These Ford guys are the ones to compete with Asia, though the new Dodge Dart is a relatively nice ride.

One mini-micro-step that could have been taken 20+ years ago. Over 90% of the car body could be made with 50+% lighter composites and/or re-enforced plastics. Frames, Wheels, engines +++ could be made of much lighter aluminum alloys.

The average 3600 lbs car could be reduced to 1800 lbs.

Lighter electrified vehicles could go much further with same batteries.

Next phase would be to make most (46%) drivers and passengers 50% lighter?

The weight savings appear to compare to using aluminum.

The question is what is cheaper and more durable?

Houses, well built houses, last hundreds of years. Sure, there's ongoing maintenance and sometimes major repairs but that never is a severe as building a new house.

Might we move to the same model for cars? We need to working toward sustainability. Perhaps everything should be modular. Swap out parts and systems as needed. Offer new interior or exterior treatments when the old gets shabby.

Moving to non-corroding structural elements would possibly give us a permanent frame on which to quickly bolt everything else.

EVs are so simple. A new battery pack should be installable in less than an hour. Same for a new motor. A few bearings in the drive train and you've got a brand new propulsion system.

Interior looking ratty? In a few hours the old seats, side panels, carpets, etc. could be pulled out and a brand new look installed.

One car company (Smart?) has already played around with exchangeable body parts and the aftermarket is full of them.

Bob:
With automation coming to take an ever increasing role, but one which can't be fully deployed in one go, than I would imagine that we are in for one of the fastest changing times in car building, not slowing down.
That is aside from questions such as the electrification of cars, fuel cells, electric roads etc.

@ BW:

You are correct but our Big 3 were and still are masters of built-in obsolescence.

Big 3 cars turn into a pile or rust after 5 years (an often less) when driven over salted roads. A Toyota Camry (untreated) is still rust free after 15 years on the same roads. Big 3 A/C units fail regularly almost every year.

A Toyota Camry A/C worked 100% without maintenance for 15+ years. The list could go on for pages.

The above observations are not hearsay. We (and many others) have experienced it.

They couldn't do this 20 years ago (as Davemart sez) and Detroit did not intentionally build-in obsolescence and there was never a 150 mpg carburetor and the EV1 was not viable.

I have owned or worked on Rabbits, Audis, Fiats, and others that were as rust prone as any Detroit monster.

Some Volvos, MBs and others were long lived, at one time, but no more.

You want to show off your ability to throw good money after bad; try an imported luxury car (except from Japan).

Bob W makes a point, "EVs are so simple. A new battery pack should be installable in less than an hour. Same for a new motor. A few bearings in the drive train and you've got a brand new propulsion system..old seats, side panels, carpets, etc. could be pulled out and a brand new look installed."

If present EV range only covers 90% of trips, add a small ICE genset for the recharge to maintain an Interstate 70 mph.

The savings without 6+..speed ICE transmissions, less weight, constant/max efficiency ICE, if needed should make this possible.

Some sporting fun? Maybe some super capacitors for occasional 5 sec 0-60 mph.

Tweaked, in-scale - even present tech could economically offer this flexibility.

CA gas prices today are everyone's tomorrow.

Yes BW....vehicles are getting better, specially since the Big 3 lost their leading role. Too bad it didn't happen 40 years ago. The world may have had practical electrified vehicles 15 to 20 years ago. Yes, Toyota builds rugged long lasting, trouble free vehicles. We (and many millions) are living witnesses.

DM....we sell enough clean very low cost Hydro to Ontario to energize all the car factories established there and could sell 10X more if the market was there.

This is not done because the Coal, NG and Nuke lobbies will not allow it. This may change shortly due to the very high cost of older Ontario's CANDU Nuke sites re-conditioning and repairs (up to $6.5B per reactor-site or about the same as a new site) and going up every month. The cost of keeping the used fuel around for the next 300+ years is still an unknown.

After 25 years of operation, our only remaining CANDU Nuke site will be de-commissioned on 28 Dec 2012 due to high repair-maintenance cost and current excess lower cost hydro electricity.

Harvey D:
Most of us do not live in Ontario.

Dave - there's some bogus stuff going around re: hydro and decaying vegetation. It seems to have started based on a piece of research done on a very shallow lake in South America. A lot of acreage was covered by only a few feet of water and, obviously, the amount of CO2/methane from the rotting vegetation was high.

There have been ridiculous claims about dropping water levels during the summer allowing large amounts of vegetation to grow and then get covered when the winter rains start. One person even claimed that brush grew on the exposed banks. Banks that are exposed for only a few weeks per year.

Anyone who has been around reservoirs in the west knows that's bunk. Nothing much grows on the exposed banks. That's also true for the TVA lakes with which I have experience.

It is true that there could be releases over the first year or two with a new dam. But that could be minimized.

When a new dam was built in the Sierra foothills a few years back they opened up the area to be flooded and let people harvest firewood. Then, IIRC, they grazed the land down before flooding.

We don't need to leave vegetation to rot. There are alternatives.

A few extensive study revealed that most of the dead wood/vegetation and methane released in flooded areas faded out almost completely after 10 years. After that, it goes below pre-flooding levels. That's a very very short time for mother nature.

The effect on local animal life was extremely positive. Caribou's population in the adjacent areas went up almost 10x (from 17,000 to over 160,000) in less than 20 years after flooding. Many of those who predicted the extinction of local wild life were offered jobs as (commercial) Caribou hunters but they refused and preferred to let the Caribou die from over population.

The artificial lakes created are now full of trouts and salmons and have become fishermen's paradise.

The above good-positive news do not find there way on many front pages because they are reserved for bad news.