I would like to know what others think of this issue. Do Well it would seem that GM is missing the bigger picture. As a comsumer
living in the farm belt and coming from a big farm I can assure you we
are looking at how we drive and how to save fuel. Mind you that we
have always done this. Farmers will keep the trucks for the farm but only
drive them when we they are needed for grain or stock.
But to my point. The problem with GM, Ford and Chyrsler is that they
think the American Consumer wants the small car. We do not! But what GM
has said, was they will close four truck plants and move toward making
smaller cars that will get better Gas milage because that is what the
consumer wants.
How about this? Lets save the truck plants and put the incredible
Engineers and masterminds at the Auto Companies to working on making the
truck and SUV lines more efficient on gas. Please, do not make the
mistake that making them more efficient by a couple of miles to the gallon
will do. It will not! But the technology is there to do a great deal
more. I am an engineer and I went to school so I can assure you I would
drive an SUV that gets 40 to to 45 miles a gallon in normal driving
conditions over a small car. By normal, lets really think about that. The
Auto Miles ratings are based on Ideal conditions that do not exist in the
real world. Those milage ratings have been a laugh from my family
since I been old enough to count. Stop the bull and lets get to work
manufacturing trucks and SUV's that actually get the miles they state and
even more. The technology already exist but, wait that would effect the
oil companies, again heaven forbid we actually think about that can
of worms.
The move to make smaller cars and stop the trucks is more to capture
the profit then the actually making a change. I can gaurantee that if
gas suddenly dropped back to $2.50 a gallon or even $3.00 the shift
would stop and and GM would be blowing their horn about how good they are.
This, instead of doing the right thing for the environment and the
american consumer.
But instead lets close four plants, lay off God knows how many
workers and build smaller cars. Oh and lets moan about how Toyota, Honda and
Nissan are taking are jobs and are making ever more fuel efficient
cars. They are no better but they are easy to blame by the big three.
I have an idea, lets put those brillant minds to work at GM and
indeed all the Auto makers and show we can and will be a leader in this
field as we once were and inprove the existing technology. It does
something that for to long has been forgotten. It saves jobs and it would
create even more in this country and abroad to support this change.
Save jobs! Help America! That is a novel idea.

we close the plants or do we stand up and say enough.

I couldn't agree more. No one wants to drive one of those Smart Cars...they're death traps. Someone crashes into you in that thing and you're done. Companies should focus on making fuel-efficient SUVs and trucks rather than puney little cars.

I have a comment and suggestions. My husband and I both drive Honda Civic which get 34 MPG of gas which equals around $35 each per week on average but that is our monthly gas bill. We have been driving these cars since 2004 when gas first started going up. We moved to a house five miles from where my husband works. I work in the home and do all college classes online. The bus picks our son up to and from school every day. We have never had to change a bit of our lifestyle because we have always been penny pinchers.

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why not the government set up a program at the gas pumps and people that can afford to pay more pay 10.00 a gallon and people that can't, pay less. i heard a tv minister say that if gas prices was a 100.00 a gallon he would still be driving. there are people who can afford those prices and some can't. so set up a program and people with a larger income can pay more. sports player have that type of money why not past the bill on to them. the government can set up gas stations so that they know their customers income and charge customers according to their income.

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From: Dave Neely
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 5:29 PM
To: 'deutch.ted.web@flsenate.gov'
Subject: save diesel fuel

May 21, 2008

Ted Deutch, Florida Senate

Fax copy: Hon. Corrine Brown 202-225-2256

You did a good job of buying some time at Boca today, I enjoyed your ability to get creative.

Anyway, we just had a few seconds and I think this is so simple that nobody thinks about it or does the math. My degree is a BS from Embry Riddle, 30 years as a pilot, 20 years selling jets and helicopters. I own Wildcat Trucking Enterprises, Inc. in West Virginia my home state. I have owned trucking business for 12 years.

So this is for the Hillary Clinton last chance effort to have something specific. There are about 800,000 tractor trailers on the roads by the information of the trucking association, who knows if it is high or low, this part I have nailed for a fact. The speed limit on the interstate is 70 so the truckers drive 79 mph, this takes them out of the "sweet spot" for fuel burn, horsepower, and torque curves to intersect. I have bought 4 trucks in the past couple years at 125,000 each to play with this. I bought a standard 3.90 ratio, then dropped to 3.70 ratio, still not there so I tried 3.55 ratio, not yet there, still above 1400 rpm and under 6 mpg. Last shot, I got it right with a 3.38 ration, now at 70 mph the rpm is at 1375 and the fuel economy is now 6.5 mpg.

Getting to the real math here, you can not make everyone go out and change the ratios of their trucks, so how can we hit the "sweet spot" to get 17% better fuel burn for all trucks, very simple, probably to simple, drop the interstate speed limit to 60 mph, for truckers only. Now the trucker will actually drive 68 or 69 mph to keep from getting a ticket. Stay with me for another few seconds….my trucks burn 100 to 125 gallons a day…go with the easy math 100 gallons a day-17% saving by speed reduction= 17 gallons per truck each day. If you multiple that times 800,000 trucks on the road you save 13,600,000 everyday. So less be more conservative and say we are only saving 8 to 10,000,000 gallons a day.

What a huge difference it will make as the price of diesel drops from the supply and demand, cost of goods and materials delivered by trucks on store shelves get lowered, economic growth rebounds some and the cost of a barrel of oil drops…the diesel snowball effect.

Your friend,

Dave Neely

Maxfly Aviation, Inc.

954-771-8171 office

954-594-0005 cell

Howdy! I live in L.A. and I reached the breaking point on gas prices a few weeks ago. I drive a ULEV and work mostly from home, thankfully. But I went out and picketed gas stations and made a music video about protesting our reliance on oil and gasoline.

I just posted it today and hope you will watch this satirical video with a good message and a means to vent our outrage. Let others know about it, too. Here's the link:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=03thuWjWf9M

hello there, live from texas, i deal with the situation of biking everyday to work and the seeing people having to deal with the gas prices every day and the rising price of the barrel of oil advertised on local news networks and its astonishing that our government and the senators and figureheads before our "great nation" can do nothing but argue and bicker about exxon and other fuel CEO's and how they could control the problem, but it is more of a concern to the american public to concentrate on new resources like new fuels and new technologies but the united states government is putting the forefront of its spending into war based spending and not enough to help the people of the united states and its econonomic concern as well as other countries. I would like to motion that we put a foreward the issue to congress that we totally wipe out our economic system, take away the thing we call "money" and start creating a "need based" society, where in essence people would do the jobs they could perform while on the other hand using the technology available to advance in things like fuels and transportation. Kinda like a star trek phenomena that the creator "Gene Roddenberry" emphasized in his science fiction theatre.