Is the 35 mpg CAFE standard the death of the V-8? It’s already killed off GMs new Ultra V-8 double-overhead-cam engine that was supposed to go into production next year. Since Ford was the first carmaker to put V-8s in popularly priced cars, will they be the first to jump on the V-6 bandwagon? Both companies are investing in GTDI technology. Gas turbocharged direct-injection will be in over half a million vehicles in 5 years. Claim is the horsepower and torque is awsome, with mpg savings.
Carmakers can meet the 35 mpg standards. After all, they’re doing it all over the world. In Asia, and Europe to name a couple of places. Now everyone should agree that the cost would be higher for less vehicle. It just cost more to make diesel, hybrid, and other high tech gas saving powertrains.
If all transportation accounts for only 27% of Americas’ CO2 emissions, and our passenger vehicles only 14%; why not go after whatever is making up the other 73% first? While that will never happen, we can expect our politicians to take the easy way out. So in the mean time, we’ll be fighting our cars for our food, and probably get a carbon tax instead of a gas tax. All this for the pleasure of driving an underpowered, undersize, expensive, coffin on wheels.
We can even blame it on global warming. After all we have weather records for about 120 years out of the billions of years this planet’s supposedly been here. Seems to a thinking man that we should be able to predict all sorts of things with that information. And no, we’re not saying global warming is a farce. After all we lived through the predicted ice age of the 70s. We just think even if it is manmade, it isn’t anywhere near a critical problem.
That’s our take, comments are always welcome.
February 8, 2008 at 11:42 am
Didn’t a local police dept buy a few new squad cars a couple of years ago that had an engine with a way to switch between using either 4 or 8 cylinders? I think they were Impalas but I could be wrong. Those seem to be a good compromise and even if you don’t believe in global warming, it will help with how much taxpayer $ is spent to fuel them and will cut down on exhaust in the air.
I never have gotten why some people want some of these little 4 bangers like my wifes car. Its a great gas saver over the last few days (Its been stuck in our driveway since the snowstorm
My 6 cylinder Lumina however has had absolutely no problems and I was out driving in the worst of it.
February 9, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Ilcantar,
Can’t say for sure if local departments bought them, but we know they were available. It will get interesting at any point.