In today's New York Times, the Saudi oil minister is reported to have committed to moderate oil prices of around $50/gallon. Hmmm.

Have they all of a sudden just become nice guys?

You know they have to have an ulterior motive, since they will stick it to the USA any time they get a chance.

Do you think the growing popularity and development of hybrid technology and other alternative energy sources is prompting them to try to slow it down by keeping oil cheap? Do you think if gas stays cheap over the next year or so it will hurt hybrid sales and TCH's resale value?

How far must the price of gasoline fall before it no longer makes any economic sense whatsoever to pay the extra price for the hybrid technology?

 

Prices are always changing.

And no matter how you cut the cake, there's always going to be less of it.

So I think that the value of fuel conserving vehicles will always remain high.

 

President Bush's SoU Address has the Saudi's peeing in their pants.

 

the price of a gallon of gas isnt the only reason to invest in alternatives.

true energy independence will bring many more benefits than lower gas prices. One of the best ones will be fewer dead soldiers. Hybrids are but a baby step towards this goal. They are still fossil fuel vehicles and they still consume gasoline and emit green house gases. However, they are still important because they show the manufacturers that people are awakening. The more hybrids that are sold the more money goes into alternative propulsion research.

eventually we will wake up and realize the key to energy independence is within our reach. We already posses the technology to achieve it. We only lack the political will to enact a program to invest in it. A crash investment like the Apollo program or the Manhattan project would be a good step. The first step would probably be to convince people that it is necessary if they wish to avoid a global catastrophe or reduce military deaths that result from protecting oil reserves.

There are a great many more reasons to invest in alternatives than just fuel savings. That being said, I would like to see gasoline costs internalized a bit more. This would help consumers see how much the oil they consume costs.

i would also like to see ethanol abandoned, this idea is just another in a long string of misdirections from GM and the oil industry. Ethanol is a fossil fuel extender. Every peer reviewed research paper I have heard about solidly concludes that the production of 1 gallon of ethanol consumes much more than one gallon of gasoline. When you factor in the transport, harvest, processing, and blending. I believe the most cited of these papers concluded it requires about 1.6 gallons of petroleum based fuel to manufacture 1 gallon of ethanol. The really bad part is that 1 gallon of ethanol doesn't contain anywhere near the same amount of energy as 1 gallon of gasoline.

GM and Ford cannot be trusted to pursue a beneficial direction to solve the oncoming energy crisis. Its the consumers and the foreign manufacturers that will force the industry in the correct direction.

I am not a big fan of hydrogen either, but check this out
http://world.honda.com/news/2005/c051114.html

there are working fleets of sustainable fueled vehicles, not from any of the heavily subsidized big 3, but from Toyota, BMW and mainly Honda. They are leading the way but not with the help of tax dollars, by using the market to drive the research and by looking more than 6 inches in front of their faces. The sooner GM and Ford hit bottom the sooner we can get to work on a real solution. We need to eliminate the political influence in this industry and start listening to scientists and engineers. Thats where the power should be. Not in the hands of corporate shareholders, bean counters and politicians. GM is the worst. If you want to learn of the atrocities they have committed to electric cars, starting in 1910 or the destruction of mass transit in the US, or the aiding of the ***** by making opal trucks during the war go get a book called Internal Combustion. It lays out the history of monopolization and manipulation of energy back to the beginning.

Sorry to be long winded, but i hate seeing this issues boiled down to just economics, However if you were to see the real economic costs and the low cost of alternatives you would realize oil is a drop in the bucket so to speak.

http://www.amazon.com/Internal-Combu.../dp/0312359071
http://www.tantor.com/BookDetail.asp...rnalCombustion

 

As someone else has already pointed out in here, we are just one medium disaster away from prices spiking up sharply....weather, refinery accident, terrorism, you name it.

 

Living on the gulf coast, I am just waiting for another Katrina to spike the prices. Also living on the gulf coast, I am happy to know if another Hurricane evacuation happens, I can get out with A/C and not worry about running out of fuel.

I can drive 600-700 miles in my TCH on a full tank of fuel, and I can drive 1800 miles on a full tank of fuel in my truck (I have a 100 gallon tank in the bed for a total of 130 gallons of fuel, that hurts to fill it up).

 

Certainly not. Do you think they care about the U.S. economy or consumer when it doesn't suit their goals to?

They want to get us back into our slow-boiling-frog routine of filling up at the pump and not thinking twice about it. On top of that, we are in the midst of a warmer than forecasted winter and the oil is not moving as fast as they thought it would. Full tanks in Saudi = better price for us. They may have most of the oil, but they can't bathe in it, drink it, or do anything useful with it other than sell it to people who can.