As the dollar falls, the price in dollars pretty much has to rise. Unless, as Tideland points out, they make standard features optional, but that's just shifting packages. The price for an equivalent car has to go up. Market forces play a major role, but the prices of competing cars will go up also, for the same reason.

But this is a short-term issue, because as oil runs out we are nearing the end of the age of the automobile. It was 1908 when the Ford Model T came out, making the automobile widely available to ordinary folks for the first time. A hundred years ago exactly. The end of oil is probably between 5 and 20 years away. That means that in 105 to 120 years total, the human race will have squandered the entire world's supply of fossil fuel which took many billions of years for organic and geologic processes to produce during the carboniferous age. Homo sapiens has been on Earth for a couple of hundred thousand years, and civilization is somewhere around five or six thousand years. But it's only taken us a bit over a century to squander billions of years of fossil fuel.

Enjoy your cars while you can, because if we don't start building alternative energy capacity pretty soon, the house of cards is coming down. The sad and disgusting and pathetic thing is that we have the ability to do this, and it's only corrupt politicians and greedy corporate management that are preventing us.

Maybe our race should be called Home stupidus. (Sorry, I never learned Latin, so I don't know what the Latin word should be.)

The asian countries will probably try to find a way to devalue their currencies to keep exports healthy. Prius costs should come down with increasing production volumes. They ought to start making them over here. That would solve a lot of the currency issues.

Yes if they make them here it will solve a lot of problems. The RAV is going to be made in Canada beginning next MY. The HIghlander will be made in Tupelo probably in 18 mo's. The 4Runner/FJ are disappearing slowly. That only leaves the Prius, the Yaris and the Scions as high volume imports.

Disregarding currency issues I don't see the 'hybrid premium' coming down more than $1000 or about 4-5% of the MSRP. Remember they already dropped the price about $1200 last May.

Right. If the price of the Prius is forced up, so is the price of the other cars, which means declining sales will continue. Also, prices in Britain seemed to be 2x the U.S. prices for pretty much everything when I was over there. It's better to look at the trend of the Yen/USD conversion over the last couple years than to look at car prices elsewhere. (Could compare to Singapore for instance, then dealers would be in deep trouble here if forced to sell at those prices!)

I'm thinking you misspoke here, because I'm pretty sure you understand peak oil happens when approximately half of the available oil has been pumped out. (Which is pretty much all of the easy stuff). It's not the end of oil by any means, just the end of cheap oil. Crude, deep-sea, shale oil, tar sands, etc. will still exist. Perhaps the frozen methane/hydrates can be harvested, although that just adds to our global warming problem.

I'm figuring that within the next 20 years we'll burn the second half: i.e. as much as we burned in the past 100 years. Granted that there will always be some left, that we cannot get out because the energy cost of extraction will be greater than the energy contained in the fuel extracted. But I figure that's essentially immaterial.

Hmmm,

I read it in somewhere, that we are OK to extintion till 40 years.
( Oil supply ) new wells to be drilled but, China is going to use
50% of available Oil for their expansion...
After that we are going to need fusion energy for our existence.
Climate will change, Earth will become hotter or colder depending
in region of the world.

possibly the most misinformed post I have ever read.

people pay more for cars in different areas based on their perception of "entitlement".

in europe, its considered a luxury in many areas to own a car (not unlike manhattan) and they are priced accordingly.

in the US, we for the most part, most consider a car a requirement. suburban sprawl, lack of mass transit and the 40% factor (most people are simply too FAT to walk)

although plausible EXCUSES are listed above, the biggest reason is that we take the most convenient option available to us and there is probably 2 or 3 out of several hundred or even thousand that would accept or elect an option that is not the ultimate solution...iow, sacrifice (in most cases even very small ones) is simply not an option...

that is simply too bad... like daniel, i agree, our house of entitlement is a big multi-story one... which only means more coming down on our heads when it all collapses... and i am willing to bet that will happen in the next 3 years...(actually betting on fall 2009...just like every other car manufacturer)

people pay more for cars in different areas based on their perception of "entitlement".

in europe, its considered a luxury in many areas to own a car (not unlike manhattan) and they are priced accordingly.

in the US, we for the most part, most consider a car a requirement. suburban sprawl, lack of mass transit and the 40% factor (most people are simply too FAT to walk)

although plausible EXCUSES are listed above, the biggest reason is that we take the most convenient option available to us and there is probably 2 or 3 out of several hundred or even thousand that would accept or elect an option that is not the ultimate solution in convenience...iow, sacrifice (in most cases even very small ones) is simply not an option...

that is simply too bad... like daniel, i agree, our house of entitlement is a big multi-story one... which only means more coming down on our heads when it all collapses... and i am willing to bet that will happen in the next 3 years...(actually betting on fall 2009...just like every other car manufacturer)

Care to elaborate? You might question the year oil production peaks, and you may question how fast it drops off (some say it will plateau for a number of years, Daniel thinks it will drop off precipitously, but Hubbert's theory shows it will roughly follow a bell curve). But in any case, we are close to peak oil production, and it will happen in our lifetime, that's a fact, even when you add in non-conventional and heavy oil sources. It will change our economy, because at this point, we are definitely not prepared for it.

One factor in favor of a more severe downslope is that Hubbert probably didn't factor in the phenomenal growth in China and India. While HUbert's supply curve on the downside might look like a black diamond ski slope when an extra demand is factored into the available supply then the downslope becomes much more severe.

I don't think that we are 'out of oil' in 5 yrs but I do think that we begin to see spot shortages and steeply higher prices. I'd be planning on very tight supply in the decade of the 20's. Hopefully biodiesel from algae and other alt-fuels will be on stream by then.

i think we are all reading way too much into daniel's statement.

the "era of the automobile" coming to an end does not signify a rapid decline in the supply of oil.

what it does mean is that no longer will the average person be able to afford it. it will become a luxury item or near to it.

gas will be available, but at $10-15/gal, how many of us could afford to continue those 40-50 mile commutes? most of us couldnt... at least without a major sacrifice.

so, it the auto would be relegated to special duty only... weekends, special occasions, etc.... now we get into the question, who can afford to slap down 20-30,000 for something they will use occasionally? we do it for RV's campers, etc all the time (some do, i never did, couldnt justify the cost... even if i went camping every weekend, it would take decades to get my money back...but that's another rant)

well that time is nearing and i think it will take many completely off guard. they will be stuck in a home 30 miles from their employer in a vehicle that still has 35 payments on it that gets 20 mpg and wondering how they can afford the $45 a day in gas money...

PS... most of the world is already past peak oil. OPEC does not publish any reports on its reserves, so its only a guess as to when they may reach it. 5 years ago they reported peak oil would hit around 2150... 2 years ago, they said 2035 to 2050... most oil industry experts feel that OPEC is lying to prevent widespread panic. most industry experts agree that 5 to 20 years is the most likely scenario

Oops! You caught me in a typo. I misspelled "Homo stupidus." I stand corrected. But that we are stupid to burn all the oil, is an opinion I stand by.

Note also that I said 5 to 20 years. At least 5 but not more than 20. That, of course, is my guess. If I am off by a few years one way or another my basic argument does not change.

And Dave is correct: I did say that we'll never be able to use all the oil. We'll just use all we can afford to extract. After that, the remaining oil is irrelevant.

And this is different from every forecast since the 70's because...?

This forecast has always the same faulty logic discounting technology improvements and curves for profitability againt supply sources.

My prediction, in 5-20 years you will be saying there is 5-20 years of oil left.

All right. Let's meet back in this same spot in 20 years and see who was right.

wont take 20 years...

suppose you had 5 trillion dollars worth of something that others would very likely kill if need be to get, would you tell the truth and tell them you only really had 200 billion worth of this stuff and it would soon be in very short supply? all while doling it out to nearly a dozen different countries, each supporting a standing army?

or would you lie, tell everyone there is plenty, but you are restricting supply to keep prices high, demand low (HAH!! like that could be done...) given the illusion that there is plenty left will keep countries from coming in an taking whats left which WILL HAPPEN when the announcement comes that the end of easy oil is in sight...not even an idiot would be foolish enough to announce that.

its my true belief that the end of easy oil is very near.

daniel, i think the only mistake you made is saying it will take as long as 5 years before it all hits the wall

I guess I'm just the eternal optimist.

Yesterday I was talking to an investment broker. (He was offering an investment that sounded interesting enough to give a listen to.) When we started chatting about economic conditions in general, and energy supply in particular, he claimed to have spoken with an executive in BP, who told him that there's more oil sitting undeveloped in the Ukraine (right across from the Aleutians, according to the broker -- but let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say he meant Kamchatka -- maybe geography was his weak point, and after all, they both have a K in them) than there is in the entire Middle East, and it had not been developed yet because (according to the BP man) there's only three companies in the world capable of extracting oil, and they are only running at 3/4 capacity now.

My point being that this broker is an intelligent man, and he believed this line. It's very comforting to believe that we're not at the end of the oil age. A populace that believes in astrology, god, and the myth that America is morally superior to other nations, can easily believe that there's enough oil for 200 more years.

The broker also said he met Henry Kissinger and the Big K told him everything is hunky dory, so it must be true, because the K man is so intelligent. (Hey, he must be pretty intelligent: he never got sent to prison!)

i heard about reserves in russia as well, mostly in siberia and north. getting it would be a logistical nightmare not because of distance or remoteness but because of permafrost.

like alaska, a pipeline would be needed, but unlike alaska, access to water is not available. a huge ecological penalty will be paid to extract the oil. also, there is an issue with methane that is sequestered in the permafrost.

another option to a transcontinental pipeline: there were plans drawn up in the 70's for a trans-siberian bridge to alaska. the bridge would have car, train and oil and gas pipelines, was discounted as too expensive. the plans were resubmitted in the 80's and the mid 90's, both rejected on expense again

with oil at $100+/barrel, i think the cost maybe more in line. so that would enable the oil to get to distribution points easier and safer.

so does this cure our issues?? i dont think so... as large as the reserves are, at today's consumption rates, we are probably buying 10 years worth of oil, and it will take 15 years on dedicated, unfettered development to put it all in place. considering the multi-national cooperation needed... make that 30 years... so any oil that does come out of there will most likely be $250 a barrel...which is exactly what russia had wanted in the first place.

we all heard about correlations to revelations in the bible and modern warfare... how russia and the US banded together against china? most wondered how we would be on russia's side... now we know, it will be a battle over oil. the area is simply too close to china for them not to try

and discount what anyone says. to speak the truth would simply cause worldwide hysterai and immediate escalation into war... the ideology here is, dont say anything until its too late.

who is gonna fight someone over lying?... no one... who will fight over the last barrel of oil?? EVERYONE