New $5 bill

[screwballl]

I would love to have that kind of money to do that.... although my suburban would be a bit heavy for it... I would likely do it with a jeep...

[gvblake22]

I think what Zambini was getting at is that we could (and should) have reasonably priced, powerful vehicles that use an alternative fuel/power source by now. With the way technology and science progresses, there is absolutely no excuse for there not to be a good, commercially viable line of electric or fuel cell or biofuel cars available from every major automobile manufacturer today. The only reason has to be the oil companies.

I understand that fuel and power has to all come from somewhere, but there are lots of different ways to create electricity or make fuel cells but there is only one way an internal combustion engine will run (with oil). If the demand for electric power started shooting through the roof, you know damn well utility companies would all be clamoring to find a way to produce more power and compete with cheaper prices. I'm sure things like wind energy, solar energy, and water energy would be on the rise as well, creating a car that (in a roundabout way) runs on wind, sunlight, or water.

I agree with Zambini and with I could give the oil and car companies a big F*CK YOU. Not necessarily for killing the electric car, but for not at least promoting it for the common interest. They are just a bunch of fat cats that want to line their wallets and fatten their bank accounts, they obviously don't give a shit about the future of the earth and the freedom from being forever bound to fossil fuels. What do they care, they'll be dead in 25 to 50 years and they won't have to worry about what happens...

[onebxr]

I have a neighbor who converts pickups to use propane along with their gas tank, usually gets double the mileage out of 1 tank of gas. You just use a switch to go either gas or propane. Pretty good idea. And propane is pretty cheap.
-1

[screwballl]

The technology is there that they can take this monster 454 V8 in my truck, do some tweaking to give it 100mpg and the little 4cyl cars 200-300 mpg... but they wont.
I knew a guy in Michigan some 11 years ago that did just that. He worked for a Ford plant by Flint and he said since the advent of the throttle body and fuel injection, it just takes some specific tweaking and you can get the same power with much less consumption. I knew him through work so he confided in me and knew I was trustworthy enough that I would not give away his name, which I don't even remember a last name now anyways... From what he was saying a computer onboard can actually lower consumption even more for better gas mileage on top of the mechanical tweaks. He had a 93 Ford Taurus plain model with a V6, and he showed his log where he was averaging 90 mpg around town to 160mpg on a recent road trip to Texas and back (and he was trustworthy enough that he wouldn't mess with the odometer or have some fake log just for bragging rights, he was a good Christian man). He said something about higher pressure but lower flow from the fuel lines, increased compression and removal of most of the emissions equipment which by themselves rob 20-30% of the fuel economy alone, plus the lower fuel usage means less emissions so no need for the emissions crap. Other stuff I remember was next size up with the exhaust pipes, a mod chip that he programmed himself and a few other things I don't remember.
There are some mod chips from some places that make them for performance (SuperChip and Dragon are 2 I know of) that you can tweak them for increased power, torque and fuel efficiency as well. Get a programmable one and you can hook up a laptop and tweak it on the spot. Some places have a conservative tuner that does it all for you, just hook it up to the onboard plug under the dash, hit program and it makes the adjustments.
Now I am just waiting for someone to start doing this publicly...

Again, the technology and know how is there, they just refuse to do it.

[Jokerswild]

[screwballl]

a few months late for that image:

EDIT: Threads merged...

[Parker]

But dude, thats totally right..... it's $4.52 at the LOWEST down how in east bay cali........

[Jokerswild]

Oh well first time I saw it. Next month it will be a $10

[screwballl]

based on what the "speculators" and "analysts" say, this is about as high as the US market will allow without causing a depression and people severely reducing their driving. It has been $3.999 at the highest locally for me. That is still over $150 to fill up my monster if I need to.

[WhiteEagle]

Some of the analyists say the price of a barrel of oil is going to go down to 70 or 80 bucks a barrel. Hopefully that also means the price of gas will go down!