What do you think the impact of the new energy bill signed in to law last week will be on future JKs? It calls for a 35mpg fleet-wide average for all manufacturers.

Will we finally get a diesel?

Will the gutless V6 be replaced with an even gutlessier V4?

Will Chrysler and Tesla build an electric Jeep?

Hybrid?

Price increases?

Or are the rules flexible enough to accommodate the JK as-is if Chrysler just sells more low-end, high-economy passenger cars?

What do you think? Not really interested in real rumors, but this might be a great way to start some.

My opinion: a 20% price increase with a hybrid motor. Main reason for the price increase is to lower sales volumes to meet the required corporate average.

What are your thoughts?

-Glen

 

I think you are exactly right about the price increase and exclusivity.

CAFE is a gutless way of getting people to use less gas. You are in effect RATIONING larger vehicles. If you trully want people to use less gas, tax the gas, don't ration the cars. Now I am almost always against taxes, but they really are the lesser evil when it comes to the global warming CO2 issue. We are either going to end up with a Byzantine process of figuring out carbon impacts and buying/trading carbon indulgences, or you tax the coal, gas, and oil as it comes out of the ground or into the country. Now the real problem is what the govt does with that money.

See if you tax the gas, people start to make decisions like smaller cars, less trips, and alternative fuels. If you want a Hummer H1, it is gonna cost you.

The real problem with rationing is that people find ways around it. How are they going to get a F350 truck get 30+mpg, or they become so rare that they are $100k. You are going to kill off small businesses and construction (not a bad idea to many greens). Some how they are going to have exemptions for certian business, and people are going to game the system to get those rights.

If you just raise the tax on carbon, you directly add the cost of CO2 emmisions to any product whose activity makes CO2. If someone figures out how to reduce the Carbon output of a product or service, they can offer it a lower price and the market reduces carbn output.

Gotta put the kids to bed, but this whole GW thing could get really out of hand and plung us into a 'Dark Age'. Nothing we do as humans really helps the environment, we only hurt it. So if we want to 'return' earth to its natural state, we all have to live a lot more simply, or we simply get rid of a lot of people. The real answer is figuring out the real impacts and costs fitting that to what is right.

Gotta go.

 

I disagree completly Colorado, raising taxes on fuel will only further put this country into recession. Fuel is overhead for small business, mine inlcuded, and when there are costs that need to be cut we don't use less fuel, we cut back in other places like employees, and other direct costs. Those other costs that we cut are products that we buy for biz that we can't afford to buy, imagine whatever product for business that you might think of there. We can't stop using fuel, we need it to operate. The best thing we could have are vehicles that get better mileage. That is why I buy diesel pickups, they get 40% better mileage then the gassers do. My 7.3l/5.9l diesels get 20 mpg on the hwy vs gas which is about 12ish. For people to believe what you are telling them, they first need to believe that we need to eliminate carbon based fuels for some reason like Global warming. Global warming does not even exist, it is a computer generated theory only, and it has been proven without a doubt that climate has not risen at all in the last three years, but actually cooled. All I can say about the half baked selfserving bought off scientists claiming there is global warming is put some proof on the table that it is real, they can't. They are scientists with an agenda to hurt America for what it is. Does anyone realize that on average counties that signed the Kyoto treaty this year poluted on average 20% more then last year, where the U.S only released 6% more then last year. We are doing a great job here, global warming does not exist, and we want/need cars that burn less fuel then the crop we have now. The technology already exists to make cars get better mileage then they get now, diesel for starters will do it. But guess what we don't get diesel Wranglers because they don't meet the clean B.S. EPA standards for the 2010 requirments, so we suffer for it. The bottom line is, the automakers should give us better MPG's, and the government should get the hell out of our way. The greenies need to be run over to, they are the 6% screaming, that are leading the other 94% of the country around by there noses. Get some balls guys, and push back at the greeenies, it is just a soft core form of communism they are pushing on you here.
Raising taxes is B.S. IMO. The gov has already demonstrated to me that they can not properly handle the money they already steal from us, taxation is theft. If I could decide what it would be spent on if they took it from me I might be a little more forgiving of the theft, but I don't get that choice. In Cal, our vehicle registration, and fuel tax is at the very top of the scale, we pay huge taxes per gallon, and it gets us nothing. I vote no on higher fuel taxes for sure, and lower yearly tag fees, I have never had a new car here witha a sticker that was less then $400 per year, and I have as high as $600. no show for that either, just more pot holes that could swallow a car up.
BTW, I reged here because I am most likely buying a new JK, this would be my second Jeep purchase only, I have not owned one in a while. I usually buy Ford trucks, but I would not buy a new one of those now either becasue the 2010 Emmision engine that is in it gets 25% less fuel economy then the 6.0l and 7.3l Diesels that used to come in them, all because of government intervention, lets give them some more power and money, by all means. Merry Christmas, and sorry this had to be my first post, I normally like to get off to a more positive start on a new board, but I had to comment being an EPA licensed contractor.

 

It's an industry average. Some new cars will get large gains in mpg and other cars and trucks will get small gains. Overall, the average will rise but there will still be the vehicles that get "bad" mpg in comparison.

From the mags and news I've read, there are new diesels coming out in 2009 and 2010 that will make big jumps in mpg, not to mention the new hybrids. I believe GM, DC and BMW worked together on new technology for diesel engines and all have new ones coming shortly.

Theres also a good article in the new Popular Mechanics about the new diesels coming out in the near future. It's worth reading and got my hopes up for when I buy my JK in a year or two.

 

Well... it's hard to speculate as to what path the manufacturers will take or what kind of technology will prove to be most viable. But, if you think about it, the Wranglers of today get far better mileage than their predecessors-- and many of us believe them to be the most capable Wranglers made to date. My guess is that the trend will continue. We'll see better and better mileage along with better performance, too. Personally, I'd be far more interested in some form of biodiesel Jeep than in a hybrid one... but I wouldn't be surprised if the answer ends up being something we don't even know about yet.

 

Wouldn't it be great to see a Jeep "Wrangler" that was as small and light as the army Jeeps of WWII? Call it the Heritage or something.

I don't know about the size of rhe Wrangler ever getting smaller, but lighter weight is one way to increase mpg that manufacturers might focus on.

 

I don't disagree with anything you are saying. It seems as though everyone is on the GW bandwagon. That is until they see the cars they have to buy, the prices they have to pay, the houses they have to live in, and the general lifestyles they have to have. All while developing countries take all the energy intensive production markets.

I may not believe in GW and it seems to me you can't spell concensus with with the word 'con', but this stuff is coming. I work in the building materials market, and if the greenies had their wish, we wouldn't have any concrete to work with.

The 'Suck' is coming, like late 70s-80s suck, like 150hp Camaro suck, like Caddillac Cimmaron suck. This CAFE is just the first stroke of the bell tolling midnight for the end of the day for things as we know it.

What is really going to happen, is that the people will look at these new cars and say 'Nahh', I'll keep my old one. The automanufacturer's sales will go down, and then our good friends at Chrysler are going to go to the govt and have it so that you can't have an older car. That's why the CAFE goes up slowly, so like the frog being brought to a boil, we don't notice it. What will probably happen is that you'll have to have a GPS/Nav system in your auto that links to traffic management. That way they can control traffic, yada, yada. So if you want to get on the highway, you have to have a new car. Hello HD TV for the road.

That's why I'm waiting for the last-gasp V8 for the JK and I'm going to baby that thing. Maybe galvinize the frame, find a crate motor to put away, maybe find some alternate aluminum bodies.

I think that what you'll see is a rationalization by sector. If the number of SUVs has to go down, you won't have the 20 models that you have now. It makes more sense to spread the development cost over the largest number of models that you can. So if you have the H3, FJ and JK you might end up with one or two models in that sector. Smaller use SUVs go by the wayside, like Mitsu's and Nissans. You probably only end up with GM and Ford with big SUVs, since they can leverage their truck engineering. That might be why the big three went for it. The SUV market may shrink, but they could end up with a larger share of it and becasue of CAFE restrictions on the number of big cars, the profit margin may go up. The interesting thing will be if places like China, without CO2 or CAFE standards, are able to make cheap SUVs by the bucket loads for their internal markets, and are able to dump them in the US market, undercutting the big three.

Has anyone seen the CAFE ramp-up schedule and where the auto makers are now?

Gotta go, I think I hear the black helicopters coming.

 

If every car offered in Chryslers lineup had a diesel, I'm sure they could make it.

My Dads VW Jetta Diesel gets around 50 MPG combined city/highway. My truck, which is lifted, gets around 23. I think a JK Diesel could get 30. My Moms JK gets around 21-22 with the gas engine.

 

Not an expert on this, but I think diesel takes less energy and steps to make than gasoline. I wonder if Diesel will get a credit for this potential savings in CO2?

I know cracking oil into its bits is more complex than make more Diesel and less gas.

 

im jus pissed about this bill. its the end of everything americans stand by. horsepower and speed... no more corvettes, z06's nothing... all i know is im not getting rid of any of my cars any time soon.