Working people will always need trucks, and the F150 can probably pick up some sales from the even larger trucks that some contracors favored in the past (the guy I hired to build my patio said he was using his current 150 more than his other trucks).

Still, Ford and all the other car companies are really ignoring the small pickup truck market. If all you need is a 4'x8' bed for drywall, Ford only has the Ranger, a truck that hasn't been redesigned for 15 years.

We Americans aren't big on the whole "learning lessons" thing.

we are freakin' retarded. Do we ever learn anything? Ever?

That seems to be the basic human mentality. If prices are rising, they'll keep rising forever. If they're dropping, then -- whee! -- the problem's all over and we can go back to our old ways.

If you don't drive an F-350 you aint shit. My neighbor has a custom built F-450 6 door 4x4. As big as a fishing boat. Which he tows behind. I don't know maybe it gets 7mpg but who cares? He's an orthodontist. I doubt he even knows what the price of gas is.

USA USA USA USA USA !!!!!!

Myth Number One: The 'American' automakers build "big" (a/k/a "light") trucks because they are dumb, and buyers are dumb. How dumb? Toyota just finished spending more than a billion dollars to design and produce the larger-sized Tundra pickup. They knew that it was a profitable market segment, and that people wanted and needed such trucks. Ford happens to make some of the best, that's all.

Myth Number Two: Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards are all that are needed to ower the nation's gasoline consumption. Uh, no. CAFE standards do nothing but put Ford, GM and Chrysler in a bad competitive position. BMW and Mercedes don't worry about CAFE standards. They pay their penalties and keep on making the kinds of cars that seel. If GM did the same, Ed Markey and his pals in a Democrat Congress would go apeshit.

Myth Number Three: Cafe standards work. Again, no. Higher gasoline prices lower consumption. If I am a consumer, and the government forces me to buy a car that gets better mileage, lower my annual fuel costs, I'm liable to drive more, not less. How do we know this? About 20 years of CAFE data, that's how.

It never ceases to amaze me. The ignorance, the hubris, the nihilism of the Salonista crowd. For the most part, the people building those Ford F-150's are union workers whose union bosses support your liberal Democrat candidates. They think that they are some pretty good trucks that they are building, and they kind of wonder why the bicoastal liberals hate them for it.

Detroit doesn't need any federal bailout money. Waht Detroit needs is for the federal government to first of all leave it the fuck alone. Detroit carmakers make money, outside of the brutally competitive, consumer-favoring U.S. market. Detroit carmakers would be making money if tomorrow we shit-canned all CAFE standards, and the UAW's members made the same in wages and benefits as what Daimler pays their workers in South Carolina and what Toyota pays their workers in Ohio.

...and about as bright.

The US taxpayer is being asked to bail out auto companies, which sold millions of gas-guzzling SUVs,thereby enriching OPEC nations, accelerating pollution, and the squandering of fuel. When people finally turned to smaller vehicles, the companies demanded a hand out.

Sure, let's reward them for their service to our nation.

Elephantman is, once again, only telling part of the story and getting a lot of that wrong.

The assertion that European manufacturers are simply "building what seels (sic)" and CAFE standards be damned is as good an example of this as anything in the post. In fact, the European union has a number of CO2 reduction strategies in force already, including specific mandates for fixed percentages of fleets to be not just fuel efficient, but to be alternative fuel capable.

That's just one example. Anyone interested in the history and effects of CAFE standards can research more. And, of course, if you do you'll find that the situation isn't nearly as cut and dried, nor simple as portrayed in Elephantman's post.

For the record... This monocoastal, unabashed far left liberal owns a much loved F250 which I've learned to drive sparingly.

The North American auto companies still sell more pickups than any other car model. These trucks still have an important place in the product mix. SUVs no, but trucks yes.

Many people need pickups for their jobs. The only thing we can do is step up efforts toward 30 MPG pickups and plug-in pickups.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040925/news_1dd25bmwfine.html

They pay fines. And, it is just a cost of doing business to them. Pretty clearly, when Daimler took over Chrysler for a period of time, the Chrysler execs told their new Daimler bosses, "You guys have to realize; paying CAFE fines is not an option for us, as 'US auto companies,' because the political fallout would be way too great." Daimler has gotten rid of that burden by selling out Chrysler to Cerberus Managment. Now, Mercedes-Benz is politically free to do what BMW does; make cars that first and foremost sell. And worry about CAFE later.

[Sorry for having earlier misspelled 'sell' as 'seel.']

As for what the Europeans choose to do at home, they pretty much squeeze fuel economy out of the populace with $8.00/gal. gasoline. That is of course the effective way to do that job, if that is really what you want to do. I'm hoping that the Democrats will run on a platform of $8.00 gasoline in 2010.

Higher gasoline prices lower consumption.

The price of gasoline is subsidized by the taxpayer. The Iraq War and the US Navy 5th Fleet are production costs (security) for petroleum that are subsidized by current and future taxpayers. Once again profits are privatized while expenses & risks are socialized. These hidden costs should be offset by a 50%/50% carbon tax on consumers / capital gains tax on companies that profit from the security services. How long do you think the Iraq War would last if the expenses were offset by taxes or spending cuts under Pay Go rules?