A call to Detroit:
Ring Ring
Hello?
Yes is this Detroit?
Yes it is.
We need your help.
We would love to help, how can we do so.
Our economy is struggling with the $3.00 a gallon gas prices. We are having a difficult time driving to work. Heck some of us are driving to work just to get enough money to put gas in our car to be able to drive back home. We need your help. We all know that you have the solution. If you don’t just look to the back yard mechanics, look to engineers at MIT, University or Michigan, Middle Tennessee State University, or University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Of course there are a lot more.
I don’t understand.
I know that is the problem. We all know that you are losing money. Ford lost Billions last year. Chrysler keeps being sold and resold. GM is getting better but they are still far behind the leaders in alternative fuel technology.
GM does have a fine fleet of Flex Fuel cars.
But does this really help our environmental and economical situation. Do you know that it takes more than a gallon of gas to produce one gallon of ethanol? Tad W. Patzek (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050329132436.htm) is quoted to say “In terms of renewable fuels, ethanol is the worst solution. It has the highest energy cost with the least benefit.” Maybe you should look here at Popular Mechanics to learn about the Ethanol Fallacy (http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4237539.html) for more reasons why it just is not working.
So what should we do? The government wants us to use Ethanol, and they give us big tax breaks for it.
Is it leading to more sales?
No.
You can produce cars and trucks with better gas millage that cost less and meet the same federal requirements that your cars do today. These better gas millage cars can be made to have the same horse power and the same sex appeal that they do today. It can be done, just do it.
Well maybe.
Not just maybe you can do it. We all know you can. So next year we all want to see a great number of cars with a lot better gas millage On top of that we want to hear about how you are developing clean burning diesel to run on biodiesel.
Err well ummm.
Yes I know; on a recent search on Yahoo I only found 36 cars that were ready to run on biodiesel straight out of the factory. Of those two were Jeep (Chrysler) and there were several models of the same Dodge truck but none of them had any information as far as gas millage or environmental rating.
So what is the benefit of biodiesel over ethanol?
Biodiesel has better gas millage, more power, it is easier and more environmentally friendly to produce, it has very low environmental emissions, and it is a far better solution than ethanol.
Ok but we would have to develop a new technology.
No you wouldn’t. Both Ford and Diesel originally planned on running biodiesel in their engines. It just happened that at the time fossil fuels were easier to get and use. It is not the case anymore.
Ok well we have a lot of work to do here we have to get going. We will take your suggestions into consideration.
Sure right.
Detroit we need your help.
Detroit: Do you want to grow again? The solution is right in front of you, just listen to the people. We want a very clean burning engine with good gas millage. We want a car that is robust, hearty, won’t break, will get us to where we want to go, and have a little style. Why won’t you give it to us?
Looking at the history of Ford you will see a long line of snubbing of customers. When the Model-T was beginning to lose its luster Chevy came out with a full bodied car. This was revolutionary, and Ford said we didn’t need it. Well guess what, we loved it. They were late to come around but they finally did.
Chrysler has always seemed to listen to the trends but has not always hit the mark. When we wanted retro they came out with the PT Cruiser. Looked great in auto shows but was not what we were looking for. We didn’t want a mini replica, we wanted retro.
Now we are dying (literally) to loosen our dependence on oil. We want to have the nice car, and we don’t want to have to pay for gas.
So why won’t they deliver? Who knows? Is it possible? Of course. If it wasn’t then every back yard mechanic wouldn’t be putting together cars that run on fry oil, batteries, and even water.
So why won’t they deliver? THE TECHNOLOGY IS THERE PEOPLE! Don’t let them fool you.
The first car company to come out with a full size car that actually has good gas millage (50 mpg or more) and has very little emissions will be the winner forever. They will not have to worry about positioning their business for the 22nd century. They will be in it.
Tags: Green, Uncategorized by Bryan
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After speaking to Tai Robinson of Intergalactic Hydrogen I was informed that the GM cars were not really optimized to run on ethanol. Although they have a sensor to run on ethanol they lose gas mileage and horsepower when running on ethanol. Currently the only car that is optimized to run on ethanol is a SAAB model only available overseas. I was very disappointed to find that out. Apparently since ethanol is such a high grade fuel, bordering on racing fuel, cars need to run a little rich, or in other words the engine needs to be adjusted so that they burn the fuel more efficiency.
Unfortunately they also found that using E85 would cost $1034 to $1632 above a gasoline engine to operate. Not good news for the ethanol people.
