Honda should cancel production of any upcoming "supercar"

liftshard

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Gas prices are going up, up, up and never coming back down again.

At these rates, the very tenability of a V8 engine is in question, nevermind a mega-hp V10.

This engine, if produced, has no utility to Honda beyond a supercar plant. As such, it would be a huge waste of money for a car that will be limited production and doomed to repeat the sales failures of the NSX even in a best-case market environment.

As gas prices crest $3/gal and head towards $4, people will be dumping SUVs and the guzzler luxo cars in droves. Those who think they won't are foolish. B/c, when asked, people can always say, "well, I HAD a BMW but I decided to trade it in..." Everyone can "had" something which is almost as good as havING it.

Sorry, but we're headed back to the days of the early CVCC and that style of automobile. Mega-hp, wasty vehicles are going to become rarer, not more common. The trend will be toward smaller engines.

In that regard, I think that a 3.5L plant from Honda w/ IMA in a "supercar" is a great idea. They could get the jump on this entire niche. When paying a ton of $$ for a fast car that gets 18mpg isn't something people are doing anymore, offering them the fast car w/ 30mpg starts to become a good seller.

People don't really think that rationally. I KNOW people who drive 911s who put 87 in those b!tches b/c they are trying to cheap and save on gas. And, the way the mass market appetite sloshes from extreme to extreme makes this type of strategic plan workable. The collective mindset will go toward "omg, I MUST save on gas" and ppl who spring for $90k AMG MBs and whatnot are going to irrationally pay overattention to the EPA rating.

This is what happened the last time gas prices were an issue, back in the early 70s. The market sloshed COMPLETELY in one direction, helped by emissions standards (which California is ramming down the nation's throat as we speak), from wasty, high performance cars to very gas-stingy vehicles. The V8 all but disappeared, as did American car companies.

Think about it...the NSX was removed from the marketplace partially because of inability to meet future emissions regs. You add these regs, which are only going to get WORSE, to the intrinsic price of fuel, and you have a recipe for disaster for anyone in the high-p and big-engine space. We got national 55mph for conservation and we'll get emissions regs for the same purposes. They'll say "oh, it's for safety" or for "cleaner air" but it'll be to inherently rule out large numbers of cars that consume lots of gas to produce high HP. You slap a non-SULEV waste tax on nonconforming vehicles and you see how many people flock away from them. If Uncle Sam was willing to ram a national speed limit down everyone's throat, he'll do the same with emissions regs.
 
I think people that can afford the new nsx don't worry much about gas prices. And I doubt people who buy hummers, lambo's, or ferrari's care about fuel efficency. Just my 2 cent.
 
Ive never looked at the price of gas ever! Its just one of those things I could care less about. Im the same way with food! You cant drive without gas and you can live without food... what are you goin' do :biggrin:
 
i tend to not look either.. it just pisses me off. but what can you do? you need it so you gotta pay for it
 
I use 86 octane and water it down,car runs alittle funny but hay!I hear the next v10 will have variable cylinder engagement it will usualy run on 2 cylinders with performance on par with most mopeds(60mpg),but floor it and look out! :tongue: :rolleyes:
 
BRIDGEWATER ACURA said:
Ive never looked at the price of gas ever! Its just one of those things I could care less about. Im the same way with food! You cant drive without gas and you can live without food... what are you goin' do :biggrin:

Uh...buy a more fuel-efficient car?

The last time gas prices became an issue, high performance cars virtually disappeared.

You combine these prices with some sort of recession...forget it. Making a supercar with today's issues in play makes no sense.

And, yeah, people can "afford" the gas. But, they don't want to. As I said before, they don't think rationally like that. People could afford the gas in 1974, but they decided not to afford it on a big Dodge guzzler and instead buy a fuel-efficient Honda
 
The world of today is far too wealthy to allow this to stop their spending habits on playthings. Every day cars and trucks, yes. Weekend and status symbol vehicles, no. When you do not sell more than 5000-10000 (or less) WORLDWIDE, then this is of little matter.

What killed the big engines in the eighties was the government regulations (CAFE), and the fact that fuel prices were higher per purchasing dollar than today. Add the past few years of double digit inflation and a gut wrenching recession, and that period is nothing like today, thankfully.
 
I also think that people that spend $100K on a car do not care about gas prices. Look at the fuel economy on every supercar or high-end sports car. They SUCK. The only reasonable one is the Corvette. I do think people that spend $50K on that car probably do care about gas prices.
 
Think about it...the NSX was removed from the marketplace partially because of inability to meet future emissions regs.

I thought the nsx was a ultra low emissions vehicle?

People complain about gas prices going up when they are on their way to starbucks for a caramel frappachino @ 4.69 a pop. :rolleyes:




linh
 
Anyone here buy bottled water??
How much is that per gallon??
I agree, if you can afford to purchase a $90,000 plus car, the price of gas, tires, wheels, shocks, insurance does not matter.
 
^ Agree. Put it in perspective with hard numbers. Say a gas-guzzling sports car driven the average 5k miles per year is getting a whopping 12 mpg instead of 20. That's an extra 166 gallons a year. Even at $4/gallon, you're talking about $650 a year. Depreciation alone is typically 5-10 times that amount for $80-150K cars. Not to say that $650 isn't a lot of money to some people, but to the people who drop $80K for a new NSX (or up to $250K for a new Lambo etc.), it represents a fractional increase in the annual operating cost.

That said, I do think that SUV's will decline in popularity since they are driven a lot more than 5k miles per year and in trends and demographics, money does talk.

I hope Honda doesn't make the collosal mistake of sabotaging the next NSX's performance purely for the sake of fuel economy.
 
liftshard said:
Gas prices are going up, up, up and never coming back down again......

People don't really think that rationally.

You are correct in that last remark, including yourself!! Just by what you said in your first sentence your not thinking rationally. Gas prices may go up to $100/barrel but they will go back down again. Everything happens in cycles including economics and commodities...and yes that includes Crude. You talked about how prices skyrocketed in the 70's but you didnt talk about how CHEAP it was not too long ago when the price of crude bottomed. People thought just like you in the 70's thinking the price of gas would never go back down......but it did!

And i seriously doubt that those who had Lamborgini's and Ferrari's in the 70's
thought too much about trading those in for pinto's and gremlins because of better fuel economy. Those that can afford supercars can afford the upkeep.
 
CokerRat said:
^ Agree. Put it in perspective with hard numbers. Say a gas-guzzling sports car driven the average 5k miles per year is getting a whopping 12 mpg instead of 20. That's an extra 166 gallons a year. Even at $4/gallon, you're talking about $650 a year. Depreciation alone is typically 5-10 times that amount for $80-150K cars. Not to say that $650 isn't a lot of money to some people, but to the people who drop $80K for a new NSX (or up to $250K for a new Lambo etc.), it represents a fractional increase in the annual operating cost.

That said, I do think that SUV's will decline in popularity since they are driven a lot more than 5k miles per year and in trends and demographics, money does talk.

I hope Honda doesn't make the collosal mistake of sabotaging the next NSX's performance purely for the sake of fuel economy.


With displacement on demand technology, I would bet that the V10 will be able to run on 5 cylinders and provide very good fuel economy for highway driving.

They could also do what BMW has done with the M5 and only have it run at Max power when you push a button.
 
A bottle of beer that cost only $2.25 in Erie PA, cost me $3.50 last Friday night in Dallas TX.
Cost of living Holmes.
I still drink beer- maybe even a little too much beer.

I want to live in Dallas instead of Erie- so that is the premium.

I paid $2.75 a gallon for gas that used to cost me $1.10 in 1995

I will still use gas, maybe even a little too much gas since I like cars with some power in the engine.. just gonna have to bite the bullet for a minute, and loosen the purse strings... That is the premium for having something happen when I put my right foot down.

Gas prices are going up up up and never coming back down?

Pessimist! The tank is half FULL!

Yes, the price of gas is at a premium right now- but that doesn't mean the internal combustion world is coming to an end. Oil is a dynamic market, affected by many many many factors that drive pricing in both directions.
Oil prices are based on the projected demand for the available supply
As demand for the existing supply fluctuates, so will pricing.
As supply for the existing demand fluctuates so will pricing.
Right now we are in large demand of a temporarily diminished supply- many factors for this including unrest along the supply line , and diminished refining capabilities due to refinery explosions are directly responsible- to name just a few of the contributing factors.

This is all "unfortunate circumstance", but it will right itself- just like it did in the 70's

Funny how fuel costs have been rising for years, but the market for H2's and Escalades has continuesd to flourish!

Prices have never been so high, but then neither has demand!

I will worry when we are all roving the highways cutting each others throats for the contents of our gas tanks like MadMax, but until then-

This is just the ebb and flow of the petroleum tide.

The sky is not falling, and the Segway is still too F'ing slow to commute to work on.

I would like to see more development on hybrid technology for the performance minded though...

Philip
 
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As previously stated, for cars in the $70-$100k range, i do believe that the target market doesnt really care what gas prices are.

Besides, a flagship care usually isnt meant to be sold in mass quantities anyway, take the Ford GT, they dont want to sell that many, it keeps the exclusivity high and does not water down the brand. :biggrin:

Truth be told the wealthy dont feel such fluctuations

btw i'm poor :biggrin: so it does suck, but i'd rather buy less Jaeger bombers on nights I go out than not put gas in my car :biggrin:
I simply make the trade off somewhere else =)
 
People already pay well over $4 a gallon for gas in Europe and have forever... There are PLENTY of supercars over there. Ferrari's still sold, and always have, making 8mpg.

Unless we are ever talking 7-8 bucks a gallon, an extra $1000 a year in gas because of the increases isn't going to affect the guy who walks into the dealer and writes a check for $100,000 for his car.
 
My Hummer H1 gets 14mpg, my 03 Disco gets 12mpg, my NSX gets 21mpg, my BMW gets 28mpg. I drive the disco the most b/c I like it, not b/c of the gas mileage.
The buyers of the next nsx or any supercar for that matter will not care what the fuel efficiency is. It will probably not even be listed on the window sticker. I am already saving my pennies :biggrin:
 
Maybe it'll be a hybrid V10. Would be a better production car for those who want to save a 3-$5 dollars a tank? :eek:
But probably not.
 
I personally loved the idea of the Hybrid V6 supercar. That is the kind of progressive thinking that makes Honda better than the rest. A V6 based on the current 3.5 RL + IMA would be a sweet package. I know that the track rats hate the idea, but for a driver it's awesome. I also think that tuned properly, it could even work on the track.
 
NemesisX said:
You are correct in that last remark, including yourself!! Just by what you said in your first sentence your not thinking rationally. Gas prices may go up to $100/barrel but they will go back down again. Everything happens in cycles including economics and commodities...and yes that includes Crude. You talked about how prices skyrocketed in the 70's but you didnt talk about how CHEAP it was not too long ago when the price of crude bottomed. People thought just like you in the 70's thinking the price of gas would never go back down......but it did!

And i seriously doubt that those who had Lamborgini's and Ferrari's in the 70's
thought too much about trading those in for pinto's and gremlins because of better fuel economy. Those that can afford supercars can afford the upkeep.

Uh...Lamborghini went bankrupt. Porsche was on immensely hard times and Ferrari was barely hanging on.

What are you people talking about?

Gas prices are NOT going down. Those who insist these are cyclical are simply not paying attention to the intrinsic reasons WHY prices are rising. Gas may fluctuate within a range, but the pricing movement is going to always be upward. A little refinery capacity here, a little there, makes no difference. You want to know WHY no company has invested in a new refinery here in so long? And, why oil companies aren't investing in additional tanker capacity?? It's because THEY know that there will be no additional oil in the future to refine! There's about as much now as there'll ever be. Perhaps world supply will peak at 90mbpd, maybe 100, or maybe it's topped out right now in the mid 80s. Who knows? Either way, it ain't gonna make a helluva lot of difference.

Someone writes here: "Yes, the price of gas is at a premium right now- but that doesn't mean the internal combustion world is coming to an end. Oil is a dynamic market, affected by many many many factors that drive pricing in both directions.
Oil prices are based on the projected demand for the available supply
As demand for the existing supply fluctuates, so will pricing.
As supply for the existing demand fluctuates so will pricing.
Right now we are in large demand of a temporarily diminished supply- many factors for this including unrest along the supply line , and diminished refining capabilities due to refinery explosions are directly responsible- to name just a few of the contributing factors.

This is all "unfortunate circumstance", but it will right itself- just like it did in the 70's"

Oil SUPPLY will be decreasing within a decade. That is the major DIFFERENCE between now and the 1970s. In the 1970s, there was no such issue. In the USA, there was. WE hit peak. WE became a net importer. This is HOW the Arabs could embargo us because WE surprisedly needed to import oil when we had never done so before.

There IS NO upcoming supply increase. There are no new major finds and haven't been any for 20 years. We need another couple of Ghawars just to meet projected demand by the end of the decade. And, all the extra drilling in the world will make no difference. Even a modicum of research, which I wish everyone would do, shows that even during the high years of the Raygun wildcatting tax credits, the extra drilling produced no significant extra oil supply.

People already pay well over $4 a gallon for gas in Europe and have forever... There are PLENTY of supercars over there. Ferrari's still sold, and always have, making 8mpg.

Ferrari sells most of its cars, BY FAR, in the NA market. In Europe, there's room for probably ONE "supercar" maker. Europeans, by and large, drive FAR smaller and more fuel efficient cars than we. Ferrari's car volumes skyrocketed in the 1990s. The glut of oil back that, due partly to the Iran/Iraq war, made burning tons of gas for high HP a doable proposition.

My Hummer H1 gets 14mpg, my 03 Disco gets 12mpg, my NSX gets 21mpg, my BMW gets 28mpg. I drive the disco the most b/c I like it, not b/c of the gas mileage.
The buyers of the next nsx or any supercar for that matter will not care what the fuel efficiency is. It will probably not even be listed on the window sticker. I am already saving my pennies

Oh, this is just idiotic. The models won't be available because there will be downward performance pressure across the entire industry. You get to drive incredibly inefficient vehicles right now, but without a LOT of people just like you, willing to overspend on elective transportation, carmakers cannot make these wasteful models.

WTF. You mean to tell me that NOBODY in the 1970s in the USA could afford to pay for the extra performance and emissions?? Lots of people could have, and WANTED said cars. There was a lot of demand for them.

As for Honda, the NSX was a sales failure, end of story. Recently, there has been so much movement into this supercar niche that it's ridiculous. These models don't sustain manufacturers. In HARDER economic times, which is what gas price rises will give us, makers like Lamborghini and even Porsche GO BANKRUPT.

If you read this thred http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55446 you will see that liftshard seems to think he has the oil industry all figured out and we are all just fools in comparison to his oil market wisdom.

Don't be a d!ck, man. In this particular issue, I am 100% correct. Peak Oil WILL happen. When it does, the inevitability of price rises is inexorable. Even static demand against declining supply means a rise in price. And, in intrinsic conditions such as these, mass markets SLOSH. This is why so many high-p cars in the 1970s died out. The USA instituted STRICTER emissions and speed limits to FORCE lower fuel consumption.

They didn't give a sh!t about air quality in 1970 anymore than they cared about safety with the national 55mph rule. The whole point of all of them was to FORCE higher fuel efficiency. And, in doing so, they decapitated the entire performance car pyramid and forced everyone to square zero.

When confronted with World Peak Oil, the USA will do the same thing which WORKED in the past and that is to enact emissions regs which will force manufacturers to GUT performance.

GM, Ford, and Chrysler would have LOVED to have maintained their high HP levels in the 1970s, assuming they could have met the emissions stds. The ONLY way they could meet the emissions stds was to LOWER performance on the same engines. And, that meant consuming way less fuel...which was the ENTIRE point of the regs in the first place.

If emissions REALLY were a concern, we'd not have smog blankets over many of our major cities, Wash DC where I reside, being one of them. A government HONESTLY concerned about emissions would have not permitted the light truck smog loophole to continue to this day. The bottom line is that they really don't care so much about air quality. What the 70s rules were about, smog and speed limits, were CONSERVATION. FORCED conservation.

And, that is what we'll get again. In doing so, NOBODY out there is going to shed a single TEAR if your precious Ferrari is no longer smog legal. EVERYONE will be forced to reduce performance to spare fuel. So, most of the supercar makers will go out of business, the SUVs will be worthless scrap, and a savvy carmaker who has a car which can deliver high-P and meet SSSSULEV guidelines will have the only game in town.

That's what I want Honda to do. The supercar train has already left the station and nobody wanted a Honda supercar to begin with. Honda should give us a car that has high performance but can meet imaginary California emissions guidelines for 5 years from now. Already, it's hard enough to meet these current guidelines and very few cars are even so certified to do so. Give a high performance car that meets them and you are rocking while smaller marques without robust hybrid technology are crawling.

The way to do this is not to waste money on an inefficient V10. It's to devote those R&D dollars to better hybrid drivetrains and power management systems. Nobody cares about the track and if the batteries go dead in 3 laps. A high-P, high-efficiency car would make Honda a ton of money. Yet another "groundbreaking" supercar will not.
 
I think I am going to change my user ID to "100% correct" :rolleyes:




There are many people here on this site waiting patiently for the new Honda super car to arrive and then you start a thred in the "second gen" section saying that Honda shouldn't build it? ...and you say I'm the Dick?
 
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hahaha holy crap! :biggrin:

this thread is too serious for me, you guys are scary :biggrin:
 
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