1. the epa changed the rating system at some point(sorry dont know the yr) but that is why the older cars 'seem' to have 'better' epa mpg.
2. Eco-mods not up to consumer standards. You really dont get this at all. Auto maker have to enginner to the dummest consumer. An Ecommodder engineers to himself. not sure why I'm having to explain this. Why dont they make those ultra-lite mpg cars in mass production???? Because a dumb consumer would destory them and ask for a refund.
You said:
"As for some of our "tweaks" not surviving normal consumer use or a day of normal consumer driving...I would venture a guess that a lot of us drive our "eco-tweaked" vehicles as our daily drivers and not just as a special use vehicle. Boat-tails, yeah might not survive, but an aero cap on a pickup would. Grill blocks...bet a lot of us have them and have had them survive for a long time"
You miss the point...completely. Give your eco-modded car to you neighbor for a week and then call me back.
Ecomodders who post here are at the far edge of the bell curve of people who are mpg minded. Not to mention the general public. We are accutely aware of what we are trying to do.
3.Again, the ONLY reason the big 3 auto makers dont make small inexpensive cars is beacuse of the costs associated with each and every car made.
4. Here is a factual response to the fact that the bailout was about unions', specificly UAW, and NOT about 'creating fuel effecient cars
The AUTO BAILOUT was a ‘jimmied’ bankruptcy that only benefited the UAW It had NOTHING to do with ‘creating fuel efficient cars’.
Had the bankruptcy been handled correctly, then potentially, with lower costs the auto makers might have been able to introduce lower priced entry level vehicles
Here is a link to an article that I have quoted
Auto Bailout or UAW Bailout? Taxpayer Losses Came from Subsidizing Union Compensation
Key Points of article sited
1. Bankruptcy law calls for similarly situated creditors to receive equal treatment. In the government bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union received much more favorable treatment than other creditors and other unions.
2. Unlike other unsecured creditors, the UAW recovered most of the money owed to its benefit funds. GM’s UAW members—among the most highly paid workers in America—did not take pay cuts as they normally would in bankruptcy.
3. Taxpayers would not have lost money on the auto bailout had the UAW not received this special treatment. The bailout would have cost $26.5 billion less if the Administration had not subsidized UAW compensation.
4. The UAW subsidies cost more than the entire foreign aid budget in 2011. The Administration did not need to lose money to keep GM and Chrysler operating.
5. The auto bailout was actually a UAW bailout.
Auto Bailout or UAW Bailout? Taxpayer Losses Came from Subsidizing Union Compensation
By James Sherk and Todd Zywicki
June 13, 2012
(Here are some excerpts, but please read the entire report . Not that long.)
• Legally, the UAW’s claims had the same status as those of other unsecured creditors, but the UAW recovered a much greater proportion of the debts that General Motors and Chrysler owed the union.
• Bankruptcy typically brings uncompetitive wages down to competitive levels. However, existing UAW members did not take pay cuts at General Motors.
• The Administration could have kept the automakers running without subsidizing the UAW’s above-market pay and benefits.
• Subsidizing UAW compensation cost $26.5 billion—more than the government spends each year on foreign aid.
• The cost of subsidizing UAW pay and benefits accounts for the entire net taxpayer losses—$23 billion—in the bailout.
UAW members at General Motors and Chrysler are among the most highly paid workers in America. High salaries are good, but they must be earned. The taxpayer losses came from the special treatment that President Obama bestowed on the UAW. The auto bailout was actually a UAW bailout.
The United Auto Workers had also created significant liabilities for the automakers. The union raised Detroit’s labor costs 50 percent to 80 percent above that of the transplant automakers, such as Toyota and Nissan. In 2006, General Motors paid its unionized workers $70.51 an hour in wages and benefits. Chrysler paid $75.86 an hour.[10] These costs put the Detroit automakers at a significant competitive disadvantage
While most companies (including General Motors) are able to fund their operations through the issuance of unsecured bonds, Chrysler’s bonds were secured, a testament to Chrysler’s chronic financial struggles and the risk of lending to the company.[17] In bankruptcy, the secured status of these bonds should have meant that the secured creditors would be paid in full before any money was allocated to subordinate creditors, such as the UAW’s VEBA plans. Instead, the plan imposed by
the government forced Chrysler’s secured creditors to accept only 29 cents on the dollar, while the UAW recovered most of the value of its claims.
These changes reduced the automakers’ costs, but they left most of the existing members’ compensation structure. As a result, GM’s post-bankruptcy compensation of $56 an hour averaged across regular Tier 1 and entry-level Tier 2 employees is still higher than all the transplants.[30] The Tier 1 workers’ labor will still cost $64 an hour at the end of the current contract.[31]
As the UAW explained it to its members, “For our active members these tentative changes mean no loss in your base hourly pay, no reduction in your healthcare, and no reduction in pensions.”[32]
Even President Obama’s “car czar” Steven Rattner has admitted that the UAW should have made larger concessions on wages and that doing so would have substantially reduced the cost of the bailouts. Rattner stated: “We asked all the stakeholders to make very significant sacrifices.
We should have asked the UAW to do a bit more. We did not ask any UAW member to take a cut in their pay.”[33]
The TARP Inspector General is now investigating whether the Administration pressured GM to give the UAW special treatment. However, former Administration officials—including “car czar” Ron Bloom, Rattner’s successor—have refused to cooperate with the investigation or answer questions. The Inspector General “believes the Auto Task Force played a role in the pension decision,” but lacks the legal authority to force it to testify.[39]
Had New GM treated Delphi’s UAW and non-union employees equally, the Treasury could have paid $1 billion less for the bailout. Instead, some workers became more equal than others.
UAW Favored Over Other Unions
The Obama Administration also favored the UAW over other unions during the bankruptcy proceedings. At Delphi some retirees belonged to the International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE) and to the United Steel workers (USW). GM did not supplement their pensions either—only the UAW’s members received the pension boost.[40]
GM employees who belonged to other unions received particularly harsh treatment. Approximately 2,500 employees at GM’s Moraine, Ohio, assembly plant belonged to the IUE. They were among GM’s most productive workers. When GM negotiated its 2007 contract with the UAW, it agreed to transfer work from Moraine to UAW facilities. The bankruptcy deal that the Administration oversaw barred these laid-off IUE members from transferring to any of the UAW facilities. While GM has rehired many laid-off UAW members, IUE employees have remained on the sidelines.[41]
Bailout Losses Entirely Due to UAW Subsidies
Adding all of this together—the disproportionate recovery of debts for the UAW trust funds, allowing the UAW to retain above-market pay, and subsidizing Delphi’s unionized pensions—we estimate that the Administration redistributed $26.5 billion more to the UAW than it would have received had it been treated as it usually would in bankruptcy proceedings.[42] Taxpayers lost between $20 billion and $23 billion on the auto programs.[43] Thus, the entire loss to the taxpayers from the auto bailout comes from the funds diverted to the UAW.
Had the government treated the UAW in the manner required by bankruptcy law, the taxpayers would have been able to recoup their entire investment in the company. The program would have amounted to subsidized loans instead of a direct bailout. The Administration could have kept the automakers running without losing a dime.
Conclusion
The Obama Administration defends the cost of the auto bailout on economic grounds. The President argues that providing the money was necessary to prevent an economic catastrophe. But even if government intervention for the limited purpose of providing post-bankruptcy financing was deemed necessary due to the illiquidity of credit markets at the time, there was still no rationale for diverting tens of billions of taxpayer dollars (including taxes paid by the employees of the UAW’s lower-paid competitors) to the UAW. The preferences given to the UAW account for the entire net cost of the bailout. The bailout would have cost $26.5 billion less had the UAW been treated like GM’s and Chrysler’s other creditors. Instead, the Administration violated basic principles of bankruptcy law and transferred that money to the UAW—at taxpayer expense.
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MORE.......
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The latest, but by no means the last supplicant at the public trough, is the auto industry, which wants a bailout to save jobs because its cars are not selling. There is a reason for that and it can be summed up in five words: The United Auto Workers Union.
Half of the $50 billion the auto industry wants is for health care for its current and retired employees. This is the result of increasing UAW demands, strikes and threats of strikes unless health care and pension benefits were regularly increased. While in the past UAW settled for some benefit decreases while bargaining with the Big Three U.S. automakers, according to the Wall Street Journal in September 2006, "on average, GM pays $81.18 an hour in wages and benefits to its U.S. hourly workers." Those increased costs, including the cost of health care, were passed along to consumers, adding $1,600 to the price of every vehicle GM produced. In February 2008, after General Motors offered buyouts to 74,000 employees, the Center for Automotive Research estimated the average wage, including benefits, for current GM workers had dropped to $78.21 an hour. New hires pulled down a paltry $26.65.
In his November 15 Newsweek column, Robert Samuelson wrote: "Second, labor costs need to be cut. By Lache's estimates, GM's hourly compensation -- wage plus fringe benefits -- totaled $71 in 2007 compared with Toyota's $47. Health benefits for retirees (many in their 50s, having retired after 30 years) are expensive. These costs contributed to GM's massive cash drain, $31 billion since 2005."
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How different are auto industry insurance plans from plans offered the typical U.S. worker?
Unionized autoworkers can choose plans for which
they pay nothing toward monthly premiums. Nationally, workers pay an average of 16% of the premium toward single coverage and 28% of the premium for family policies, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey of employers shows. That's an average of $558 a year for single employees and $2,661 for families.
While union workers at the Big Three automakers do pay for doctor-office visits, their annual expenses for doctor visits, drug costs and other services
is capped at $250 for single employees and $500 for families, according to a United Auto Workers Web site. Outside the industry, more than a third of workers have caps of $2,500 or more, the Kaiser survey says.
Autoworkers have no annual deductible. Nationally, the Kaiser survey shows the average annual deductible offered by large employers for similar insurance policies is $280 for singles and $861 for families.
Assembly plant workers can buy generic drugs for $5 per prescription and brand-name products for $10 each. Nationally, the average is $10 for generics, $21 for brand-name drugs that are on a preferred list set by employers and $33 for brand-name drugs not on a preferred list.
Retirees get the same medical benefits in the unionized industry. Nationally, only 36% of large firms offered retiree health benefits in 2004, down from 66% in 1988, the Kaiser survey shows. Outside the auto industry, retirees who do get insurance coverage pay an average of $187 a month toward it, says Brian Johnson, senior research analyst at Sanford Bernstein. Writing in a June 10 Bernstein Research Call report, he says GM alone could save $1.4 billion in cash annually if it began charging retirees $150 a month toward their health costs.
By Julie Appleby and Sharon Silke Carty
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The cost of providing health care adds from $1,100 to $1,500 to the cost of each of the 4.65 million vehicles GM sold last year(2004), according to various calculations. GM expects to spend at least $5.6 billion on health care this year, more than it spent on advertising last year (2004)
It is a well-known fact that the U.S. automobile industry spends more per car on health care than on steel," says Lee Iacocca, the retired chairman of Chrysler.
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Don’t believe me, Those are the facts.
Don’t tell me what unions use to do. That’s old history. Here’s what they do now.
The failed business model has the auto manufacturers paying costs created by unions that are beyond the pale.
Please go to the internet and find the exact amount of money spent on ‘golden parachutes etc’.
US auto manufacturers can't build low price cars because, no matter how many they sell, that can’t make money BECAUSE of the pension and health care expenses that far exceed the top 10% of all retiree.
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