Banning the pickup truck

Las Vegas Review-Journal ^ | 21 may 09

[rellimpank]

The Tuesday headline was clear: "Obama's new rules will transform U.S. auto fleet."

The Associated Press picked it up from there: "Some soccer moms will have to give up hulking SUVs. Nearly everybody else will drive smaller cars, and more of them will run on electricity. The higher mileage and emissions standards set by the Obama administration on Tuesday, which begin to take effect in 2012 and are to be achieved by 2016, will transform the American car and truck fleet.

"The new rules would bring new cars and trucks sold in the United States to an average of 35.5 miles per gallon, about 10 mpg more than today's standards. Passenger cars will be required to get 39 mpg, light trucks 30 mpg. That means cars and trucks on American roads will have to become smaller, lighter and more efficient."

Eric Fedewa, vice president of global powertrain forecasting for an auto consulting firm, told The AP the changes will make pickup trucks so much more expensive that they'll be used almost exclusively for work.

Oh, heavens. We're growing faint.

The wise and powerful wizard Obama, having loaned taxpayer money to Detroit to "bail them out" -- thus avoiding simple bankruptcy, where the firms might have shed their overly costly union contracts and emerged to renewed profitability -- now simply decrees what kind of cars Detroit will make. He might as well just put Howard Waxman, Charlie Rangel and Barney Frank in the executive offices at the Big Three, in fedoras and double-breasted striped zoot suits like Ayn Rand's Wesley Mouch, Cuffy Meigs, and Emma Chalmers, and have done with it.

[RebelTXRose]

That man has GOT to GO!!!

I like Glen Beck on “The View”: He thinks they should ALL resign!

[mbynack]

Less than six months ago Obama stood in front of a crowd of laid-off RV manufacturing employees and promised them he would help them. You can’t safely tow a 14000 lb RV with a lightweight truck. Unless there’s provisions in the law to allow heavier vehicles to skirt the emission and mileage standards, he has doomed the RV industry along with the car manufacturers.

[libstripper]

Do not these plans have to go through Congress, or is Odumbo decreeing this through executive order?

Only sort of. A couple of years ago five SCOTUS justices decided CO2 was a "pollutant" the EPA could regulate under the Clean Air Act, thereby providing the Usurper with the legal basis for the action he's just taken. Congress, however, still could stop him, if it so chooses, by refusing to provide any money to implement the regulations, just as it's stopped him from closing Gitmo by refusing to provide funding.

[sport]

What he meant is that he would help them to the soup line. And if they would be good slaves, he would be a kind master.

[Unassuaged]

(truck pic)

Looks good for cuttting potato fields, i.e no duellies.

— that is what they used in Hermiston, OR anyway....

[ravingnutter]

Video: Small Car, Big Trailer

[ravingnutter]

Maybe he has a twin.

I can't figure out which twin is the most evil.

[cookcounty]

" "Some soccer moms will have to give up hulking SUVs"...

So now those families will have to drive TWO cars to the game.

How will that affect fuel efficiency?

How will that affect traffic congestion?

How will that affect safety? I'll bet they have not even THOUGHT of asking thise questions.

[pandoraou812]

lmao!

[q_an_a]

Once again the stupid and shallow media talks about the end of SUV and pickups as if there are no Hybrids for those products. GM and Toyota have some of their biggest suvs and pickup with Hybrid capablities. The GM plant in Arlington TX is making plenty of Escalades and chevy pickups and they are working long days to fill the need.

There is no difference between the tech future of hybrids than in the tech future of computers. We thought a dual floppy drive disk or a 512K of memory was pushing the envelope of business aplications 20 years ago, now cell phones have more than that.

We are a nation of YES we can and the only thing holding us back are the lawsuits from the envirowhackos and the foot dragging by the republicans in congress - that have not offered a new idea in 8 years. If republicans had any sense they would take a picture of a solar farm in the desaert and ask this question -"Why is it OK to cover miles of a desaert with these solar panels, but not to put a few pumping statiopns on the ground in Alaska or on federal land in a forest?" Then they would come back with this little talked about principle of solar power - "They need to be washed every month, where do you get the water in Death Valley?" Republicans can't seem to get out a good story and the energy industry is just as bad.

[taildragger]

The question is, will "O" be foiled by technology, or will he just glom the limelight for what are advances that are already in the works to feed his ego issues?

Ethanol Boosting Systems from a bunch of MIT guys may be a breakthrough IMHO. Downsized engines, tons of torque and better mileage. Ford is not just testing it, but so is engine house "Ricardo" with a host of partners.

An SAE paper has been presented on this and was talked about over on "Green Car Congress".

They posted the BMEP numbers and I converted them and backwards calculated the torque out of the said engine.

The numbers are shockingly good.

Do some research on the cutting edge technologies applied to Piston Engines during WWII for our fighters and Bombers, we may be revisting them by the wheel barrel full.

This ethanol boosting (E85) system is claiming to take Octane to 150 (from 90ish) while ADI (Anti Detonation Injection) only took that effective rating from 130/140 to 170 for our fighters. That "Delta T" is much greater for the Ethanol boost vs/ what was done during WWII That is significant.

And this isn't even visting the concept of "scaling up" a Series Hybrid drivetrain i.e. the Chevy Volt for Pick-up truck applications. (It has been done for airport shuttles running propane by a small Michigan based conversion company).

Do your research, the pickup may not be dead yet!!!

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Nearly everybody else will drive smaller cars, and more of them will run on electricity.

I'm wondering where this electricity will come from.

Can't burn coal, can't burn oil, can't burn natural gas, can't build nuke plants, etc.

Sounds like these new cars will run on fairy tales.

[Mister Da]

To all of you who fear Obama & Co. are gonna take away your big SUV or truck: Don't worry, Obama doesn't want your vehicle - you can keep it. He just doesn't want you to drive it.

Once Obama taxes & manipulates the price of gas to $5+ per gallon, we all will be rethinking our vehicle of “choice”.

Remember last summer when gas was $3+ per gallon. As I recall, the sales price of a big SUV or truck dropped dramatically as these vehicles piled up on dealer lots, while sales of hybrids & small cars increased.

I suspect that were it not for our poor economy, gas would be $5 per gallon now, per Obama. He is just waiting for the right opportunity.

I also believe GM & Chrysler will build tiny cars, SUVs, & trucks that everyone will laugh at. Until gas hits $5, then Obama & Co. will get the last laugh, as they ride in their limos past obese Americans crammed into tiny government built “Volkswagens” (people's car). Uncle Adolf would be proud, though stunned at who is repeating his history.

[calex59]

Nearly everybody else will drive smaller cars, and more of them will run on electricity Where will the electricity be produced, and how?

They never answer that question, or ask it even. They(the liberal enviros weenies) tell us we can't use coal, we can't use nukes, in fact they have a reason why we can't use any type of energy, but tell us to use electric cars.

They are insane and anyone who doubts it needs their head examined!

[cbkaty]

This ethanol boosting (E85) system is claiming to take Octane to 150

I'd rather eat my corn than burn it.... I recall the retail price of corn @ 12 ears for a Dollar..... Those days are gone. Now I am subsidizing corn production and Ethanol production and paying 50 cents an ear for corn....

[calex59]

Alright let's look at this through the eyes of history. Alcohol(ethanol to all young people)has been used in engines for years. In the 1930s they started using it in racing engines, engines that were tuned to run alcohol and the mixture set up to get the maximum energy from it. Alcohol made an engine run hotter and faster, unlike the ethanol mix we use today. The engines were set up for it and it produced great power. The downside was that alcohol caused engines to burn out fast.

Let's take speedway motorcycles for example(a certain type of motorcycle racing)that use 500 CC engines, no oil tank, no brakes and only one gear. They started using alcohol in those engines back in the 1930s, burned the engines up after a few races, but that was ok, racing was expensive and that was one of the cost. They still use basically the same bike today in speedway, still burn up engines to get the power boost.

Drag racing, everyone knows about drag racing, and other types of car racing also use alcohol to boost power and efficiency but with the same cost. Engines do not last as long when the engine is tuned to run alcohol at it's most powerful and efficient mode.

There is a reason ethanol gets less mileage in cars today, because your car is not tuned to run it, therefore it runs less efficient and less power.

This boost thing they are working on is not new and it will do the same thing alcohol has always done in engines, burn them up fast! It will also not make wheat and corn and other foods grow any faster or in greater abundance so we can make alcohol for fuel and not use up our food supply doing it.

We have 100s, if not 1000s, of years of energy in the ground in the US, Saudi and other African countries have recently found new supplies. We don't need alcohol burning cars, we need to drill, we need the return of capitalism, we need to let free enterprise run.

Anyone who falls for the alcohol and electric car BS is a fool, plain and simple.

[EnigmaticAnomaly]

I agree with the sentiment that truck drivers are necessary to the survival of our nation, however, I am not sure I quite share it to the level you purport...;-)

BTW...WELCOME TO FreeRepublic!

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

I suspect they will impose an extremely high tax on private truck/SUV owners. You can still own them, but had better have very deep pockets.

You will pay a penalty for mileage as well, and the new and powerful IRS will be in charge. Get ready for GPS monitors for this very reason.

This way they can apply this to all vehicles, not just new. And of COURSE, the “POOR” (Students, minorities, Government workers, etc,) will be exempt.

Like all Totalitarian regimes, it's all about controlling the population and dictating behavior. If they dislike a certain behavior or issue, they regulate it, ban it, or tax it out of existence.

Guns will be next, after they marvel at how quickly they took control of our driving habits. They have only just begun.

[MrB]

Guns are a line in the sand, which, when crossed, causes them to lose control. And control is what they’re all about.

They will usurp as much control as they can without crossing the lines in the sand that cause people to revolt.

[taildragger]

Cal...

According to their websites, They are burning small amounts at peak load via Direct Injection to qwell Detonation/pre-ignition to run either higher compression ratios or higher boost, which you know equals evern greater efficency.

Very different than what has been done before.

When a consortium of Ricardo, Bosch and the likes of Ford are testing the concept and the wonks are from MIT to start with, I'd say lets have an look and an open mind.

So if using small amounts of it as a supplement yield BMEP numbers that are way higher than even a Formula One engine I'd say show me more...