No one could have forseen these gas prices.. ???? HUH??

This sounds as bad as Condi Rice saying Noone could have forseen people flying into buildings.

 

Shoot, when we had the gas lines in 1973 it was clear that someday the chickens would come home to roost.

Not only have they come home in flocks but they are laying eggs!

 

OK, you forced me...

When I was a teenager, aka 1960, there would be "gas wars" around town. They would last from a few days to a couple of weeks. We could get gas at $0.10 per gallon.

We would put 50 cents worth in the tank and cruse around all evening in a muscle car. We would drive from one end of town to the other and back looking for friends (and girls ).

Bob

 

The domestic carmakers were making a lot of money selling SUVs and now the party's over. They really were good at convincing many that urban assault vehicles were necessary in this scary world.
I bought mine in April and it was the perfect time! Now i look at the ads from the dealer I bought it from and there are no more Prius ads like "20 package 2 at this price, 33 package 6 at this price" etc.

 

when we decided to buy "baby blue", gas was flirting with 3.50. we crunched our savings numbers on that figure and included 3.00 in case prices dropped. that was in march and we have not had one minute of buyers remorse. it has been our habit to buy a new car when we got 6 or 7 years into the last one. so it was basically time for new wheels. so many talk about "the break even point" on purchasing a prius but i think the stats have to be much better for it than purchasing a new car with a gasoline engine. with a standard purchase, you drive off the sales lot and you have a used car that is worth 20-25 per cent less than an hour ago. i personally believe that if we wanted to sell the prius now, at 3 months old, we could get more than we paid for it. you cant say that about too many purchases.

 

MGI I am with you all the way. I too am looking into EVERY option to get something electric going. I would love to be free from this oil madness.

 

"No one could have seen these prices..."

Sounds like Baghdad Bob found a new job

 

ford already got small cars
only need to start selling them in the us

 

Incompetent CEO's and incompetent political leadership attempting to do spin control...
there are any number of individuals on this board who could provide superior corporate and national leadership on energy and transportation than what we, as a society and an economy are currently stuck with.
It may be as they say
"we get the leadership we deserve."
just my thoughts
Froley

 

Yeah... true story:

When we bought our first electric vehicle, gas was under $1.60 here in CA. My neighbors thought I was nuts. Then I even put solar panels up a year later, and my neighbors took another step back... and locked their doors. (now you know how I discovered the name for my EV site). Fast-forward to today, and PRESTO. Suddenly I'm the smartest guy on the block. Freaking brilliant (to most... to some, I'm just "lucky.")

Yup. Couldn't see the writing on the wall. In big, black capital letters.

Love to hear it!

Ah... but you DID buy a new car with a gasoline engine, of course.

Just as a reference point, I paid about $30,000 for my Rav4EV in 2002. Been driving it every day since. I could sell it today (literally without advertising) for $70,000.

Yay.

 

Now I cruise around in EV mode looking for girls, lol


And Darrelldd, you are brilliant. I remember lurking on your site over a year ago when I was first considering a prius.

 

Sometimes the press are so stupid.

The President of GM has known for YEARS that his company was in trouble..just a couple years ago he was blaming all their problems on their retirees, and how much it cost GM to pay for their health care, etc. Even though the problem was lagging sales because their cars are too big or just too damned ugly- lord forbid! It's all the retirees fault.

He deserves to be run over by one of his big trucks that won't sell now because gas prices are so high.

:cell:

 

Heh... I'm in the same boat. I installed a geo thermal closed loop heating/cooling system in 2005 when natural gas was still at 0.40$/therm and bought the Prius last November and all of a sudden my neighbors tell me, I was smart looking into the future.

Next thing on my agenda is photovoltaic to run my heating/cooling system from the sun.

 

I have a friend who lived in the US in 1995. He told me he used to fill up his Audi for the price of a cheeseburger. Gas was almost not even a factor in many peoples' budgets at the time. SIGH...the good ol days

One good thing though, higher fossil fuel prices will force electric cars to market sooner at lower prices. My PHEV might be just ten years away!

OR

The US can just go blow the shit out of some oil rich little nation again.....:faint:

 

Can you post a link to the article?

Maybe what the author really meant was that no one could have known that hides under rocks. It'd be amusing to hear their response to how many folks have known about peak oil for over 5, 10, 25 years or more.

 

Back in '73 my Vega got a whopping 21 mpg (2300 4 cyl, 4 speed stick). Most SUVs hadn't been invented yet. I had a bumper sticker that said "If you drove a car like mine, there might not be a gas shortage." My prius gets over 50 without breathing hard. I don't have the bumper sticker anymore or the Vega. Back than there really was a shortage, now its just profit gouging oil speculators. What was gas in '73, something like a buck? How times have changed.

 

Over the last few years I would drive by our GM lot 1-2 times per week. And every time I would marvel at the dozens (100s?) of trucks and suvs lined up on the lot. One day a couple years ago I went in to find an Impala to take for a test driver (family car 30mpg) They had like 2 on the lot. I just walked away in disgust. While GM is ultimately to blame it isn't all GMs fault. That is what you get when government gives tax incentives to manufacturers for building them (flexfuel incentives on large vehicles) and tax incentives to businesses for buying them (large vehicles can be depreciated in one year rather than a standard schedule). Isn't interesting that the prius incentives are gone but the big vehicle incentives are still there?

Don't get me wrong I am not a corporation basher but the short sightedness of the GM leadership combined with the typical big government BS has created a perfect storm. The cherry will be when the government bails the auto manufacturers out.

I don't care whether you are a bank (bad loans), auto maker (bad cars), individual (debt you can't afford) if you make bad decisions you deserve to go into bankruptcy. Cold I know, but bailouts just penalized the people that haven't made bad decisions.

G

 

Hi Everyone,
We all should be driving EV vehicles GM/Chevron /Texaco bought and shelved the Panasonic EV-95 battery the one used in the Toyota Rav 4 EV 27kw battery as compared the puny 1.3 kw battery in the Prius.

The corprate battery cabal "Cobasys" above sued Toyota/Panasonic to stop the production and to limit the capacity of any future battery designs using NMHI technology. To me this is one THE BIGGEST CRIMES of THE DECADE their patents expire in 2015.!!! TALK ABOUT CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Ps I know the Rav4 had a range capable of 110 Miles up to 80 MPH and the batteries put in the Rav4 EV in 2000 are still functions fine today see post darelldd above
Bob2780