Will it happen?

The Ford F-series, which is among the best selling Ford vehicles on the road, can tow up about 24,000 pounds. But do you think this is tough enough to handle the tremendous increase in fuel prices? Yes, it is predicted that the entire universe will suffer from in oil price hike. According to Mr. Goldman Sachs of Investment back, the oil could rise to an unprecedented $200 per barrel for the next six moths this year. This report was issued by the veteran oil analyst named Arjun Murti, who is the managing director of Goldman Sachs. Mr. Murti is famous has been known for correctly predicting that the oil would jump to $105 per barrel back in 2005 when the barrel of oil only costs $50. For the first time, in January 2008, the oil broke the century had hit the price of $122 per barrel. This is an all-time record that happened after his prediction. No doubt, a continuous oil price increase would make his prediction into reality.

Mr. Murti added that the reason for such is the basic economics that rapidly running up in prices. Countries that continue to grow faster like China will be discovered and developed as one of the new fuel sources. A drop in demand of consumers from the United States because of financial pain of $100-plus fill ups of full size trucks does not offset the larger demand that was created by the increasing numbers of drivers that are being known in the market. The idea of the Chinese government of subsidizing the fuel costs will not help the problem of the universe; instead, it will only encourage the market to drive their country.

Today, the effect is starting to affect the economic world. In fact, it already has dramatically chilled the sales of bigger size vehicles or the pick-ups. For regular gas that is currently available at $3.61 per gallon and diesel at $4.24 per gallon, the segment is tracking to fall from 2.5 million units three years ago to about 1.9 million units in 2008. However, according to the latest Goldman Sachs, the prices of fuel could continue to rise for about $6 per gallon. Hence, pick-up sales will be devastated to under a million units. Production of cutbacks in a short term then could turn into long-term factory closures when manufacturers fight back to reconciling the output with a new level of demand. Smaller size trucks are now being avoided by consumers because manufacturers are spending new product dollars to upgrade in half tons and heavy

During these days, larger vehicles are being avoided by consumers because manufacturers spent new product dollars upgrading half-tons and heavy-dutys, stand ready to make a big comeback. But there are about 500,000 compact pickups sold last year. During 80’s and 90’s there were about 1.1 million units sold. Before, the Ford Ranger are sold up to 12.3% year-to-date through April, and last month the Toyota Tacoma has moved back into the number five sales slot among the top ten selling pickups, ahead of slowing sales of the Toyota Tundra. Because of this, there is greater opportunity in the U.S. for very small diesel trucks, just like the Europe's Romanian-built Dacia Logan to fill in the empty space that was left behind by the heavy duty and half-ton pickups that was lost in the market sale. The Logan, which uses a four-cylinder 1.6-liter diesel engine can haul up to 1,763 lbs and can increase fuel economy of 29 mpg. However, as the price of oil reach $200 per barrel, the Logan may never be able to do this.