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Gas Prices to Jump - Good News for Hybrid Sales

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by eheath, Mar 18, 2012.

  1. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    ...true but in that dynamic, the Saudi's have excess oil. They have a role in cost, namely selling enough oil to keep alternatives to oil non-economic (for now).
     
  2. Rybold

    Rybold globally warmed member

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    If everyone in the U.S drove a Prius, we would still need gasoline. If everyone in the U.S drove a Prius PHV, we would still need gasoline. Although, it may be idealistic to get completely off of fossil fuel, I think that being realistic we need to acknowledge that even when the Prius gets 200 mpg in the future and has a plug, we will still need SOME gasoline. Would you rather this oil come from Iran or Canada? Also, which requires less energy to transport - across the ocean from the other side of the world, or through a pipeline from Canada?

    I'm 99% for the "let's get off oil completely" camp, but the reality is that today, over the next decade, we are still going to need some oil (for MILLIONS of U.S. Prii), so would you rather that oil come from Canada or Iran?

    Having said that, I'm 1000% against running that pipeline over a drinking water aquifer! Route it around the aquifer, or find another way to transport!
     
  3. ItsNotAboutTheMoney

    ItsNotAboutTheMoney EditProfOptInfoCustomUser Title

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    No, the best way to benefit from the tar sands is NOT to build a pipeline that allows it easily to be refined for export. The best thing is to make sure that the refined product has to go to Canadians or Americans and you don't do that by building a pipeline to the Texas coast.

    There's strain on supply. The supply is finite. The USA is a net importer. Yet for some reason you think we should be grabbing an opportunity to export it? Seriously?

    OPEC. Iran. Iraq. Saudi Arabia. Venezuela. Burma. Nigeria.
    Guzzlers, small cars, guzzlers, small cars, guzzlers, small cars, ?.

    Will Americans never learn?
     
  4. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    ...but we are doing better right?
    We still waste too much but with the cost of oil going up (like the environmentalists always wanted) we are having to downsize cars.

    It appears hybrids and EV may not be the biggest sellers, compared to Cruzes and small Fords (Focus etc), but that's OK too.

    By the way, I know hybrids approach 3% sales...does anyone know what percent of cars on the road are hybrids? 5% yet? I could not Google car census data like that.
     
  5. parnami

    parnami Member

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    I agree..but, you DO REMEMBER the health care plan don't you? "Pass it, you can read it later"! Turned out it was loaded up with all sorts of "surprises", about which nobody was supposed to know..until it was too late!!!
     
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  6. drinnovation

    drinnovation EREV for EVER!

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    2008 Travel census showed 255,917,664 registered passenger vehicles.

    Total hybrids sales only recently crossed the 2million mark, so overall hybrids are < 1%.

    Seen another way
    Since hybrids have only been in the 2-3% of new car sales for about 7 years, and the average age of a car on US roads is 11, its likely that hybrids are less than 1% o the cars on the road.
     
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  7. cycledrum

    cycledrum PSOCSOASP

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    Hybrids are not the biggest seller, but for one exception ....

    we already know the answer. The crazy fact is Prius still outsells all other hybrids combined by a fair margin (32k of 58k total hybrids so far in '12). A great source for advanced vehicle sales is New Hybrid Reviews, News & Hybrid Mileage (MPG) Info | Hybrid Cars look for the monthly dashboard sales report. Shows hybrids, plug-in, clean diesels. I've got a post for February in this section.
     
  8. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    You are believing a false story line. The easiest way to export the tar sands syn oil is to build a pipeline to the Canadian coast, then ship it from their to china, or to the us gulf refineries. That is what will happen if the northern part of the pipeline is not built. Protesters don't want the tar sands used at all, and think not building a pipeline for safer transport of the oil to texas will stop its use. They are putting out this misinformation.

    This was brought up because it was said the president could do nothing about oil prices. With the pipeline the US still is a net importer, but will import less. It also will build more refining capacity quicker. These too things will reduce speculation on events like those happening in Iran and Sudan today.

    That is the other part that the president can help do, get vehilces more efficient, and able to run alternative fuels than gasoline. But we here much against small incentives to produce phevs and bevs. Taxed oil and removal of oil subsidies should also be included. Even with great policies oil consumption will only come down slowly, as cars, trucks, and busses last a long time. Thats why government policy needs to both encourage north american production as well as lower consumption.
     
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  9. cycledrum

    cycledrum PSOCSOASP

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    Americans buy quite a few SUVs, but the really big sellers are the full-size pickups. Are these mostly being fully utilized for business? I doubt it.

    One common complaint about Prius is it can't tow anything. Not only do many want big vehicles, they want them to tow the toys. Fine for recreation I suppose.

    Gas prices are the great equalizer though.

    Top 30 selling all vehicles, yr 2011

    Top 30 Best-Selling Vehicles In America - 2011 Year End - GOOD CAR BAD CAR

    top 40 selling vehicles, yr 2004

    Top 40 Best-Selling Vehicles In America In 2004 - GOOD CAR BAD CAR
     
  10. cycledrum

    cycledrum PSOCSOASP

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    "While regular smog alerts and threats of global warming fail to generate much action, $4 per gallon at the pumps seems to do the trick. If the rest of the world has learned anything from watching the United States cope with its ballooning gas prices, it's that to get its stubborn citizens to change, one may have to resort to the old adage of "no pain, no gain."

    HowStuffWorks "Kick the Gasoline Habit"
     
  11. Skoorbmax

    Skoorbmax Senior Member

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    And how does this help anybody? The government does not own this oil, a corporation does, which will sell it to the highest bidder on an international market. Someone will get rich, but not the gas consumer who won't see much of an impact of it at all.

    Many seem to forget that the government in the US is not in the oil business of production and resale like it is in another country, so the profits do not go to the government. This is one of the huge fallacies of domestic production, which will serve the role of decreasing reliance on questionable foreign nations, but short of world disasters not affect price that much long term.
    I've said this for years. It's why the environmental movement, conservation etc. will only truly take hold if people's pocketbooks are impacted by it. Until then nothing meaningful will be done.
     
  12. Corwyn

    Corwyn Energy Curmudgeon

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    That should be 20 Billion barrels (with a "B" ... enough for 1000 days of consumption (roughly 3 years)
     
  13. cycledrum

    cycledrum PSOCSOASP

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  14. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Hey I'm a free marketeer. I'm perfectly happy that some people get rich. I don't like to see it when people suffer though. Let's raise the floor, not lower the ceiling.

    We already have the strategic petroleum reserve. We have the ill conceived carter doctrine, that we will use troops in the middle east to protect american access to oil. The oil markets are controlled by a cartel based in some friendly but some very unfriendly countries. If the US government can kill the carter doctrine and reduce the power of a foreign monopoly to steal our money and use it to do things like fund terror or develop nuclear weapons I'm all for it.

    How about removing oil and ethanol subsidies that feed money to those that are rich. Those really evil business men profit from your support of the monopoly.

    The US has been a heavy net importer of oil and refined products. Only last year did US consumption drop enough to be a net exporter of refined products. These increased exports mainly went to latin and south america.
    Econbrowser: U.S. net exports of petroleum products

    When we import from OPEC the money flows directly to opec. Opec has twice used oil black mail. Your twisting it to evil oil companies is a distortion. These price spikes ship tankers full of dollars that could be kept in North America over to some of the worst regimes on earth.

    Increasing domestic supply is definitely needed as well as reducing domestic demand. A slowly graduated tax on oil would be much better to reduce demand, than hoping price spikes hurt americans enough that they change that way. Spikes are followed by decreased prices, and we have seen this increases demand.
     
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  15. cycledrum

    cycledrum PSOCSOASP

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    Do you think a good idea to seperate prices for businesses and consumer? Strict controls at Comm. fuel stations with lower prices, and somewhat higher prices for consumers?

    After all, if gas prices are higher, we pay more for all other goods. Businesses need to haul.

    We don't need big black SUVs to look like the Feds pulling up like in the movies.

    btw, what's with all the freakin' full size pickups sold in this country? Sure, businesses need them, but F series pickups #1 selling vehicle like forever?
     
  16. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    This market distortion was behind the Nixon price freeze that caused the shortages and later spikes in prices. I'd like the increased taxes to be slow, but have everyone know they are coming. If everyone knows prices won't plummet, but continue a slow rise, then businesses and individuals

    IMHO if we had started paying more in the 90s, we would be paying less today. The price would be higher but we would have a more efficient fleet. Clinton in the late 90s put a tax deduction in place to buy SUVs, then bush made it bigger. Encouraging exactly the wrong behavior. If people expect $6/gallon tax in 2017 they will be less likely to buy that SUV today:D Cash for clunkers did get some really bad cars off the road, and is partially responsible for our lower consuption today. It was done to help the auto companies instead of the environment. A program targeted to remove the highest consuming cars and trucks could also help a great deal.

    An oil tax could also be written to be insulating. This would be the opposite of the European taxes that go up as oil goes up. Say $3/bbl a year additional each year, but the tax is suspended on a graduated scale. Say no tax if oil is above $105/bbl in 2013, $110 in 2014, etc. By 2023 it would be $30/bbl. Put any money not going to the roads to efficient cars programs and after that to reduce payroll taxes.
     
  17. spwolf

    spwolf Senior Member

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    a lot of these regimes, terrorists organizations and dictatorships were created due to US trying to secure its oil supplies and thus letting CIA to create today's world, hostile to usa.

    as to OPEC runing our world, check global 500 list by Forbes.
    Global 500 2011: Global 500 1-100 - FORTUNE on CNNMoney.com

    look at those Venezuelan and Iranian companies raking all the profits, eh?

    In reality, oil is most profitable business in the world, and our own oil companies are making huge profits.

    2 Gazprom 31,894.5 29.9
    3 Exxon Mobil 30,460.0 58.0
    5 Royal Dutch Shell 20,127.0 60.8
    8 Petrobras 19,184.0 23.7
    9 Chevron 19,024.0 81.5
    11 Petronas 17,479.3 50.0
    17 China National 14,366.9 39.9
    21 Total 14,000.9 19.2
    34 ConocoPhillips 11,358.0 133.8
    37 Rosneft Oil 10,400.0 59.7
    42 Lukoil 9,006.0 28.5

    You think their profits will come down in 2012? I bet they will increase by significant margin. Only BP is missing from the list as they had loss due to oil spill fiasco.
     
  18. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    The shaw, the most egregious was mainly engineered by the british. Most of the brutal regimes were formed by European imperialism and reaction to it. Let us not forget who drew the lines and formed the governments. The US got sucked into the game, and Carter doctrine and dirty tricks in the 1970s can be directly traced to current troubles in Afghanistan and Iraq. More of the reason for the US to get out of the game.

    Huge distortion. Opec controls the marginal oil supply and price. Forbes does not track how much aramco really feeds into the saudi coffers, or how much money goes into iranian treasury. Its only tracking the public corporations. By switching to this anti oil company talk, you are clearly taking your eyes off the big picture. How much did sudanese oil get china to support the genicide in darfur? How much saudi and iranian oil money got shuttled to terrorist organizations?
     
  19. spwolf

    spwolf Senior Member

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    and yet our oil companies are the most profitable ones :).
    we will see double digit growth in their profits for 2012 I bet.

    there is no doubt in my mind that at least half of the profits from the oil prices rising goes to OUR oil companies.

    Actions of western world, a lot of it being US, are the ones that actually created terrorism in arab countries, so it is pretty fitting that now we are the ones feeding it as well. We (US/Europe) created this situation and now we are being hurt by situation that we created.
     
  20. spwolf

    spwolf Senior Member

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    and I completely agree with you - oil prices rising only hurts our economies... now if it stops at certain price, like $5 in US, and $9 in Europe, then it will quite likely change the way people think about hybrids and ev's.

    if it actually goes more than that, then our way of life is endangered.

    but again, it is our own fault, nobody elses.