Experts doing forecasting on gas prices..............kinda like meteorologists doing the weather.

All it takes is to have something happen to one of the few refineries we have along the gulf coast, like a hurricane........ then it's a brand new ballgame.

Oh yes, simple math shows it will.

North America with less than 10% of the world's population but a much larger percentage of the world's gasoline powered cars, is gradually replacing a percentage of that percentage of vehicles with newer more efficient vehicles. Meanwhile in the 50% of the world's population (read China, India etc.) that had minimal ownership historically demand for vehicles is exploding, including for prestige boats brands such as Buick.

So therefore let's drastically simplify and say (50% x .95)compounded every year, + (10% x 1.25) compounded yearly again ...... wait, why is this not working out???

Meanwhile, the price of a gallon of gas in the US has gone up by about 14% in the past 8 weeks.

I think its interesting that Gas would climb $0.30 to $0.60 /gallon and then drop $0.15/gal and everybody would talk how cheap it is.....

When it gets to the local equivalent of £1.37GBP a litre, do shout.

Yes I expect the temperature to keep rising too....The only way to decrease your fuel costs, is to get more efficient equipment thereby using less....

kinda like the government mandate on efficiency toilets where you use about 1/3 less water per flush, but you have to flush 2-3 times to get the job done........... is that the kind of efficiency your talking about?

Enough with the 'potty talk'.....

NO, something like this.....

"BMW's overarching goal was to combine breath-taking speed and groundbreaking efficiency. In the BMW Vision, that boils down to 4.8-second 0-to-60 miles per hour acceleration and 63 mile to the gallon.

First, BMW engineers use the rear-axle to combine a turbo-charged small diesel engine and the mildest forms of hybrid technology. That kind of combo comes standard in BMW 1-series cars in Europe. The Vision's setup is a little more similar to the BMW 320d, also to debut in Frankfurt, which uses a 2.0-liter four-cylinder diesel to deliver 162 horsepower, while promising more than 57 miles to the gallon. The BMW Vision takes it a step further by downsizing the engine to a 1.5-liter three-cylinder diesel engine mated with the more robust hybrid system found in the pricey BMW ActiveHybrid7, expected in the US early next year.

Not satisfied with 162 horsepower, BMW adds a second motor to drive the front wheels exclusively by electricity. When both motors and the diesel engine are called into service, the overall system can put out 356 horsepower. The BMW Vision is lightweight and aerodynamic. "

But how does it do in the winter when its - 25 F and there is 2+ feet of snow on the road to go through?

Also how well do four 6' 4" 270+# guys fit in it?

Dam cool looking car for once though!

"Dam cool looking car for once though!"

The car is on the left.

Yea but the girl on the right rather resembles my wife!

(When she wants to.)

What's snow??? If yer that tall, get a truck....

"Dam cool looking car for once though! "

Looks like a Stormtrooper to me.

What car?, do you have a picture of it?...........

I'm very pessimistic when it comes to opinions that sound good when people are complaining about high costs, especially when they come from so called "experts" and politicians. The demand leveling off is probably due to people not driving as much (no job to drive to). If cars are more fuel efficient, it will allow people to drive more agressively, thereby negating the efficiency. Myself personally; I alter my driving depending on the cost of fuel. When fuel prices are low, I drive more agressively. When they are high, I drive more slowly and try to keep the rpm's low. I also drive less and plan my trips carefully when prices are high. Maybe others do the same, maybe not.

History seems to say other wise.

From, http://inflationdata.com

If we truly wanted to reduce the price of gasoline and improve mileage, we would simply remove the ethanol from it.

It would save the government a ton of money too.

Oh, most of our food would be cheaper also. Sounds like a winner..................which means it won't happen.

everybody wins....... ....... except the farmer who grows it....

They'll be fine. The industrial growers; Monsanto, Conagra, etc, currently get 74% of all subsidies anyway. It should stop. We're talking billions.

That's Monsanto........what a lot of people don't realize that the small farmer that pays their bills are the one hung out to dry by both corporates like Monsanto and subsidies....

Yep. My brother has a small organic farm in NM. The government works directly for the corporate farms, as well as subsidizing them with tax dollars.

We have a family farm, and like allot of land being on a watershed, we could get grants from the government for manure storage.

Well because we only milked 50-70 cows, farm about 500 acres, the manure storage costs range from $80,000.00 to $500,000.00 for a farm, our size. With the government taking handling about 80% of the cost sharing. Pretty good deal. Back in the 80's we applied grant they could give us only about $7,000.00 but it had to be their design with cost about $90,000.00.

The larger corporate farms were getting the full 80%, allot of it due to the press. On what a great job the government is doing, while these corporate farms don't even pay their bills on time.

Well the government pencil neck engineer designed it, we looked at it, and it had written FAIL all over it. We brought up our concerns, and the engineer got defensive and reminded us he's the one with the degree.

We told him we're doing it our way, well he was gracious enough to hand us a check for $250.00, all symbolic, but the real reason was so they could monitor us and hold us liable.

Turns out all the manure storage units he design failed within 7 years, prior to the contracts. With the average fail being just over three years.

The faculty we design, we just replaced it about 2 years ago. Almost thirty years worth of performance.

When we upgraded, again we worked with possible cost sharing with the government, and all that changed was a new batch of pencil neck, arrogant government officials.

Now their manure facility's are also failing, but with the larger farms, there are now lawsuits.

A large percentage of people that work for government, are incapable of landing a job in the private sector. It's why it takes so many of them to screw up simple tasks.

RAOFPMSL
Prices? ...drop?... whaaa ha ha ha ha ha..
Oh my acheing sides.
Del

In general the law of supply vs. demand most of the time influences commodity pricing.. If ever the price of fuel will go down and stabilize, (with all taxes and inflation factored-in), is not only mainly due to a more fuel efficient car designs of today but will be rather dependent more, influenced by the Baby Boomers generation driving habits, which is now starting to decline!

"influenced by the Baby Boomers generation driving habits..."

So, do those gold painted cars get better or worse fuel economy?

Just consider the magnitude of the retiring Baby boomer's driving population in comparison to the combined X & Y generations... up to the current diminishing birth rate I supposed .. :)

People will continue driving, well past the point that they should stop.

Would this be considered such an example?

One very good example of a (boomer) driver ('vette w/ NY Plate) now retired! A sad reality!

Txt driving?

No noticeable skid marks. Unless the truck got hit, then the driver pulled off the road with the Vettependage on the rear of the trailer. How about the people who have to clean up the aftermath. Yuck.

Update: A little net checking indicates the truck was parked at the time of impact.

The driver was a New York resident, 58 years old. The accident happened in 2005 in New Jersey when the driver's vehicle plowed into the rear of a parked truck on the shoulder of a highway.

This photo was falsely claimed to be due to texting (the phone was claimed to still be in his hand with his head in the back seat (I know, there is no back seat)), but SMS messaging did not exist to any extent back then and no such details of the crash were ever released officially.

Whew!!! My first thought was that it might be SolarEagle, while responding to a post.

Glad he's okay.

Sir, The "No noticeable skid marks."

Driver's reactions to apply the brakes or swerve to avoid a direct collision, can be considered way too slow, as compared to the speed of his 'vette... The driver's age may have been a major factor in this tragedy??

I rather suspect this individual was attempting to pass someone on the shoulder at a high rate of speed and hadn't noticed the parked semi perhaps because they had tunnel vision or another larger vehicle blocked the view of the semi.

Another possibility given the age of the decedant was that they drifted off to sleep after a nice lunch or even had a medical emergency. True, as others have said, given ABS brakes there would not be any (or much) of a skid mark.

We don't have to imagine it at all. It's scary.

Down here we not only have the Buick Gold retiree drivers, but a whole class of young ones emulating their grandparents' driving skills (or lack thereof).

I beg your pardon! I have not ever not had a car (or motorcycle) that got less than 30 mpg highway my entire life except once when I owned a Ford Granada for 2 weeks just to have a trade-in. Starting from 1962-2013

Cushman Eagle

Volvo 454

Corvair Monza

Triumph TR-4

MBG convertible

MGB-GT

Triumph GT-6

Triumph TR3-A

Pontiac Grand Prix (2)

Pontiac Vibe

Honda Hornet 919

(My work trucks are another story tho...)

I am also a Lucas Auto Electrical expert.

I would say only half of those could get 30mpg on the highway.

Nope, it's all in the tuning. The British cars had a little dial on the side of the distributor which would adjust the timing in 1/2 degree clicks if I remember correctly.

When I drove each of the British cars over the years from Tampa to Vincennes, Indiana to visit the folks every Christmas I would set them up so that, using high test gasoline, I could do 80 mph with very little gas pedal.

Drafting a semi or two helped but on the average 30 mpg was easily accomplished with maximum air in the tires and one passenger, 96+ octane and the windows and top up.

The Vibe even gets 27 mpg towing my 4' x 8' fully loaded 1500# gvw aluminum trailer carrying two motorcycles, camping gear, dogs and a full tank of 96 octane with the standard shift 1.8L V V T four cylinder!

The two Grand Prix had a real time mileage computer readout so they were easy. I had them while raising kids and both had the 3.8 V6.

Best trip from Tampa to Vincennes was in the TR-4 on $12. 67 worth of gas for the 900 miles in 14 hours.

Early on a frosty morn, lol. Black ice and frost under the leaves put me in the woods!

I like the way you kept the trailer and bike out of trouble.
Del

I could never make that same economy on a trip in a TR-4 (and I have owned many of them).

The top would be off the moment the temperature was above 40°F.

You just have to love the tonneau.

I mostly used my tonneau cover, just zipping open the cockpit portion. The TR-4 was my first convertible, had a roll bar for autocrossing and G-60 bias ply tires on it when I bought it from a Certified Mercury Marine Mechanic unfamiliar with early British 'bolt-together' car construction. It was his daughter's and he didn't understand the ritual of having to get up every Sunday, grab your coffee and metric 'spanners' and tighten every fastener on the entire car, lol. Finally I had to put new tires on it and bought my first set of radials and my wrenches saw a lot less activity after that.

It was a '64 model and got red lined in every gear when I had it and lasted two years until I broke the front end of the crankshaft off just in front of the timing chain gear. It still got me the last 4 miles home. Damned Quaker State oil I used was the culprit I'm sure.

I tore the top in half 6:30 AM one frosty morning in Tampa trying to put it up in 33 degree weather after competing in an autocross that weekend. Having to get to work at John's Pass Marina on Treasure Island, I donned a jacket and gloves and my helmet since it was the only hat I had with me. (Was visiting a girlfriend for a slumber party.) I was the ONLY person out on I-75 South that early and it seemed to be just as cold at 80 as it was at 55 so I just floored it figuring I could cut my driving time in half.

As I came up out of the underpass for I-4 in downtown Tampa at about 95 (small mild curve to the right so I had to scrub some speed) a Tampa City Patrolman coming on duty merged along beside me on the downtown entrance ramp. The lights came on immediately so I complied, sitting quietly in the car waiting for a good chewing out but he only came up, looked at me with my helmet on, asked if I knew how fast I was going, "No sir" was the response of course. His said 'Me neither, couldn't get a clock on you." "Slow it down, OK" and got back in his car out of the freezing wind, lol.

I'm not sure if they do it or not but it seems that if factory tuners that write the mapping for modern cars would simply make them auto advance the timing and lean out the air/fuel ratio when a car is in cruise control they could get a few extra MPG highway miles out of them and save a bunch of barrels of oil a day world wide.

I had many of them. The first was a 1966, white, IRS, and it was a really clean car.

I maxed mine out on a highway in Pennsylvania. I had to estimate the speed at about 135 mph, because both the tach and the speedometer needles were pointing straight down.

My friend had to one-up me and bought a 1966 Jaguar XKE, which he ran a high speed run late one night at about 160 mph.

The fun ended when he passed a State Trooper (going the same way) and though, "Oh, well, might as well just keep going..."

Much further down the road at a stop light he saw the trooper's car lit up like Christmas in his rear view mirror, so he pulled over and waited for the wrath.

The trooper hauled him out of the car and said, "I just got shake your hand. Anyone that stupid to pass a cop at that speed - I just got shake your hand."

The trooper just kept circling the car shaking his head, asked to open the bonnet, shaking his head at the in-line six in disbelief that such a small car could do what it did.

Then, gave my friend a verbal warning and left. Turns out the trooper was an American Iron gear head and was really smitten with the Jag.

It was a '64 model and got red lined in every gear when I had it and lasted two years until I broke the front end of the crankshaft off just in front of the timing chain gear. It still got me the last 4 miles home. Damned Quaker State oil I used was the culprit I'm sure.

you red lined it in every gear <always>, and have the audacity chutzpah to blame the oil!

I could get 30+ mpg with my 1959 VW Karmann Ghia, 1952 MG-TD and my 1983 Mitsubishi turbo diesel.

In stock form, on their own at normal highway speeds, I'll stick by what I said. The Gran Prix is rated 28mpg on the highway, so officially it is not a 30mpg car and you can't claim it as one. Neither are a lot of the other cars on your list. Whether you actually achieved what you said, only you know. However, you shouldn't call them "30mpg cars" without also saying you heavily modified them.

I don't think he ever said they were RATED for 30 mpg, he simply said he got 30 mpg. How did you get heavily modified out of any of his posting? I regularly get 31-34 mpg with a 2005 VW Jetta with the base 2.SLO engine driving 65 mph plus but the EPA says 24/29 for this car and my car is bone stock and I don't drive like granny. I certainly consider my Jetta to be a 30 mpg plus car regardless of what the EPA reports.

True. And altering the timing by turning the distributor is not a heavy modification.

You are looking at the EPA estimates based on 87 octane gas.

I've found over the million miles I've driven that you get a half mile to the gallon better highway mileage each time you increase the octane by 1.

I've got a bicycle that goes 80 miles per hour. In my next post I'll mention that's when it's tied to the roof of my car...

And I run 87 in my Jetta too and still get much better mileage than the EPA. It is true, my Jetta will get better mileage with higher octane fuel (advances ignition advance) but the cost per mile still rises with the higher octane fuel. I ran one tank of 93 on a long highway trip (one frequently taken) and confirmed the increased mileage but my cost per mile was higher so I go with the lower performance 87.

Cheers !!

What a pipe dreamer! Do have any idea what's happening in China?

Boy! What a bunch of "jump" to conclusion folks. It's pretty apparent that the truck backed up over the Vett, the truck driver probably hated the old boomer because he was driving the Vett with a hot chick as a passenger. Don't be a hater.

'.... Gas Prices Expected to Drop....'

Snicker snicker snicker.

.

Ah, not bloody likely (for any extended period).

.

Here are two big reasons why:

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.

The sale of new cars in the U.S. goes down because a combination of factors contribute to it. Gas prices is one; greater unemployment; more efficient cars. Have I missed any?

The effect of 'Gas prices' on new vehicle sales is not really that straight forward. \

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Higher gas prices could increase demand for new vehicles if those vehicles are deemed to be significantly more efficient.

.

But higher gas prices might also dissuade new vehicle purchases for a numbber of reasons: potential buyers who commute long distances will not have as much money to buy a new car if gas prices are significantly higher; driving may become too expensive for current or perspective drivers, shifting those people to other forms of transport; higher gas prices might also diminish 'upgrading' since many lower line vehicles get higher MPG than the upgraded luxury models.

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I'm not sure 'more efficient cars' if really a stand alone criteria. It certainly makes sense when gas prices are rising rapidly or already high....but without those, 'car efficiency' isn't a huge factor for new sales.

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Building vehicles that require less maintenance later in life, and vehicles with longer lives before major overhausl certainly would be a factor.

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Availability and aggresiveness of financing also would be a big factor.

.

Occasionally aspects of tax code has even had an effect on vehicle sales.

Yes by two cents today going up tomorrow by 4.

Next please with a little bit better forcast!

Demand for gasoline is leveling off because it is expensive. Witness the increase in soccer moms and middle aged men driving their SUVs like grandma to save fuel. Pain at the pump is changing driver behavior. The stated improvement in the efficiency of the (national) fleet is too small to affect demand driven price in the short term.

FYI - the US is a big exporter of refined gasoline. It costs us more here because someone somewhere else is giving refiners a better price.

It costs us more here...
Oh my acheing sides... c'mon you guys stop it... I'll die laughing.
You want to check out prices in the UK
Mind I don't giveadamn as I'm not driving at the mo' (doctors orders), it's saving me a fortune and I'm feeling fitter.
Del

Here's why

From the link above: "In 2010, China added 10 million more cars. With a population of more than 1 billion people, that nation is going to use more oil in the future and that demand will likely drive prices up."

That's news to me. The price has been going up steadily for the past week. It is now 30¢ a gallon more than a week ago.

Gas Prices Expected to Drop Over the Next Few Years

You think that these people would look at the big picture and not just a small microcosm of it.