Tony Harding wrote:
> jim beam wrote:
>> Tegger wrote:
>>> wrote in
>>> :
>>>> On Jan 29, 7:05 pm, Grumpy AuContraire >
>>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> i drive industrial vehicles at work and i realise that most of the
>>>> engines in these vehicles are diesel-powered, oil-cooled, no
>>>> computers, compact in size and yet puts out decent power with good
>>>> fuel efficiency, they can take a good abuse and yet requires virtually
>>>> no maintenance, other than scheduled oil and filter changes...
>>>
>>> And none but the barest governmental diktats.
>>>
>>>
>>>> corporate america knows what's best for them.. but us consumers are
>>>> f*cked... haha
>>>
>>> "Corporate America" had cars getting ever /simpler/ for the consumer
>>> over the decades.
>>> It's the government that's to blame for complexity, specifically the
>>> EPA and NHTSA. You can call what they do good, bad or indifferent,
>>> but it is undeniable that their mandates have introduced enormous and
>>> hugely expensive complication into cars.
>>
>> a lot of this "complication" is not that expensive. well, it is at
>> the consumer end, but not for the manufacturers. at their kind of
>> volume levels, a complete fuel injection package, with catalyst and
>> all sensors, is probably less than $500. that's not exactly a
>> significant burden on a vehicle retailing for over $15k.
>
> Guess again, Detroit's cost to produce an entire V8 engine was $150 in
> the late 60's/early 70's (I'm remembering this from an old Car & Driver
> article), so $500 just for the FI system is decidedly non trivial.

that might be a useful comparison if you used this century's money
values, not last.