I can fix anything on it and it's EMP proof to boot.
The upside is you have to buy new, and usually you'll buy something made by union thugs.
CAFE is BS, but I’m pretty sure Ford dropped the Ranger due to poor sales.
It is smaller than the F150, is less powerful, has less towing capacity, gets worse fuel mileage, and yet costs MORE than a comparably equipped F150.
People were avoiding it in droves.
So now if a guy needs a truck for moving an occasional load, he will have to have a larger truck with lower mileage. This will sure help lower fuel usage. /s
Wait until this info seeps down to Bubbaland.
Say goodbye to blue collar guys Democrats.
Everyone who wants a truck & would have been content with the more economical Ranger is now going to get an F-150.
Morons vote Democrat.
I have a '99 Ranger. It still runs.
I agree, but there are many others who voted for this crap as well. Gubermint bureaucrats and their green butt-buddies putting grubs and snails ahead of humans.
If someone does manage to make a truck capable of 35 MPG, the next gubermint smackdown will be about the safety. After all, the body will have to be cardboard, and the frame plastic.
Put a diesel engine in that Ford Ranger and it’ll probably reach that standard.
With CAFE, the real tragedy is that as the manufacturer turns out more efficient models, we tend over time to move further from city centers, make decisions to take jobs further from work, thereby driving more miles.
We have a history to observe, the first round of CAFE caused just this phenomenon, such that we drive our vehicles some 35% more today than in 1977. This erases the benefit of producing more efficient vehicles. The cost per mile actually goes down, in aggregate.
In which alternative universe can you increase the conservation of a commodity by making it cheaper to use?
I suppose electric cars will stunt this effect somewhat, but the demand has to be subsidized, because we don’t seem to want electric cars.
CAFE feels good, but it doesn’t even work toward its primary goal of conserving liquid fuel.
I had forgotten about these idiotic CAFE standards, but this is stunning. 90% of the productivity in this country relies on trucks. WTF are these people up to? The standards they have set are impossible to meet if you want to do some real work (heavy hauling, towing) with your vehicle. Think about all the long-haul truckers. Bad enough that fuel prices are through the roof. Now, you have to mortgage your house, if you still have one, to buy a truck.
The people on the top floor of the Ford building are not idiots. They've crunched the numbers. They see the future. There is none for the Ranger -- and soon, bigger trucks, too. Bet your bippie GM and Chrysler are hip, too.
I predict it's all over for trucks as mass-market vehicles.
We just don't realize it yet.
The assault on core America continues. It is being dismantled piece by piece...
MikeMike
Leftists hate larger anything. Their size envy started in early childhood when someone else got a larger piece of birthday cake. No fair!
I can fix anything on it and it's EMP proof to boot.
There is a good current alternative, that gives better mileage and still has the power needed for trucks.
Diesel.
Though currently prohibited in California, New York, Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont, diesel cars and small trucks are common in Europe. And because of improvements in engine tech, they are a lot cleaner than they used to be.
While gasoline is still better for acceleration, this is much less an issue with heavy trucks, private and commercial, in which acceleration is a much lower priority.
Another important value is that the best alternative fuel technology out there is algae based biodiesel, which is the fuel the oil companies are investigating, quietly, because it beats the others hands down. And it only takes minor modification for a diesel engine to run both petroleum and biodiesel. Biodiesel provides about 96% of the energy of petroleum diesel.
So add it up. Either of two fuels, whichever is cheaper, better mileage, high power, in a safer, structurally sound vehicle instead of a plastic box. What’s not to like, unless you are a liberal?
Another idiot writing about something he knows nothing about, a four cylinder turbo charged diesel would get better than 45 miles to the gallon.
Not trying to stick up for Obummer, but I thought the new CAFE rules were going to be adjusted for each vehicle by the size of its footprint? Could be why they’re phasing out the smaller trucks, and not the larger ones. I’m going to do a little research on this.
I believe pick up trucks, and SUV’s for that matter are so popular because one doesn’t have to be a contortionist to get in and out of them.
These small cars the Left, the impaired class of Environmentalist freaks insist we build to save their Mother Earth from those Gudawful SUV’s are claustrophobic coffins IMO, but then I’m over six feet tall with size 15 shoes, and hit the clutch, and the brake at the same time when I drive those little things.
If you see me driving for errands anymore, you see me in my 1989 F-150 chuggin’ along at 55 quite content because I have room to breath.
Please freepmail me if you wish to be added or dropped from the mitten ping.
The Ranger PU was also a “personal vehicle” for Americans who only occasionally, or not at all, needed a truck!
It symbolized the individuality, freedom, ruggedness, etc. that real freedom-loving Americans are!
The American car, especially PUs and SUVs, symbolized this more than anything else.
“They” want to destroy this image of the free, individual real American—make no mistake about that!
Did I mention Free Individual Real Americans (not AINOs)?
Semper Free Individual Real Americans!
*****
When the new truck CAFE standards were passed, I predicted automakers would limit truck sales to high end SUV’s and very large work trucks.
They can only sell ‘luxury’ trucks, where there is a market willing to buy at a higher markup. This is because every truck sale will probably have to be offset by a near zero profit econobox sale, to make CAFE.
It accomplishes two things, as far as liberals are concerned. Our cars get smaller, and truck ownership is no longer in the reach of the ‘little people’. Its all very European.