Quote:
Originally Posted by Greenblazer
I will wait and see, but I do not buy the conspiracy debunking comment that claims that automakers do not make money from oil. Automakers are owned by stockholders, and so are the oil companies, and since it is true that the majority of the money in the world is controlled by a small percentage of the population, then I don't see it being hard to believe that the people who make money in the automotive world don't make money from oil too. If the automakers wanted to spend enough money they probably could make cars that get much higher FE, but it would loose the shareholders too much money in their oil business.
I would use the Prius as an example. In the real world 45MPG is what Prius owners who are not hypermilers are averaging. In the movie Who Killed The Electric Car they talked about a Prius that was modified to get 125MPG. This was done by relying on plug in power if I am not mistaken. Why wouldn't Toyota put these cars out like this for people who wanted to plug in their Prius'? The only thing I can see to answer this question is that automakers do not want to make ultra efficient cars because they make money from oil too, and making a car that is too efficient hurts oil profits.
The government is not interested in loosing the tax revenue that comes from the gas pump. Anybody know how much of that $4 gallon goes to taxes? If the government wanted to stimulate the economy, and reduce gas prices, they could reduce a big chunk of the cost of gas by eliminating the taxes. That is not likely to happen. It's all about money power and control, and I personally believe that people who are making the money have the power, and the control, and they are not interested in giving up the money power or control.
Call me a conspiracy kook if you want to, but if you follow the money then you might find clues that make you scratch your head and say "WTF?"
Later,
Allan Greenblazer
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the plug in prius is on its way, R&D even for something as simple as this sounds takes a good deal of time.
and the federal gas tax is $0.18, hardly significiant. State taxes vary widely but I tihnk the worst state gets $0.30 a gallon