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Originally Posted by PontiacBixler
It's not going to be CAFE that makes GM and others increase the MPG on their vehicles... It'll be the consumer in these higher gas price periods. Just like any situation in capitalism, the consumer will buy the most fuel efficient car from Car-Maker A while Car-Maker B sits there and decides that in order to get that consumer back they have to offer a car that doesn't meet the fuel efficiency of Car A but exceed it.
But unfortunately the auto industry doesn't work like every other tech company out there for some unknown reason.
Think about this, remember back in the day on THE PRICE IS RIGHT the price of a new car they were playing for usually began with an 8 or 9 in the four digit price tag? Then in the 90's they added the FIFTH digit and 1 became the first number!!!! Now it seems 2 is starting to replace 1.
Why is that? Sure people will say it is because of the cost of labor, materials and such but now think about this: Why is it that you can now buy a computer today that is half the size, 10x more powerful, does 1000 things more and is only about 40% the cost of what it was 15 years ago? My God people.... you can buy High Def LCD TVs that fill your whole wall up for the price of what an old 32" tube used to cost.
The auto industry has gotten lazy and fat and now they have been caught by a financial crisis that is hurting everyone from the poor all the way up to the rich.
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Cars today are not cheaper, but that is becuase they are forced to add so much expensive stuff to them. To make the emissions legal they have hundreds of pounds of sensors converters and other such goodies which aren't cheap. To make them safe in a crash, they have hundreds of pounds of beams and bars and traction control and ABS and EBD.
It's the same thing, I'm sure if you wanted to drive a brand new 1990 Cavalier, the cost to build it would be much less than a Cobalt today because it is a much less safe, and a much less complicated car.
And yes, your numbers for computers and TV's are pretty accurate, but that's for normal stuff. You can buy a cheap ass Hyundai or a Lexus. You can also buy that $500 LCD TV from a company you never head of from Wal Mart, or you can go to the Sony store and spend $5000 on the same size TV.
You think cars havn't gone down in price, but look at the price of new tech when it first comes out. For example, Mercedes was one of the first with doors that sensed the keys and push button starting (without a key in the car..ala the old Caddy's in the 50's) and it was on the top end S class. Now you can get that on $25,000 cars.
Now if we want to argue about economy not improving much over the last 20 years in cars, you also have to realize that those toys we demand in cars are not light. Neither is the safety equipment. You add 500 pounds of safety equipment, 300 pounds of electronics and 200 pounds of converters bolted to the exhaust to keep it clean, all that weight can't be towed around for free.
Would I like to be able to buy a 2000 pound car just to commute in? Without the ABS and TC and Nav and 500 pounds of roll bars? Sure, but the safety Nazis have decided that you can't sell me one because I'm not capable of making my own choices, and need government regulation to protect me.
Nobody is ripping anyone off. If the higher cost of cars was profit off the top and GM was just screwing those poor Price is Right folk, they would be turning a profit, not losing money every day.