Excel PROVES why oil companies do not want more FE cars
 

Hey everyone,

I love working in excel and use it a lot in my research work. While working with excel to calculate the best cars this summer with respect to mpg and cost of gas I came up with an interesting fuel economy graph.

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z...fuelsurvey.jpg

This graph shows the annual cost of a person who drives 10,000 miles a year with respect to their average fuel economy.

now you can see that the fuel economy axis is very expanded, some may think that no car can get that. But those expanded numbers are produced from the fuel economy of the VOLT when driven over its initial 40 mile range.

You can infer a couple things from this graph, one is that I am paying way too much for gas every year. Two that a more efficient car is a great idea to reduce annual monies spent on fuel. But if you go beyond thinking about what this is doing to you think about what this means to oil companies.

Based on this graph the more fuel efficient any one place becomes they will loose sales/profits at a GEOMETRIC rate, which is more abrupt than an exponential rate.


The far end of the graph at 2500 mpg is achieved when you only drive 1 mile over your 40 mile electric range. the limit of the Volts efficiency goes to 55 miles per gallon if running on pure gas engine. But it also shows as the Volts mileage goes to zero (under 40 miles in our case) the fuel economy will go to infinity, and you will pay zero dollars for gas a year. But that also means that it becomes a mileage dependence factor but I wont talk about that.

So in conclusion if all you were looking at was this graph then it would be definitive mathematical proof that oil companies (or any company that has this sales relation) would hate to have something that drastically reduces its sales. This also shows a reason for why gas prices are seeming to go so high so lately, to compensate for more FE vehicles you have to jack up prices A LOT!

But thats enough typing.

did I even put this in the right place?

Right place I think. If you look at the uproar the American auto industry had over the plan to implement the more stringent fuel economy ratings a few years earlier, and do the math, you can see why they would have a fit. It'd result in tens of billions less in profits....

I can see why Oil companies may not like to see more efficient cars, but why the automakers? I would think that having more FE cars would make more people want to buy them.

I don't see how it relates, you might want to expand on that for me.

Domestic automakers have been cozy with oil companies ever since Standard Oil and GM conspired to get rid of the electric trolley. Recent examples include GM handing of it's controlling share in Ovonics to Texaco.

As for why they are cozy IMO, larger vehicles have for the last couple decades, until recently of course, had high profit margins both for oil and auto companies.

Oh yeah I forget that sometimes. But this has mainly been the case with American automakers, yes? And if so than could it be said that this is why almost all the other manufactures are leaving the American automakers behind?

Foreign automakers tend not to deviate significantly from what domestic automakers do in America because in the past they have been hit by tariffs for offering more fuel efficient offerings. For instance, it's better for VW to sell some diesels that get good mileage than try to sell smaller diesels that get great mileage and face tariffs, which can erode any success they had.

The "bottom line"....
 

As with mo$t arguments, the bottom line is economics. The dollar rules!

Well, up through the 90's and before 2007, SUVs provided the automakers a much larger profit margin due to the demand, the image, the luxury, and the sheer size. That's still true, but less so due to the price of gas.
Small cars, on the other hand, have to have a razor thin profit margin because the market for them is people who shop economy.
Up until gas hit $4/gal, SUVs were what the companies wanted to sell. The reason that they have any small cars at all is 1) to balance out the SUVs for CAFE and 2) to try to gain new driver brand loyalty.

...you KNOW, of course, that EXCEL is just another "tool" of the STATISTICAL (...lies, damn lies, and statistics...) Devil, don't you?

:eek::eek::eek: Is this true??!!??
I know the reason is to protect makers of less fuel efficient cars and to keep the mpg thing from running away with itself and turning into some kind of big green monster etc etc. :rolleyes:
But what is their reason for this rather childish law?

ollie