'll never learn.

F23A4

And germane to this is the fact that many truck sales were a result of the housing/construction industry (read: housing boom/bubble) which is now in a clear downturn. Ultimately, this should result in a reduced demand for these less fuel efficient vehicles, helping domestic makes reach better CAFE figures (if not truck sales figures).

Texas

Well too some here it appears to be no problem letting the gov telll the industry what kind of cars to build and us what kind to buy...a total disregard for free market economy driving the auto business...the problem is not CAFE but lack of refineries and drilling of our available resources....also note that the gov wants to stimulate the economy AND raise fed tax on Gas???

We have tried this before, please read this part of an article below:

"But, you know, these CAFE standards, remember now in the 1970s we first instituted these things with Richard Nixon after the price of gasoline shot up from a quarter to over a dollar. We had these contrived shortages. Everybody said, "We need more mileage, more mileage. I can't handle it!" Whining and moaning about it.

So here came the CAFE standards, which is basically federal mandates on miles per gallon, and Detroit retooled, and started making a bunch of cars that nobody really wanted back then. But they got more gas mileage. We were importing 35% of our oil at the time. We've had, I don't know how many, increases. Clinton had a CAFE standard increase. The energy bill that was just talked about has one in it that is really Draconian, and there have probably been a couple of others. Now, the point of this, CAFE standards supposed to mean that we get more fuel economy, greater mileage; ergo, supposed to use less gasoline. It hasn't worked. We're now importing over 60% of our oil. We now import 13% of our gasoline. We import refined gasoline as well, now. We don't have enough refinery capacity to refine enough oil into gasoline to meet our own domestic needs. We're having to import that, too, despite all these miles per gallon increases. So it's not working, because, as the miles per gallon go up, people can drive more, because they get greater fuel economy. It's not working! What does it all mean? Well, aside from the fact that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, the fact of the matter is that we're not growing.

Well, that's not right. We are growing, and we got people who are trying to stunt it. It's not just that people are driving more, we have a robust economy. We have much more affluence today than we had in the seventies. People are more mobile, much more mobile. They're able to fly more than they could then, drive more than they could then, and, of course, this is putting all kinds of pressure on energy. Despite all these massive government efforts to increase gas mileage and so forth, we're now importing almost twice as much oil as we did when the first CAFE standards were put into place. Now, the bottom line to all this is, we are a growth oriented country and society. Conservation is wonderful. It's a fabulous thing. I like saving as much on things as I like, but it's not going to help me grow. It simply is not going to do that. So we've got to find a way to find our own energy, and it's there, but we have people standing in the way. Who's standing in the way? Government. This is why I think the federal government is partially responsible for what's happened in Michigan, the one-state recession, with all of these do-gooder regulations on mileage and so forth.

It's like I said yesterday: If you let people do it whose business it is to make, design, manufacture, and sell cars that people want, that's what will happen. But if you have a bunch of people involved who have no idea how to design a car, make a car that somebody wants and instead the government is going to tell these industries how they have to operate, you're going to get what you get, and you're going to have what we have. It's just plain as day to me that what we need is more of our own resources, and we need to continue focused on growth. "

you can go hear to read the full article but I fear you will discredit it due to the source...also I give up to the nanny staters that see nothing wrong with Feds tellind GM, Ford, Honda what kind of cars to build and us what kind of cars to buy....Oh and gas was a 1.38 gal in 1981....free market please....flame suit on!

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/dai...109.guest.html

LuvMyTSX

I understand that it's just one more thing that the government is trying to control, but in this case, I just can't understand what is so bad about making vehicles more efficient so we can help the environment in some way.

Brandon24pdx

ROFL...

charliemike

Who let this jackass in here?