How dumb do they think we are??

[JohnRoberts]

Today's award for putting lipstick on a pig, goes to GM's advertising executives who decided to advertise that their pick-up trucks use steel just like submarines..... No doubt trying to defuse that Ford has started using more expensive aluminum to make lighter pick-up trucks to meet future mileage standards.

Next they'll advertise that they use lead in their batteries just like that old yellow paint.  8)  8)

JR

 

[Andy Peters]

Today's award for putting lipstick on a pig, goes to GM's advertising executives who decided to advertise that their pick-up trucks use steel just like submarines..... No doubt trying to defuse that Ford has started using more expensive aluminum to make lighter pick-up trucks to meet future mileage standards.

Next they'll advertise that they use lead in their batteries just like that old yellow paint.  8)  8)

I guess they assume that their target audience really IS that dumb.

 

[emrr]

yes, they are. 

 

[okgb]

what choice do you have, If you like Ford trucks , you get to feel better about it
and/ or debate with your friends

 

[jensenmann]

While I doubt that environmental reason were behind the ad, steel is the better solution when it comes to protecting the environment. Aluminium production is an ecological nightmare compared to steel. From this POV the solution is not to use aluminium but drive smaller cars out of steel.

 

[JohnRoberts]

While I doubt that environmental reason were behind the ad, steel is the better solution when it comes to protecting the environment. Aluminium production is an ecological nightmare compared to steel. From this POV the solution is not to use aluminium but drive smaller cars out of steel.

The decision to use aluminum is all about mandated government mileage standards. The government may be very slightly smarter than the customers who are targeted with steel is good because submarines use it ads. Maybe you need to help them craft a green ad for that group.  I never did trust government making decisions for us.

The general public doesn't care quite as much, especially now since we are awash in oil and gas prices could drop even lower when we run out of places to store it all.  They are already filling up ships  and sailing around in circles at sea, to sell it for more money later. 

Just like high prices created all this new oil production, low prices will ultimately bring it back in balance  but that will take time. Drillers have already reduced new drilling but will not shut down profitable producing wells.

The only good news from this (besides cheaper gas and energy costs for us all) is that Russia and Venezuela are dependent on oil revenue so hurting. But I doubt even this will make them behave like better neighbors.

JR

 

[jensenmann]

I never did trust government making decisions for us.

More or less the same here.  There are too many forces trying to abuse politics to make profit without caring about ordinary peoples health, life or circumstances. I bet time will prove that a direct democracy - kind of like in Swiss - is the best way to hinder the industry take too much advantage of governments.

 

[ruffrecords]

I am surprised they have not brought out a model called the 'good old boy'.

Cheers

ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

I never did trust government making decisions for us.

More or less the same here.  There are too many forces trying to abuse politics to make profit without caring about ordinary peoples health, life or circumstances. I bet time will prove that a direct democracy - kind of like in Swiss - is the best way to hinder the industry take too much advantage of governments.

Switzerland is a special case where they managed to remain neutral  during conflicts because they were  not worth the trouble of conquering by a more powerful neighbor.

I do like the 100% universal conscription and mandatory gun ownership (IIRC).

We agree that crony capitalism is a major problem while simple democracy does not seem like the obvious solution, with problems of it's own. (I will need to do some actual homework about Switzerland before dismissing this suggestion.) 

[edit] OK, I did some homework. The Swiss federal system seems similar to ours, but differs in a few degrees.  More distributed (cantons equivalent to our states) and less central or federal power.  More reliance on referendum, making it easier to amend their constitution. Good to see women can vote now .  I like the way they don't have a full time president. If we made ours part-time we could save on the health care costs for him.  I also like that the congress only meets twice a year, rather than the full time effort figuring new ways to spend our tax dollars. Of course this is just my superficial views in passing, I fear our more diverse population might complicate the more simple democratic approach.  [/edit]


Switzerland is making news these days for selling instead of buying euros to defend the currency peg.

We probably need to pay our elected representative a lot more, or a lot less. More so they are not tempted to sell influence, or pay them less so they only run for office when they don't need the money (kind of like it was in ye olde days). 

Right now I do not see a huge difference between the two parties but enough to pick one as the lesser evil, while I've lost too many elections to count. 

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

I am surprised they have not brought out a model called the 'good old boy'.

Cheers

ian

Yup... pick-up trucks are how many wannabes channel their inner cowboy... I recall when I was living in CT years ago my banker drove a pick-up truck...  ;D ;D ;D

JR

 

[PRR]

> Drillers have already reduced new drilling but will not shut down profitable producing wells.

They don't have to be profitable. In any case, there's stock/loan holders who have to be paid-back every month/quarter. Say in 2013 they figured a $1000/mo loan would produce $1200/mo of oil, $200 profit. This month the same $1000 payment pumps the same gallons but they only fetch $800 on the market. Do you shut-down, collect $0 of income, when the capitalist still demands $1000 every month? No, you keep pumping and try to squeak-by until prices come back or the lender/stockholder repossesses your well.

Oil has always been boom/bust. There's a massive investment before the first drop sold. Once committed, you have to keep pumping at any price. You have to drop your price or the other guy will get all the sales. Rockefeller and OPEC cartels have tried to limit output to avoid price-wars, much as DeBeers did/does for diamonds, but Rocky got broke-up by the Feds and the Saudis are foiling OPEC.

As for alloy pickups.... I just jammed my plowtruck against a snow-bank AGAIN and bent more steel body-work. Off-hand I don't think I'd want a flimsier metal. OTOH, stupid Fed policy is going to force GM/Mopar to the same TV-dinner bodies that Ford is re-pioneering (neglecting Land Rover and others).  GM will have to eat these words. (I assume GM has a cook-book, all the words they have had to eat over the years.)

When thinking about energy costs, think about the WHOLE product. Metal does not pop out of thin air. Steel is heavy shovels, large ore-ships, mountains of coal into blast-furnace, then more energy to re-heat pigs into slabs and sheets. Aluminum is a similar process except the heavy-work is massive electricity in places far from cheap/clean electricity. A rough estimate says the energy to make a car is similar to ALL the energy it eats in its service life.

So yeah, smaller cars, but trucks do useful work based on size, and you can't cheat the size much before you are making two trips instead of one. (Except banker/cowboys.) Perhaps a wiser policy would be a robust low-cost repair program, so that once we invest all the coal/electricity to MAKE a vehicle, we can run it longer before we are forced to do all that energy all over again.

 

[JohnRoberts]

So I'm actually green for still driving my '97 automobile ?  Even though it's a mustang cobra? I just got 22 MPG on my last tank of gas which seems good for the way I drive.  When I was a kid I drove cars that were probably single digit MPG, not because they were that fast, just that inefficient.


JR

 

[Spiritworks]

Well, I live in CT and I drove the same '95 Chevy pickup for 17 years. Almost 300k miles on two engines and two transmissions. Six days a week  in construction-related work. Two round trips to Florida pulling a twelve foot trailer. A dozen or so trips to Virginia, Maine, the Adirondacks in New York. So I wasn't one of the posers. But I will never buy another GM product as long as I live.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I just saw an article talking about the USPS vehicles. Those all too familiar red, white, and blue delivery trucks have aluminum bodies (on a GM chassis), poor gas mileage, and are about 20 years old so tired and due for replacement.

While it irritates me that $7,500 of my tax dollars goes to Tesla and other EV sellers for each vehicle sold, maybe the government could instead put their huge thumb on the scale with a new USPS vehicle program.  Natural gas makes more sense than electric power for a 20 year target life IMO but what would I know?  Just to be clear, I would like this instead of the EV consumer incentives, not in addition to.

JR

PS: I don't know how this works into the total energy consumption comparison for aluminum vs steel, but isn't aluminum easier to recycle? IIRC the Ford truck factory collects scrap aluminum from the production line and returns it directly to it's aluminum vendor for re-use. I don't recall hearing about that being done as aggressively with steel. Perhaps the steel production is more mature and generates less scrap.

 

[PRR]

> green for still driving my '97 automobile ?  ....I just got 22 MPG

Driving a 1993 Chevy here. Gets essentially zero MPG. (Plow down, back up, plow down, back up,.....)

That's 6,000 pounds of steel and other highly cooked dirt (glass is well cooked sand, the alloy tranny is well-juiced bauxite...). Think how much ENERGY it takes to dig and move red dirt and coal to cook pig-iron, more energy to roll or cast it....

A new truck would probably never save as much energy as it takes to make it.

(Much steel today is re-cycled from old cars/trucks, not cooked from red dirt; but it is still a LOT of energy to re-melt 6,000 pounds of scrap, and the rest of the process is the same.)

> the USPS vehicles. Those all too familiar red, white, and blue delivery trucks have aluminum bodies (on a GM chassis), poor gas mileage, and are about 20 years old

Some are well over 30 years old. (And still have the oomph to take out my mailbox....)

The idea was good. Especially if you knew the Post Office vehicle before it. I had a 1972 ex-PO van. The PO was selling these off in 70,000 miles fairly cheap, for good reason. Mine was a Ford Bronco frame. 2WD, the front axle a piece of pipe instead of a pumpkin. The front suspension arms were trashed. The transmission had been overhauled already (I paid more for this one, others were slippy.) The 300CID Six was peppy after I traced-out a Holley carb to replace the work MotoCrap jug. Roof leaked all over, doors stuck--- it was very tired for its age.

The fairly short life of this series (and earlier ones) is why the PO let the contract for the Extended Service van. I must say it filled its purpose. Dunno what is really under these things (I suspect ruggedized Citation), but the early ones are going-on 30 years. The one here squeaks like a frame-wreck and I do not stand in front of it cuz I don't trust the brakes, but it gets around in all but the worst (state-closing) snows.

UPS (the brown vans) has a serious vehicle procurement system. They admitted many decades back that vehicle service was key to their business. While based-on standard medium truck parts, much is UPS custom. The guy here recently got a new rig with slanty headlights, but before that he had a round-eye which was probably 30 years old and in excellent condition.

 

[PRR]

> isn't aluminum easier to recycle?

I dunno "easier". Certainly one problem with recycling junk cars is transportation versus the fairly low cost/pound of iron. Usta be that if a junker had to move more than 20-30 miles, it wasn't worth it as a straight business deal. Today my neighbor will take a load of wrecks 50 miles to a scrapyard, but I think he looks at the instant cash and not the wear/tear on truck and trailer.

Al is higher $ stuff and worth taking further.

> IIRC the Ford truck factory collects scrap aluminum from the production line and returns it directly to it's aluminum vendor for re-use. I don't recall hearing about that being done as aggressively with steel. Perhaps the steel production is more mature and generates less scrap.

Ford  would certainly be recycling everything they get.

Henry would put out for bids on parts (gears, door handles), then after the price was agreed issue a very specific contract for the boxes the parts would be delivered in. Not just size of box, but size and knot-count of the boards, and where the nails went. Turned out that he was not just getting gears or handles, he took the crates apart and used them for floor-boards (in the T/A days when floors were boards). Suppliers grumbled but a deal with Ford was so huge they couldn't object.

I've always assumed that every fender-stamping also yields brackets and washers. (Yes, Fords have as many washers as Mercury.) (And this may have been a "problem" for the all-Aluminum design... washer shortage cuz most washers want to be steel.)

At some point the steel scrap is too small to feed. What can they do? Let it pile-up around the machines? Put it out to the curb as trash? It probably amounts to a MegaTon in a few years. I'm sure it all gets shoveled-out to be thrown back in the vat. (Note that Ford's River Rouge operation had/has some of the biggest steel-making and steel-processing on the planet, so a short trip.)

From my study of steel scrap, the lowest price is paid for mixed-crap and a high price is paid for clean known-alloy punchings. Ford can certainly segregate scrap at each station and attach the specification, maybe even test-assay numbers. The arc-vat guy can compare the available scrap to the spec he needs to make today, and either pick the right scrap or compute additions with confidence.