Perfect together!!!

One source tells me it’s not going to go over $4 for a sustained period in the foreseeable future without some sort of tax on it, because there are lots of potential substitutes–tar sands, oil from coal, more biofuels, etc. Nonetheless, it’s probably not going to stay way down for a sustained period, and carbon taxes, or higher gas taxes may come, especially with a demo admin.

But sheesh, GM should at least build a hybrid competitive with the Prion. Oops! What am I smoking today? Or maybe Simon (owner of the cafe) put something in my espresso this morning.

I paid $3.63 last night (91 octane) and called it a bargain!

1138, Your price may vary. On a recent 1000 mile trip, I saw prices from $3.15 to $4.29 in a single day. The lowest price was here, at home in the land of sky-blue waters, where we have just recently raised the gas tax. Go figure.

reference to “the Stranger”?

hope so
good book!

At a $ 20K mark up compared to the Cruze, even if you could sqeeze 12000 all electric miles a year out of it , and the batteries would last a 120K miles, you had no extra maintenance cost for the electric drive train, and you had your electricity for free it would still take a $7/gallon fuel price to break even.

That’s a $ 250/barrel oilprice. It would take a full scale war in the middle east to get to that level. So maximum Bob may luck out yet. Since Iran is less than 2 year away from getting it’s nukes and subsequently shifting global jihad in high gear the Volt may yet be the hottest item of 2011.

Unless of course his present backtracking signals he is not going to do the Volt at all and it was all just a PR exercise to get his hands on the tax payers money.

Remember, they can’t run a car company worth a shit, they must be good at something. This is their talent. They are setting the stage for government relief. They are going to snow the government the same way the snow the board of bystanders.

I paid $2.49 the other day.

(Edit: Or, a natural disaster, or Russia’s expansionist leanings of late…)

Why even mention gas in the $1-2 range? That is just so not going to happen.

Maximum Bob’s real problem is that with gas at $2.80 – $3.50, a $40K Volt is an absurdly uneconomic proposition and prices might remain in that range until the Volt hits the streets. It’s difficult to cost-justify the Volt at fuel prices under $5 per gallon and even at higher prices if time-value-of-money is included in the evaluation.

Sure, the Prius might, technically, be uneconomic at $2.80/gallon gas but it’s only $22K of uneconomic and about the same price as a lower-trim Malibu.

I believe there’s a big difference between affordably and unaffordably uneconomic.

The Volt is screwed and DVDA screwed if the price of gas is low or lower than it is now. And the Prius and Insight will sell good because they will save people money when they don’t have a lot to waist. To spend $40,000 on a Volt will look just plain stupid.

Who will be able to afford on of these after the initial influx of cash buyers without leasing?

Toyota kicked off the Prius in 1999. Remember 1999? That was the year everyone was griping so hard about gas being $1.80 during the summer peak that gas stations put up signs saying it wasn’t their fault, talk to Exxon. They stuck with it for years of low gas prices and won big time.

GM needs some vision, some understanding that even if the Volt is not going to take off (as if it ever was) right off the block, having a well developed and stable plug in platform will ultimately be very valuable to the company.

If they live, of course. This talk just indicates they realize they promised the moon and the sky by 2010, and dropping gas prices gives them a graceful excuse not to deliver.

Mr. Farago, I was being facetious, not editorial. My point was that GM gave up being a “car” company (other than rental-fleet quality crap and the Corvette) about 15 years ago. They bet the farm on trucks and SUVs.

Good bet in the short term, but completely moronic now. (Compare to Lutz’ whipping boys at Toyota, who have a complete portfolio of vehicular offerings.) Why the execs at GM still have jobs is beyond me. Their flight path: Tango Uniform.

–chuck

The higher mandated CAFE standards aren’t going away, and I’d regard the current reduction in gas prices as a welcome respite but not a long-term trend.