Gas Hole (Documentary)

[ArchMichael]

Oil companies wouldn't go out of business if cars were able to get 100 MPG anyway. Gas prices would just go up.

Simple supply and demand.

That's not how supply and demand works. Using the supply and demand model, price would only increase if demand was higher than supply. The increase in price would reduce demand to the point where it levels out with supply. If you reduce the demand, the price should go down as well.

That doesn't mean, however, that the oil companies won't just raise prices to increase profit.

[dragon2368]

Originally Posted by ArchMichael

That's not how supply and demand works. Using the supply and demand model, price would only increase if demand was higher than supply. The increase in price would reduce demand to the point where it levels out with supply. If you reduce the demand, the price should go down as well.

That doesn't mean, however, that the oil companies won't just raise prices to increase profit.

Yes that is correct and I apologize for using it in this instance.
However if gas usage dropped to minimal levels then I would see the price go up to make up for lack of profits in the long term. That is what I actually meant. LOL!

[DGthe3]

Here's the thing ... patents expire after 20 or 25 years (I forget which). Its not like a copyright on artistic works that extend for decades after the creator dies. Additionally, even if something is patent protected, if you can come up with a non-obvious improvement on a technology you can then patent & use that. So if there were some miracle technology that was owned by Shell (or any other oil company), every automaker would find a way to rework that nifty little widget & save billions in R&D, since they would no longer need to develop electric vehicles, or fuel cells, or hybrids, or compressed natural gas, or whatever other gasoline alternative you can think of.

All these magical gizmos fall into 1 of 2 categories: they either didn't work, or they never existed.

[drummer5679]

Shell obviously paid off the patents office as well with the truckloads of extra cash they are making off fabricated high gas prices and low mpg cars.

[HP Addicts]

I started watching this one but fell asleep, reminded me of "who killed the electric car".

[spencer489]

Originally Posted by dragon2368

Oil companies wouldn't go out of business if cars were able to get 100 MPG anyway. Gas prices would just go up.

Simple supply and demand.

Demand would go down due to the fact that we would need gas less so the price should go down. Also the movie was prity good i beleve that we can get over 100 mpg

[spencer489]

As soon as eletic cars get popular the will reless it in efort to get custumers back to gas

[UT-Engineer]

Originally Posted by drummer5679

Shell obviously paid off the patents office as well with the truckloads of extra cash they are making off fabricated high gas prices and low mpg cars.

Again, this too is mentioned in the film. The agrument there was that the oil companies have politcal ties with congress and further up the chain... so as much as people cry out to their congress men and women, nothing ever gets done about high gas prices becasue the oil companies have bought their way with the political powers above. There is a stat on the political contributions oil companies have made over the past few years... its in the Millions for both democratic and republican politicans.

[LOWDOWN]

"Vapor" engines: something Smokey Yunick worked on, over the years as well...

http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&source=h...iw=634&bih=340

Take your pick.

[ffrcobra_65]

Do some of us really think that men found a way to go to the moon, create TiVo, but can't produce a 100mpg combustion engine?

What do you think will happen to the world if someone was actually allowed to publicize an engine that can do that? The application of such invention/technology is almost limitless. We are not just talking cars. A lof of companies will break down, countries will perish.

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by UT-Engineer

Again, this too is mentioned in the film. The agrument there was that the oil companies have politcal ties with congress and further up the chain... so as much as people cry out to their congress men and women, nothing ever gets done about high gas prices becasue the oil companies have bought their way with the political powers above. There is a stat on the political contributions oil companies have made over the past few years... its in the Millions for both democratic and republican politicans.

Contrast that against the tens (probably hundreds) of billions spent by GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes, and all the other automakers on fuel saving tech over the last ~35 years.

It would be a whole lot cheaper for each one of them to assign a team of a dozen engineers for a few months to alter the design of those bought up patents enough to claim their version is 'unique' vs say spending a billion and a half on the Volt which doesn't even get the claimed mileage of these miracle inventions.

Originally Posted by ffrcobra_65

Do some of us really think that men found a way to go to the moon, create TiVo, but can't produce a 100mpg combustion engine?

What do you think will happen to the world if someone was actually allowed to publicize an engine that can do that? The application of such invention/technology is almost limitless. We are not just talking cars. A lof of companies will break down, countries will perish.

I bet there is a significant overlap between the people who believe 100 mpg internal combustion engines are being supressed and believe that man has never walked on the moon ...

As for the consequences of using less oil ... if that was such a gigantic concern, why in the world would the CAFE laws have ever been passed? Their explicit goal is to use less oil, specifically oil imported from the middle east, which are the very nations who are dependant on the stuff for their economic well being. So the very basis for the conspiracy is undermined by CAFE laws. Think about it for a minute ... how in the world does it make any sense for there to be some group than can keep an invention away from an industry with a global revenue of over a trillion dollars annually (the auto industry), yet somehow can't stop a pair of agencies with a combined budget of less than $10B (NHTSA & EPA). How can it be that a 'patent protected device' isn't copied by nations like China who are well known for blatantly disregarding patents? They clone entire cars & ignore complaints from the original manufacturer. Yet they somehow overlook decades old inventions that would allow them to dominate the automotive industry?



Sure, its nice to believe that our cars are inefficient because there's a conspiracy against us. Fact of the matter is that the suck, squeeze, bang, blow cycle of an internal combustion engine has limits to how much energy it can extract from the burning of fuel. You can't just triple the efficiency with a magic carburetor or any other device.

To me, the belief in these technological conspiracys is an insult to my chosen profession (engineering). If they're true, then that means that every single automotive engineer, whether they work at an OEM, a supplier, or in the aftermarket, is incompetent. That includes the entire Camaro team & ones who contribute on Camaro5 like Number 3 and Camero.