Fuel for Thought Essay

1. Americans are known for their long-term love affair with their cars. But as gasoline prices soar and concern about the environment mounts, the standard of living by ordinary people on a daily basis also become difficult; the need to conserve gasoline has become increasingly clear. What would it take to reduce the overall demand for gasoline in the United States most especially as we see it now?

Three quarters of emissions in 2004 were coming from road traffic (Woodcock, p.1930, 2009). Emissions used from transportation are forecasted to increase from the year 2007-2030 by about 80% according to studies done by James Woodcock who is currently studying climate change and health from car fuels (Woodcock, p.1930, 2009). This is due to the fact that the emissions from vehicles are increasing significantly and are higher than any other energy fragment (Woodcock, p.1930, 2009). The only way to lower this percentage is to decrease the number of individual automobiles on the road and increase the number of public transit systems, starting long distance walking to work or school, carpooling or even biking to destinations. These principles would

For years environmentalists have been screaming about going green, recycling and reusing products, and so forth. So the idea of our vehicles using alternative fuel sources would be a welcomed change. With the dozen of vehicles and fuel sources being introduced, it is now a possibility to add alternative fuel vehicles to our rental car fleet. Through this presentation, gasoline and alternative fuel vehicles will be fully outlined; the history, the sources of fuel, and consumer incentives will all be explained.

Claim: “The U.S. should return to the 55- mph speed limit in order to conserve fuel and save lives”

First, the foremost issues at hand are currency and opportunity. Currency and the overwhelming desire for more are the pivotal driving factors in a gasoline and diesel industry. The government receives too much money from these industries to make the adjustments that are necessary. Unfortunately, the government does merely enough to get by. However, Americans need to analyze the opportunities at hand. In the text "Brief Principles of Macroeconomics," author Gregory Mankiw tells us that, " the opportunity cost of an item is what you give up to get that

Cars, just about every household in America has probably at least two parked in their driveway at any given time. The dependency on the gas powered car has substantially increased since it’s invention and production back in 1908 by the Ford Motor Company. As of 2014, it was estimated that there were over 88 million cars produced world-wide and growing every day. (Fig. 1) Even though a lot of these vehicles might be the new Hybrid edition, the majority of them have a dependency on oil and gasoline products for their survival and existence. Petroleum products, such as oil and gasoline do not come cheap or even free to the consumer, even the

90) Since 2004 the demand for gasoline has been constant and the price of gasoline has continued to rise, causing gasoline expenditures to rise astronomically. However, given that an acceptable substitute for gasoline does not exist, consumers are unable to cutback on the amount of gasoline being consumed. The article suggests that some reasons for consumers’ inability or unwillingness to cutback on the consumption of gasoline are long commutes, the use of vehicles which are not fuel efficient and a lack of alternative solutions such as carpooling and public transit options. The law of supply also suggests that if a firm cuts back on the amount of a good being supplied, the cost of cutting back outweighs the cost of continuing the supply.

In recent years, major cities across the globe have developed innovative new methods of transportation that could revolutionize the way humans travel and ultimately replace automobiles throughout the industrialized world. Many supporters of this movement believe restricting the use of cars will have a positive impact on society as a whole. Some people believe that taking away automobiles is preposterous given the gravity of which citizens depend on them; although true, replacing cars would have significant benefits throughout society that would outweigh this consequence and ultimately create a new global social order. Restricting cars in cities and encouraging alternate methods of transportation would reduce humans’ carbon footprint, make cities

According to Charles Amann who was retiree of General Motor (GM), weak performing vehicle does not sell to consumers because of its choice of engines. I believe that that this argument is weak because consumers as of today are prioritize fuel economy vehicles because of gas prices gone up and advance technology is becoming more powerful. For example, good fuel economy engine is yet still powerful as regular old standard engine. Technology has change more advance than ever. I think they don’t realize that people will start buying cars that meets CAFE standards once they start to develop more fuel economy engines. There is one persuasive argument and I believe is more convincing. The more higher efficiency a car the more expensive the car will be is not so convincing, however, decreasing the cost of oil change and decreasing the cost of maintain is convincing to buyers because that will help them save money for long term and newer cars are becoming more advance for less

5) The two ways to curb fuel consumption is to either increase the fuel tax or to put miles per gallon standards on vehicle manufacturers. But if the increase in fuel tax fails to curb the consumption, vehicle

Environmental concerns have been raised from time to time because of the dependency on the gasoline-fueled engine as the chief auto powertrain technology. This has resulted in exposing many automobile users to unpredictable prices of fuel. These issues were, however, the reason for

17. Are we ahead of – or behind - China in regard to vehicle fuel efficiency?

With billions of dollars invested and hundreds of thousands of Americans employed (Department of Commerce, n.d.), the automobile industry has a vast influence in the United States. Since the time Henry Ford developed the assembly line production (Statista, n.d.) the industry has grown into a global market with no signs of slowing down. Top car companies are constantly searching for new innovations to set them apart from their competitors. Among those companies is Volkswagen (VW). A company which strides in emissions and fuel efficiency turned, not only to be false, but caused a severe amount of damage (Ewing, 2016).

The natural environment such as our main natural resource for fueling our vehicles, oil, has aided in the increased sales of the Toyota Prius. Since gas prices increased in 2008, a fuel efficient car such as the Prius is economically and environmentally friendly. Toyota created the hybrid that “combines a gas engine with an electric motor” using less gas than the usual sedan. (Kotler & Armstrong, Principles of Marketing, 2010)

The US consumed 142 billion gallons of gasoline in 2007 and the tax applied on it is 18. 4 cents on one gallon. All around the US, there are around 162,000 retail gasoline outlets. With the price of crude oil hovering around $100 a barrel, it is no wonder that concern is growing about the gas prices being so high. After all, modern economies are kept moving by this lifeblood. For instance, in the United States alone personal vehicles consume more than 140 billion gallons of diesel fuel and gasoline per year.However, there are several factors that contribute to the gas prices being so high. Given below are a few of them. Increasing Demand for Oil One of the main catalysts for the incessant rise in gas prices has been one of the most