November 2010 US auto sales

$3 a gallon was enough for me to buy a Prius in November. I did my part!

 

wasn't there something about the government using stimulas money to buy american cars?

 

I'm not sure they ever left them . . . but I live in Huntsville AL.

Bob Wilson

 

Your completely right. C4C shifted some out of their guzzlers and many are buying trucks, albeit more efficient ones to replace the ones they got rid of.

Oil is at $88/bbl. At $120/bbl lots of alternative production becomes economically feasable, so it can't go much higher and stay there. Goldman Sachs is predicting $100 oil next year and $110 the year after assuming china heats up and starts importing more oil. The only way I see gas at $5 is if the government taxes it more. I don't really want to see $5 gas. As hybrids, phevs, and bevs get better they should increase sales. I'm sure there would be more prius sales today if toyota would just add a plug

 

Nothing tells me it's a GREAT TIME to buy a truck or SUV like a growing unemployment rate and rising gasoline prices. I can only assume some of these people really do believe the world will end in 2012, because it's not out of good fiscal sense they're buying all these cars. The economy is in a terrible state.

These are truly horrible numbers for Toyota, though. Corporate must be panicked, is it really all because of the people earlier this year who confused their gas with their brake pedal?

 

Like what ?

 

There are numerous pilot plants using fischer tropsch conversion or mobil conversion. These can take natural gas as a feed stock or coal as a feedstock through gasification. The chinese are also experimenting with some direct conversion processes from coal. Also there are pilot projects to use methanol or captured CO2 as feed stocks adding energy from electricity.

Shell's pilot plant in quatar using natural gas as a feedstock claims break even as low as $20/bbl. Add sequestration or convert from coal and prices rise. Certainly at current prices synthetic methods are under scrutiny, and because of the possible use of oil blackmail the airforce has a program to supply half of aviation fuel through synthetic methods by 2016. All this puts a cap on long term oil prices, but plants take time to be built and short term spikes can hit as they did when oil hit $120/bbl from financial manipulation. Definitely there is a case for hybrids and electric cars at $2.50 gasoline. The new cafe standards will definitely provide choice to customers that want these vehicles.

 

I read this week that the idea of American consumers paying down debts is nearing its end point. The debts paid down in the last quarter were something like 1/4 that paid down a year back (and it's not because they paid them off!).

I'm positive that many people just are not worried about the economy like they were. When they saw unemployment shooting up they went into lockdown and that's stopped. But it stopped high. However, the lack of movement has introduced a malaise. And one undeserved as indicated by the now gradual increase in unemployment again.