Comments on: June 2011 Dashboard: Sonata Hybrid Picks Up Slack

By: Phil Fournier

Phil Fournier — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 05:07:04 +0000

Why do you think GM does not intend to build enough Volts to meet demand? Do you think the profit margin is too skinny? To me it seems the most sensible option for the present as compared to the Leaf, which would have to be a second vehicle for most people due to its “range anxiety.” The Volt, on the other hand, is versatile enough to be a primary vehicle as far as I can tell. It may not be the ultimate solution, but it seems like a good one for the moment and I would think GM would be building them as fast as they can sell them.

By: Kurt 512

Kurt 512 — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:31:35 +0000

"You may wonder how meat is pretty cheap when compared to vegetables : Subsidies to Corn which in turn is fed to cows, pigs & chicken."

What subsidies for corn???? I should know, our family owns a black angus farm in Iowa. The only subsidy out there is the ethanol subsidy. $0.51 per gallon to the ethanol distillers(Not the farmers). In order to still make a profit, the distillers would need to buy corn at a lower price.

The paradox of corn ethanol is that helps the corn farmer while hurting the live stock farmer.

I'm mixed about corn ethanol. On the one hand corn ethanol has raised the price of feed/food a little over what it would have been. On the other hand corn ethanol has lowered the price of gas/oil.

Has Ethanol raised the price of food/feed??? Probably a little, but the price of Oil is the main culprit. You need Oil(diesel) to drive the tractor. You need oil to make fertilizer. You need oil to truck the food/fertilizer around. Oil is one of the biggest costs of farming. With the price of oil going from $10/Barrel to $100/Barrel, the price food/feed would have went gone up anyways.

On the other hand there are studies like the one by "Xiaodong Du of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Dermot J. Hayes of Iowa State University" that show ethanol has lowered the price of gas in 2010 by $0.89/gallon. Basically lowering the price of Oil.

So somewhere in the middle like E10 level of ethanol production will give us the lowest food/feed/gas prices.

By: Max Reid

Max Reid — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 18:09:23 +0000

Mr JJJ

Vegetarians directly eat what comes from the plant like Vegetables & Fruits. Whereas for meat, first you have to feed the cow / pig for few year which may consume lot more corn or wheat or soy and then only we can kill the animal for meat. So meat consumes lot more land than vegetable.

You may wonder how meat is pretty cheap when compared to vegetables : Subsidies to Corn which in turn is fed to cows, pigs & chicken.

With the rising debt, such subsidies could be cut soon.

By: MrEnergyCzar

MrEnergyCzar — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 01:04:45 +0000

The Volt plant re-opens in late July as they will be tripling their monthly production.....

MrEnergyCzar

By: BBerman

BBerman — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 07:21:56 +0000

Hyundai only started reporting numbers in June–although sales started in May.

By: EUrbanist

EUrbanist — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 05:29:51 +0000

Administrator,
I am confused. Numbers show Sonata sold 1422 units in June
That is - per your numbers - a 29.3% increase from last month.
However, that means - mathematically - that they sold 1,005 cars in May. Thats a decent amount.
How come there is no record of any sonatas selling in your May numbers?
Am I missing something?

By: Emc2

Emc2 — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 01:35:53 +0000

It's sad to see how spread are some biases within the green car community.

First the anti-GM sentiment. GM announced in May a slow down in production of the Volt because it needed to upgrade the plant where the Volt is produced. So right now that plant has been shut down for this retooling. Expect revamped deliveries beginning in August, and in the last quarter of 2011 exports will begin to Europe.

As for the Brazilian ethanol, just read the environmental impact section in the Wikipedia article "Ethanol fuel in Brazil"

Also do not expect imports of Brazilian ethanol any time soon. Since 2010, as world sugar prices have risen to a historic high Brazilian producers have shifted their sugarcane to produce more sugar and much less ethanol. This shift, together with the ever growing fleet of flex fuels that actually use ethanol, have caused a supply shortage of ethanol, and at some points ethanol price has been so high that no longer it was worthy to fill the tank with ethanol. Lately, ethanol has been imported from the US and the government recently reduced the mandatory ethanol blend in gasoline from 25% to 18%

By: JJJ

JJJ — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 23:26:19 +0000

Andreas, sugar cane does not grow in the amazon region. Blame vegetarians and their love of soy for deforestation.

By: Max Reid

Max Reid — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:25:52 +0000

Yikebike – This is easy to carry than Segway and is lot cheaper with Aluminium model.

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/70762574/

By: Max Reid

Max Reid — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:21:22 +0000

@Andreas
World already has enough food that there are many obese people. Read the BP Energy Stats, bio-fuels have contributed 0.5% of the Worlds energy and this is a lot, without this, Oil prices will be staying at $ 150 / barrel.

And dont believe the oil prices as told in US. Its $118 in London which is the benchmark for 70% of the Worlds crude.
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/futures/

Meanwhile for those who believe that Canada has lots of oil, please read this. All those Oil is in the form of Bitumen & Tar which has to be converted to Motor fuels by adding a lot of Hydrogen which is an energy intensive process.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303763404576418120173841168.html?mod=WSJ_article_forsub