Why electric cars keep showing up at auto shows
Every automaker is working on an electric car, leading some to jump to the conclusion that, in a few years, the internal combustion engine will be obsolete. But since logic tells us that extrapolating trends without context is a classic fallacy, and since the “salience effect” tells us that the unusual is given extra weight in our minds, maybe we should take a closer look.
For every electric car at the Detroit Auto Show, I suspect there was at least one gas-powered car or truck being launched. What’s more, most of the electrics are not actual production cars, but concepts – like the Fiat 500 with a Chrysler electric motor. We know Chrysler, unlike some others, worked on setting up a “universal” electric system that can be put into a variety of cars, albeit without the full-fledged efficiency of the Chevrolet Volt, so powering a Fiat 500 with a motor is less of an achievement that one might think.
There are a few reasons why automakers are putting a lot of work into electricity, and one major reason is patents. Sometimes, it pays to be late to the party; the early birds, like Chrysler with the Airflow and Nash with the Metropolitan, may be too early for public acceptance (or too rough, as the bugs haven’t been worked out – like the 1958 Electrojectors, 1989 UltraDrive, and for that matter the original Rio MP3 player vs the iPod). But at other times, those who are late have precious little to call their own. Just ask anyone building a hybrid today whether they’re paying fees to Toyota – whose basic hybrid design seems to have been transplanted into Ford’s Escape and Fusion.
So one key issue is patents for electric cars. Whoever collects the most critical patents for the most effective design will get licensing fees from the others.
Another key issue is public perception. When gas prices shoot up again – as they will when the economy recovers – the public will go not to the makers of the most efficient cars and such, but to the makers of the ones they think are most efficient. That means, for example, that if Chrysler continues to be seen as the makers of inefficient big vehicles, the public will flock to Honda and Toyota for minivans that don’t match the mileage of Chrysler and Dodge mileage. Perception is everything; facts are important only insofar as they alter perception.
Ford has made great strides in changing the average consumer’s thoughts. They have always been good at that; lots of people think Ford is a center of innovation, Henry Ford was a good employer, and Ford cares about safety. The new campaign putting the Fusion up as the most efficient mid-sized sedan is a good example – it beats the Camry hybrid, but, you may notice, doesn’t come close to the similarly sized Prius. That’s because Prius is a hatchback – not a sedan. The public can’t be expected to remember the difference. That’s good marketing!
So electrics are part of the puzzle. If Dodge is associated with electric cars instead of big pickups, which are now Rams, then when gas prices rise, Dodge sales will rise. As it stood two years ago, when gas prices rose, Dodge sales fell, because Dodge was the Big Truck brand.
Long term, of course, electric cars hold a lot of promises for some people – mainly city drivers, the same people who value the Smart not because of its efficiency, but because it fits into tiny parking spaces. Let’s face it, the Smart isn’t so smart for anyone who doesn’t have parking problems; it costs almost as much as the Corolla whose gas mileage is roughly the same, but whose safety is far, far, far higher. In the city, safety is less important than parking; how often do people drive faster than 40 mph in New York City? (Detroiters can be forgiven for not understanding what a typical city is like. Hint — it doesn’t have perfect grids of 50 mph roads where people drive 70 mph.)
Those who don’t live near a city may wonder what kind of market cities are. After all, very little of the country is city. That’s true, but a great deal of our population does live in cities. That’s why election maps can show huge swaths of red and tiny swaths of blue, and blue wins. It’s not the span of miles, it’s the number of people. That’s true for cars, too — though, admittedly, a lot of city folk don’t own cars. Would you, if insurance was crazy-priced, you had to either move your car across the street every day or garage it, and driving anywhere took far longer than hopping on the bus/train?
In the city, electrics make lots of sense, for the same reason that hybrids make sense in cities. You stop, you go. You stop, you wait. You crawl. High top speeds are unimportant; 80 mph is more than enough (indeed, 70 mph is more than enough). Now, a gas powered car will expend fuel while you wait; and when you stop, it’s gone. A hybrid or electric just sits there, possibly running the heater or a super-efficient a/c unit, and when you stop, it recaptures around 50% to 80% of the energy. Electrics aren’t meant for the wide open spaces, but for the cities, and for the stop and go behavior of mail trucks and such (which is one reason why some milk trucks in England were electrified at least into the early 1970s – I could be wrong on the date). For country dwellers and some suburbanites, we have biodiesel as the “green” fuel. Or alcohol – not ethanol but sugar alcohol, like they use in parts of South America.
Electric cars are also seen have a constituency of people who really, really, really want them to succeed. I’m not talking about environmentalists; they have little power, despite what the ideologues tell you. (Just as one example, during eight years of the supposedly green-friendly Clinton administration, they couldn’t manage a single gas mileage hike). No, it’s the electric utilities. People with money make the policies; we have ethanol because Archer Daniels Midland has corn, we don’t have biodiesel because Archer Daniels Midland has corn, and we have electric cars in the future because utilities want them.
Why do utilities want electric cars, you may ask? After all, these are the guys who keep giving you incentives to use less power, not more. The answer is simple: capital utilization. Power plants are run at full tilt during the day, and they rest at night. How would you like to pay millions of dollars for a factory that’s used one third of the time? Oh, and don’t even talk about peaking plants, often environmentally unsound facilities that run a few days out of the year. Yet, they need to pay people all year round to maintain the things and man them when the time comes. Gak. It’s like having Sterling Heights running five days out of the year in case we suddenly need more Sebrings. You wouldn’t want that, would you?
So power utilities love the idea of anything that can use power at night. That’s found money, to the tune of millions of dollars a year for any given utility. What’s more, if they could run power plants all year round, day and night, they could build more of them and forget about that energy conservation stuff. That would yield an overall increase in power use, which is one reason some people aren’t enthusiastic about electric cars. Then again, maybe nuclear plants would suddenly become fiscally responsible. I wonder if the nuclear folk are behind electric cars for that reason? Because now, no utility will build a nuclear plant unless the government guarantees them a profit. (Seriously. In fact, the nuclear people have been offered more loan guarantees than the auto industry, and they still won’t build. Which should tell you something, since they’ll happily build coal plants over environmentalist objections.)
So will you see a flood of electric cars? Maybe, if you live in a city, where they make sense. Your local power company is rooting for them and your automaker doesn’t want to be left behind; that means a lot more than the collective will of Sierra, Greenpeace, and whatever else is out there. Maybe electrics will always remain a tiny niche vehicle; maybe they’ll someday account for half of vehicles sold (I doubt they’ll ever get over 20%). Either way, that adds up to a lot of vehicles worldwide, and nobody wants to be left behind.
And, again — regardless of whether a company actually builds electric cars, they want the credit for building them. So don’t take the car shows seriously — what matters is what ends up in the showroom. If showing pretty cars was all anyone needed, Tesla would be a household name.
My wife’s family lives near the Villages in central Florida. There is an infrastructure there built to accommodate Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEV). Chrysler is quite successful in the NEV market through its Global Electric Motorcars (GEM) unit. Many of the Villages’ residents still use a regular car for travel beyond the town. NEVs have limited range and top speed. They can’t be used on a major highway or where the speed limit is greater than 35mph. The electric Fiat 500 makes a lot of sense as a step up from a NEV. There should be a logical step up from these vehicles.
There is a downside. Fiat manufactures and markets a fully electric car in South America. It costs around $70,000 US Dollars. Will people accept something beyond a NEV but less than a Volt for less money?
I am not sure that we have exhausted all the potential of carbon based fuel vehicles as yet. It seems that new ideas are being constantly introduced for advancement of gasoline/diesel burning piston powered units. Perhaps Mr. Sheaves would have some say in this, as I can’t make any claim to an engineering prowness like he has. Currently, even the latest developments in electric cars is limited in a lot of ways. Costs, endurance, battery life, speeds, carrying capacity and other things I can not bring to mind right off the top of my head. There would have to be a whole lot more development in them than we have seen so far to meet the current crop of cars out there that burn fuel. I have heard a suggestion that like the connectionless charger offered by some new electronic devices, that perhaps we could run wires through the highways and sensors would charge vehicle batteries through them, negating the need to have to stop to recharge. Not too far fetched an idea, when you consider that just placing a device on this pad charges it without any wires.
Some of these are issues that can’t be addressed easily (barring the connectionless charger, and of course automated battery pack replacement stations) and that’s why I figure electric cars will be part of the puzzle but not the whole game, and I think most players would agree.
The mass media seem to have problems with complex ideas, like gas, biodiesel, diesel, and electric all running on the same roads perhaps with CNG and fuel cells as well.
In the early days, there were electric cars, steamers, and gasoliners all on the same roads.
Dave, I have to agree with you. There isn’t one, single correct solution. There are many little solutions which can all add up. The hardest challenge with solving problems in our nation isn’t technology or a lack of it. There is a lack of trust to reach out beyond the current political polarization. It is not just between the two major political parties, although much of it starts there. One would think that those who are concerned about climate change can find common ground with people concerned about energy security. But it doesn’t happen as both camps hunker down behind slogans and catch phrases. Very few people outside the New Urbanists want to acknowledge this nation’s run away urban sprawl has a lot to do with our environmental and energy problems. Our government is more concerned on continuing subsidizing the practices which continue the sprawl. The automobile is the scapegoat. It could be one reason GM and Chrysler were bailed out is a vast majority of the nation is automobile dependent. If driving costs become too prohibitive, social chaos would occur.
100% agree.
Though honestly, I agree with the conservatives’ solution on this sort of thing, though the fake conservatives who have political power and the radio waves have run away from it — namely, charge people the real costs and let the market take care of the rest.
All road costs and fuel costs — in fuel taxes. All waste costs — in the up front cost of the product (Europe’s been doing this in some areas). If computers and fluorescent bulbs are costing our towns and counties and what-have-you billions a year, then pay for it up front. Ditto cheap Chinacrap.
This would also increase domestic employment as people would pay more for quality AND would pay for repairs instead of tossing stuff into the trash, with collection and disposal paid for by everyone.
You know what I miss, by the way? Reusable soda bottles. It always tasted better out of glass. We had them in Charlottesville until the Coke and Pepsi bottlers switched. Nobody wanted them to, but they didn’t ask us…
You are both addressing the issues of government involvement in anything, and now, government is involved in EVERYTHING! The biggest challenge is to get the US Senate to stop legislating for itself and focus on the people, like it used to be and do. Forcing industries, and subsequently individuals to “comply” with rules, regulations, laws, and the total costs of doing that compliance is well documented, but remains a sort of “hidden” means in prices. Dave pans the loss of glass bottled soda drinks, yet the costs associated with those bottles are what drove them out of the market. Handling alone, keeping them sterile, for a start, for re-use puts the plastic bottle way ahead of the final cost to the consumer. Yes, some folks would pay the difference to have glass bottles, but in a supermarket, where the stuff is side by side, the same soda would be sold by the lowest price, you can bet. The same with cars, gasoline, electric rates, and assorted other items that we, the consumers have to pay. I am not sure that I follow you about “up front” costs, especially when you mention Europe in the same sentence. Europe is expensive. You pay for what you get. I loved it there, make no mistake, and my son owns a house in the Netherlands, but you pay big time. Throw away stuff? In Europe you pay for your trash by the ounce! And they weigh your trash each time they pick it up and charge you for it. Gasoline, by the liter is 4 or 5 times more to buy than gasoline here. Yes, I know well the argument that it cuts consumption. I disagree. Driving all across the many countries of Europe, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany (WOW the AUTOBAHN-ZOOOOM) Traffic was more disciplined, and far more compliant but the traffic was just as terrific in any of their cities as it is in ours. As an aside, on the AUTOBAHN, no speed limits. We had rented a Citroen Station Wagon, about the size of a K-Car. It would cruise easily at 100 miles an hour, and often times, we were at that speed or a bit higher. We were SLOW! The German Police, when you did see them would roar by in their BMW 4 door sedans like you were nailed to the road! BUT, no accidents, no left lane bandits, no tail gating, period! There are signs of AMericn influence, with all the fast food restaurants dotting the landscape, and even some big supermarkets. The prices are correspondingly high. My son is able to shop at the American NATO base in Germany, which has a pretty big commissary, and the prices are kept in line with America. But, the true buying experience is to purchase your meals on a daily basis at the many mom and pop type shops (Europeans DO NOT see them as Mom and Pop Shops, but normal means of business!)in the small towns that dot the countryside. Of course, you bear the price to do this. But, everything is fresh, from garden vegetables to the home baked breads, sliced meats, cheese, and soft drinks. If that is the sort of experience you are advocating, then the income levels of this country would HAVE to come up, to meet a reasonable level of life. The same for vehicles and their purchase. That is probably one of the greatest reasons that unless there is a tremendous break through with eletric vehicles that overcomes all the fuel burners, then they will continue to remain a “devoleopmental” sort of vehicle.
The high prices are a separate issue and are related to how they pay for health care. We pay by taking out loans and by charging people or businesses for private policies. They pay through a value added tax. We could argue the merits of each, and they do both have merits, but it’s pointless.
Adam Smith saw a role for government in numerous instances because the market, left to its own, brings catastrophe. That’s why banks and food and medicine makers are all regulated. When they were not regulated, mattresses were the safest place to keep your money, food was often poisonous, and medicines could be anything from arsenic to placebos, with outlandish claims on all of them. There must be a balance.
I for one am not willing to go back to a time when you could not trust anything anyone said, numerous banks failed every 10-30 years, and medicine was as likely to be poison or highly addictive as it was to cure anything.
The conservative approach to environmental issues is to make sure that costs are distributed according to a rational plan, not an accident of history. Flat rates result in more use. When water meters are installed and people are charged by the gallon, as is slowly taking place in NYC, water use goes down. When people are charged by the pound or by the barrel for garbage, garbage use goes down. Unfortunately, so does illegal dumping, but that can be countered with stiff penalties and rigid enforcement.
You brought up numerous issues. The disposable bottles are cheaper, though I was told it was because the deposits on the glass bottles were too low to cover losses; and since they hadn’t changed in YEARS that was true. The real solution would have been stiffer deposits… like a quarter.
One major expense now is toxic waste. Well, if people can buy a hundred batteries for five bucks, and a computer for two hundred, what do we expect? The conservative solution is to build the true economic cost of disposal into the cost of ownership, not to spread it out among everyone. You want to stop something, give people an incentive to stop, not to boost. So we add $50 to the price of a computer or TV instead of adding it to your property taxes… that means taxes don’t keep skyrocketing to bring in the cost of all our trash. Sounds good.
We used to pay by the barrel, by the way. I think it was $2 per barrel or something. We made out very well under that system versus the $33 per month for unlimited pickup.
I agree with your concepts of the Conservative approach, by all means. I used to have a big Owens-Illinois Glass company factory in my patrol area. It went out of business, moving it’s total operation to a sister plant in Florida. On cold nights, I liked to stop in for a visit because it was always warm thanks to the blast furnaces and bottle making kilns in the factory and near the cafeteria. Picked up a lot of trivia. The issue with reusable bottles is the sterile aspect of them. People use those bottles for all sorts of stuff, then turn them in for the deposit. Even a stiff deposit would not stop someone from pouring kerosene, gasoline, anti-freeze, human urine, motor oil, or other stuff into them. And that is what happened. Single use glass bottles, like beer bottles are sterile right out of the kiln, and are handled so as to keep them that way. Likewise, so are aluminum cans, and plastic bottles. Reusables are also thicker, to keep their lives in handling, thus costing more to produce, without a real means of return on the manufacturer. A lot of people just tossed the bottles into the trash, deposit or not. We aren’t socially trained like the folks in Europe that such practices are truly just horrific waste. I know Florida has fees added for disposal of some items. Tires, batteries, and some computer items. Along with the usual suspects, motor oil, paint, anti-freeze, and other assorted ground water spoiling ills. These are use taxes so to speak. You only pay when you go to get rid of them. A good thing, I think.
And Adam Smith was right. Unbridled capitalism or unbridled any ISM is not a good thing. BUT, now we have nearly unbridled government, in all aspects of our lives, and that needs to be addressed and redressed. This healthcar reform is called for BUT, the current incantation of the bill in Congress is 10 per cent suspect in that it looks to bring us down as a Country without really meeting the needs of ALL the people. It proposes to cut Medicare, something that my wife and I have to depend upon. We cancelled our AARP memberships due to their support of it, because it is just wrong. Find the waste, yes. Cut the fraud, absolutely. But just cut to say you cut it, and let someone try to figure out where and what is just an abysmal answer! Then use that money to fund the new healthcare? And where in the Constitution does it give power to the government to force me, or anyone, to purchase something they do not want? Even after all that, fining those that don’t buy the so called “insurance” is just not the answer because it still leaves millions of Americans without insurance anyway.
I am not saying that a use fee is not correct. It is just here in America, we have this cowboy concept, and social issues are “for the other guy” and not applicable to Joe Sixpak. We need to engage in more Social Studies in High School to accept community responsibilities rather than seek means to circumvent the letter and spirit of rules, regulations, and laws.
Electric cars are at auto shows because Nader-ites like them and it is currently rad to own one if you happen live in Callyfornia and have enough money to own several other vehicles to use when no one is watching. So far they haven’t improved enough from the “homing pigeon” delivery trucks of the teens and twenties to be taken all that seriously. Or spend all that near valueless paper money the government spews out with impunity. All that money spent on so many different hinky ways of saving the environment and our already gone “American way of life” that no one seems to be able to see the forest for the trees.
Cars are for GOING somewhere. That means traveling at a reasonable rate of speed. Not sitting in traffic jams. That is for the busses to do while the smart people ride trains and lite rail. Trucks are for local deliveries and anything that has to travel over 500 miles MUST be put on the rails. It is absolutely ludicrous not to do so.
We can cut, cut, cut vehicle pollution and the livestock will keep right on polluting. If the cars are sitting at home while the workers are using mass transit, fossil fuel use and its resultant pollutants go way down. Same thing with the huge amount of fuel wasted hauling everything cross country in trucks. Use each mode of transportation for what it does best and stop peeing billions down the tubes on star-wars technology.
I’m a car guy. But we probably only need about 60% of the cars currently on the roads if we use mass transit correctly. And it is proven technology that has been around for ever. Yes it costs for infrastructure but at least ya knows what ya gittin’ for the money. Besides, we could need less vehicular infrastructure.
The best things politicians do is spend money. Unfortunately, it’s MY money they are spending.
John Hagen
Here is a quote from the Detroit Auto Show. “Smart’s not a car in the traditional sense, it’s a high-style alternative to public transportation,” said Jim Hall, principal of consulting firm 2953 Analytics…
These past two weeks our local transit agency has had the use of an Alexander-Dennis Enviro 500 double deck commuter bus. The bus is a demonstrator loaned out for sales and evaluation purposes. I rode that bus twice. The first time was from the downtown Minneapolis bus only streets and then onto the bus/HOT/HOV lanes on I-35W. I have driven a Smart car. It would be a great vehicle for getting me to the nearest transit station. I would never choose it over a well planned public transit service with decent frequencies.
The sad thing is the CAFE rules were established in the 1970′s as a magic bullet to solve our energy problem. Then we had so called experts such as UC-Irvine economist, Charles Lave stating that “since only 3 percent of passenger trips are made via public transportation, cars should be the focus of energy conservation measures.” He is famous (or infamous) for calling mass transit a panacea. Until four buck a gallon gasoline vehicle miles traveled in the US has risen every year. VMT has now doubled since 1970. The automobile is the fall guy in all of this. The real tragedy is speculative real estate development and unchecked urban sprawl fueled by government policies and money created both our current economic and energy situations.
If public transit use rises to 9% that will save the equivalent amount of oil we import from Saudi Arabia. The wise thing to do would be to start projects directed at providing high speed rail and public transit of all modes. Replace the current CAFE system with a tax per vehicle based on fuel economy. That with a dollar a gallon carbon tax on automotive fuels will pay for it.
All I can say is – YES! But remember Saudi Arabia funds both parties very lavishly… which explains a lot. Like, among other things, why mortgage interest is tax deductible and medical expenses aren’t (except those that exceed 7.5% of salary). Which do YOU think is more important, having a house or living?
I think government has a role, but would like them to use the “carrot” rather than the “stick.” Tax benefits for hybrid cars made sense. Instead of CAFE, there should be tax incentives for purchasing all cars that average more than 30 mpg (trucks 25), and greater incentives for cars averaging more than 50 mpg, whether they be hybrid, diesel, or pure electric (measured with an equivalent of MPG). Businesses should have greater tax incentives for using high mileage and electric cars, with more favorable writeoff and amortization regulations. If California is serious abbout emissions, give a registration tax break for new high MPG or electric cars. Anyone ever move to California and have to pay their crazy tax to get a tag?
That will increase demand for the cars, rather than forcing the supply of such vehicles.
Tax incentives for US automakers converting shuttered factories to build electric cars or components would be another good policy, especially in these job-conscious times.
Electrics make perfect sense for city use, for deliveries, and short hauls. With more favorable tax rules, Chrysler’s electric or hybrid electric minivan would probably be quite succesful. Government (state and fed) ought to place orders for them. Lead by example. Electric minivans could shuttle members of Congress around, rather than the Suburbans in use today.
Nissan’s Leaf may be the key to unlock electric sales. Once people realize an electric could be an affordable, useable second or third car, sales ought to become a reality.
I agree that the government should use the “carrot” not the “stick” to motivate people into buying/using fuel efficient transportation.
Personally, I don’t know why they just don’t ban cars from urban areas, period. All urban areas have some sort of mass transit, so improve it. Make it user friendly and reliable. About 50% of the time I need to go into downtown Boston, I drive part way and then take the train or subway the rest of the way in. Better than paying $32 for 2-3 hours of parking. Not to mention the gas savings in bumper-to-bumper traffic and circling the block for a parking space or open garage when you get there.
I happen to think CNG is THE breakthrough fuel for trucks and fleets. Gasoline and diesel engines are easily adpated. California has pretty much mandated that the truck fleet coming into the Port of Los Angeles is going to be CNG. We’re sitting on a lot of it right here in the U.S. No, it’s not pollution free, but it’s cleaner than what we’re using now.
The thing I like about a multi-fuel approach to the future is the competition it will provide to keep prices down. Gas too high? Switch to electric or CNG or diesel or bio-whatever. Makes you stop and think about what type of vehicle you’re going to buy/lease and drive for the next few years.
I’m tempted to experiement with bio-diesel. The local military base here just auctioned off a few low-mileage diesel Blazers with the 6.2L in them backed up by a TH400 and NP208. With 3.08 axle ratios they reportedly get 25 MPG on the highway. They sold for between $850-$1,300. All in running condition.
Perfect specimen for a bio-diesel conversion. Absolutely no emissions on those military models. Just simple straightforward trucks. A local company here sells the kits to make large batches of bio-diesel for about $4,000. To convert kitchen grease, etc., ends up costing you about 50 cents a gallon. Of course you still have to amortize the initial $4,000 “investmet” over a lot of mile. Might get me to start eating McDonald’s french fries again. Fill the 27 gallon tank in one of those Blazers for $14.00 or less and have a driving range of almost 675 miles and little in the way of pollution.
Chryco fan sez, “Nissan’s Leaf may be the key to unlock electric sales. Once people realize an electric could be an affordable, useable second or third car, sales ought to become a reality”.
True, but why do we need two or three cars to do what one should be able to do with a good mass transit system? We WILL be paying for mass transit eventually, even though many will have to dragged kicking and screaming against it. And we should have to buy extra cars to drive in the city besides? I don’t know who has all this money to spend on transit but it sure as heck ain’t me. My newest car 92000 Taurus) is ten years old and has 140,000 + on it and is starting to rust out. And I don’t keep it cause I love it, I just can’t afford to replace it. My other vehicle, that gets used maybe two or three times a week, is a 1994 Ford Exploded p.o.s. model with the rust bucket option. I got it two years ago last Thanksgiving for $900.00 and it still runs. Can’t afford to replace it either so I must drive it until it drops. Believe me I want to upgrade to something newer that gets reasonable fuel mileage but with what? Not on my SSI benefits I can’t. Yes my wife still works full time (insurance benefits) and gets around $16.00/hr. I work part time for $12.00/hr for 24 hrs/week and get SSI but we can’t buy one new car, let along two or three so we can buy that star wars vehicle. We manage to rent a small house. We don’t travel but very little nor do we spend our hard earned cash on frivolities, fancy dinners, tobacco or booze and we can just barley keep our noses above the water.
We are one of millions of senior couples out there that are getting screwed with every dollar spent on expensive pipe dreams.
The government uses the “carrot” to enable people to live in housing tracts which are inefficient in providing mobility. Cul-de-sacs and low density with isolation from shopping, work and schools creates automobile dependency. Why should my tax dollars be spent on a personal life style choice? There are the subsidized mortgages, infrastructure building and additional costs for mandatory primary education. New school buildings are built in remote places and school busses have to traverse the suburban mazes because their kids can’t walk to school. Yes we have had needed to bus children in rural America. But roads were established in a grid system and kids were picked up along these through routes.
What we have in America is a generation and a half of people who have grown up and lived in automobile dependent environments. They believe they have a special right to live in a cul-de-sac. They want this to minimize the traffic problems in their personal isolated living space. Yet somehow, they also have the right to have wider roads through someone else’s backyard to travel to work and shopping. We can not maintain a civilized nation with such housing arrangements.
I’m not trying to condemn those who live in cul-de-sacs. We can’t have a first class public transportation system, however with so many people living far off the urban grid in government subsidized, low density housing. As our nation’s energy and financial crises linger the automobile as scapegoat solution will be automobile rationing. Why else would the Federal Government provide Nissan with 1.4 Billion $$$ for electric car production?
I don’t mean to suggest that people ought to be encouraged or forced to have special cars for the city or have more than one car for various needs. What I mean to suggest is that, since many people have two or three cars anyway–I mean, look what’s in the driveway in most neighborhoods, even working class neighborhoods–that an electric could meet the needs of a second car or third car as many families use them. I only have one car, I only have garage space for one car. But most of my neighbors have two or three or four. Next door, the family has a minivan and a sedan. With the driving they do, a Nissan Leaf would meet their needs for a second car, if it were affordably priced. Another neighbor has two compact cars. At least one of their drivers would likely be able to use the Volt in EV only mode to accomplish their daily commute.
Yes, suburbs have always been wasteful in a sense. But people have made their choice, since the 1940′s. If we want to incentivize city dwelling, I have no objection to that. In some ways I will be punished for living on a cul de sac, as I will be paying for the high speed rail projects in the urban parts of my state, without getting any benefit from them. Perhaps it evens everything out in the end if indeed the city folks are paying the burden for the roads I use. My tax bills are burdensome either way.
I hope the future will be one of freedom: freedom to use public transportation, rail, and efficient air travel if you wish; freedom to use private transportation if you wish. I think,in the US, we need roads, rail, and efficient air travel. We are much larger, with greater distances than Europe or Japan, where public transportation makes the most sense. Most of my life I’ve lived and worked in rural areas where owning a car is not something to be condemned as “automobile dependency”–it is simple survival. I’d hate to see a tax for miles driven, requiring meters put on your car to measure how much you drive, or other such punitive measures placed on private automobiles. Driving an automobile is one of the last vestiges of freedom that has been largely untouched in the US since the early 20th century.
I don’t really care for the Nissan loan. It seems like the same people that were against the GM and Chrysler “bailout” continue to favor giving breaks to VW, Hyundai, Nissan and the like. But that double standard has existed for 30 years.
I hated that double standard, it seemed so foolish, so suicidal, a few years ago; where every other country was favoring it’s native auto industry, we (I mean Congress and the State governments) mainly were hating on ours. But, perhaps, we’re heading towards an environment like the UK, where Toyota and Nissan, as long as they build there, are considered “domestic,” as “domestic” as the long-standing GM and Ford entities are in the UK. Maybe there’s a point to that: will Chrysler really be “domestic” once Fiat assumes majority control, once much of the product is of Fiat derivation? It seems hard to really claim they are any more domestic than the VW’s to be built in TN, specifically for our market, will be. Yet, GM, Ford, Chrysler still contribute far more to our economy than do Toyota, Hyundai, VW, etc.
As the UAW and Teamsters have so aptly pointed out.
I am neither pro or con union but they said something that very few US citizens seem to understand; a Japanese (or Korean, German or whatever) manufacturer that has an assembly plant located in the US is still an Japanese (or whatever) company. And when the chips are down, they will withdraw to their homeland and take all their profits with them. They only located here to serve their needs and could care less about the US economy and/or the American worker. There is nothing wrong with that. For US owned plants in foreign countries we would do the same (this does not include foreign owned plants in their homeland that build product for alleged American companies). That is simply sound business practice. However, over the years, people have adopted the attitude that a Toyota owned plant on US soil is the same, or somehow even better than, a US owned plant on US soil. These are foreign nationals using US resources to make money for Toyota, a Japanese company. That is where the profits go.
Yes — underneath the overblown rhetoric and terrible reporting, that WAS their message!
I see that everyone it’s talking about cars and public transportation. Let me tell you something…i live in Bucharest, Romania and we have a lot mass transport systems. We have subway, tramway, troleybuses, regular buses and of course taxi. If you try to use one of this services you will observe that each of them it’s runing at maximum. ALso the city it’s very aglomerated by personal cars. The problem here it’s that we are too many and we want too much. Folowing the path rises another problem… people are set up so that they want too much, we can not stop and think ” maybe what i have it’s enough “, no we want everything. When you have a lot of people with this in mind things will get ” aglomerated ”
Let’s take me for example : i drive about 30 to 60 miles depending on the day per week. It would be idiotic to ban traffic from urban areas. I use my car to carry heavy things like auto parts, and other automotive related parts which sometimes gets very heavy. How on earth would i tranport these with public tranportation and be sure that i wouldn;t pay for someone else to carry it for me.
The only solution to personal cars and traffic jams it’s to try and educate the people, that’s all… try to educate the majority to use the vehicle in the urban areas with sense…
Now what everytone should really do it’s to control the forests, the industry plants which polute a lot, to control indeed waste disposal and so on. The cars do no harm… they contribute to about 5% in CO emanation and this includes the trucks, aviation and any other vehicle. The oceans has the greatest emanation factor and folowed by the animals, category in which we also go. We polute with metane gas.
So, conclusion… all this green stuff, eco friendly bullshit it’s just that… a bullshit used by people to promote something from which they will earn a lot of money. As bussiness ideas are gone and nothing new appears on the horizon at a certain point someone will invent something. And now this is what they invented, the green movement. And do not understand me wrong… i do not want to drink used mototr oil or breath toxic air, but this green bullshit has grown to exagerated levels and someone or a goup it’s taking advantage from it.
My friends the answer it’s to be calculated, whatever you do do it with responsability and this should take care of our planet for the next generations. DO NOT EXAGERATE.
All the best.
Yes, I’m sure all those people working for environmental groups at minimum wage are in it for the money. So are all the volunteers, and all those scientists working at half their income potential in a “good cause.” They’re just doing it to enable their friends to rake in all that environmentalist green cash.
Not saying nobody’s in it for the money, but I think that’s a red herring.
Clearly there are people with an agenda that are in it for the money. Al gore for one. He’s managed to take his personal wealth from about $3M when he left office to over $90M by exploiting “global warming”.
Enough said about that. Here’s my other concern about pure electric cars: Cap-and-Trade. Obama’s Cap-and-Trade is clearly going to drive the cost of electricity up. Especially here on the East coast where coal,oil and natural gas fired generators dominate. These fossil fuel electric generation facilities are going to have a huge tax burder under Cap-and-Trade that will be passed onto consumers. As it is I’ve watched my electric rates climb dramatically in the last few years. When oil hit $147 a barrel my montly electric bill went from just under $90 per month to $170. It’s settled back to $145 today….even though my actually year over year consumption is DOWN from the $90/month days. With Cap-and-Trade, they’re estimating my electric bill will be $300 per month. That sure is an incentive to conserve electricity, but hardly an incentive to buy an all electric car that needs constant recharging. That means recharging my electric car may be so expensive that I’d be better off driving 6.0L Suburban 2500 at 15 MPG running 87 octane. That’s the future I see if some of these polices become reality.
The real key to getting people to adopt new technology is to make it less expensive than what they’re using today. This strategy of jacking up our current fuel costs via taxes to discourage us from using them doesn’t work until reliable, cost-effective alternatives are readily available.
Chryco fan, you are absolutely right about people in the burbs already paying for mass transit they can’t use. It’s been that way in Masschusetts for decades. Massachusetts towns on the New York border pay a portion of the cost of Bosotn’s mass transit system 120 miles away from where they live. Not to mention that they’re paying for the infamous “Big Dig”, the $15 billion disaster of a project that most people in the state will never see or get to drive on. How I wish that $15 billion had been spent on a modern, state of the art mass transit upgrade instead. It was an opportunity squandered.
Al Gore might have made money, but if you saw an opportunity AFTER you left office [note dig at Dick Cheney who had a conflict of interest that he took full advantage of], wouldn’t you take it? Heck, for a while I had stock in a solar cell maker because I figured oil prices would rise. I guess that makes ME an opportunist. (I sold it when oil prices rose on the assumption they’d fall.)
Cap and trade… I never liked cap and trade. However, I don’t take utility estimates any more seriously than automaker estimates. I recall GM saying that the early 1970s’ pollution restrictions would result, by 1990, in cars that got single-digit gas mileage, couldn’t exceed 60 mph, and were dead slow. Anyone remember that happening? Hummer H3 excluded?
“The real key to getting people to adopt new technology is to make it less expensive than what they’re using today.” Yes and no. That’s part of it but unless there’s pain, nobody will care. You can pay an extra $100 for a boiler (that’s a $2,500 purchase plus around $5,000 in labor) and save $50 a MONTH and people don’t do it. Every house I go into has a water heater that’s bottom-rated. What’s the price gap for a top rated model? $50? $100? Pays for itself in less than a year.
I used to work for a company that made catalytic converter systems for pollution abatement. They paid for themselves in 3-5 years and in some cases, by generating steam, could actually become a profit center. But they were pricey short-term compared with incineration and it was a hard sell.
Our power costs are frankly too low. They do not consider all the expenses of the power; a lot of that is spread over everyone. The full cost of energy should be in energy taxes, including military interventions taken to keep the oil coming. Then those who use more will start using less, or at least paying their way, and THEN all the energy saving devices will start getting cheaper.
By the way, I paid a LOAD extra for a front loading washer that barely uses any water. It’s actually a great unit overall because it doesn’t wear out clothing as fast as a top-loader but I don’t know if there’s ever a real economic benefit. Call me a hypocrite, because our car sure burns through the fuel compared with our old Neon, but the extra $400-$500 we paid will, I hope eventually come back to me… probably in clothing durability rather than saved energy though!
(Fun thing to watch though. And by spinning at a ridiculous speed, it slashes drying time, so maybe it DOES save some money.)
PS> Our boiler is the most efficient one we could get, and our pipe insulation is considerably thicker than average. I invested… and a lot of these things are NOT expensive. Efficient water heaters last years longer than inefficient ones, according to a certain consumer magazine; apparently the companies make upgrades all around. More efficient boiler? Really, about the same price. Efficient near-boiler piping? Just have to tell the plumber to do it, the price is the same, and the boiler lasts longer. And as for cars… well, there’s no rule, really, is there? Real life mileage in a Yaris is about the same as in a bigger and faster Corolla. Chrysler’s top minivan has the best gas mileage out there (maybe that’s not true with the new Sienna, I don’t know, but Chrysler will be back on top with the Pentastar soon enough.)
But look at what happened. Gas prices rose, and suddenly our energy usage fell dramatically. Gas prices fell, and suddenly big SUVs are back in style and our energy use is back up.
PS > ScottB, I am SO with you on the Big Dig. That was NUTS.
Dave, I agree with and disagree with you…what else is new? The last I checked, my utility and petroleum companies aren’t subsidized by taxes (and are instead hobbled by over-regulation and price fixing in some cases by the government). They are stand-alone business that sell a product, most of the time at a profit. When you say we’re not charged the true cost of delivering energy, I’m not sure what expenses these companies aren’t bearing that aren’t already factored into their pricing and profitability models. If you’re going to try to tell me that the cost of our foreign policy and wars should be factored in, I say that you are trying to tack the cost on in the wrong place.
The reason we’re dependent on foreign oil is one and only one thing: U.S. environmental policy. Had the environmentalists not spent the last 5 decades preventing us from developing our own domestic resources for energy and alternatives, we wouldn’t be worried about oil or natural gas from overseas. And that’s assuming that’s the only reason we’re fighting wars over there, not for other national security reasons.
From my POV, we’ve cut our nose off to spite our face. It’s funny when I hear Obama tell the Republicans last week that they are the party of “No.”. Well, I’ve got news for him, his party is for NO drilling, NO pipelines, NO power lines (even if they’re from wind and solar farms), NO windmills, NO nuclear, NO dams for hydro, NO mining, etc., etc., etc. They’ve even come up with objections to bio-fuels claiming they aren’t clean enough, use more energy than the benefits they offer, and impact the food supply. That despite the fact we have idle tracts of land because we’re paying farmers in this county NOT to grow crops to keep crop prices up. I’m not sure how growing soy, switchgrass, or corn for fuel where none exists now is a bad thing. Just one more indication that we have WAY TO MANY lawyers in political positions in Washington!
As for conservation, it’s funny you bring up water heaters because I just replaced mine. The old 35,000 BTU one was considered super-efficient for its time (1992), and even at today’s rates, it was costing me less than $20/mo. for hot water for a family of 4. Not bad for a 17+ year old water heater. I was considering a tankless unit, all the rage, to replace it. However, the price for a tankless installed was $2,500.00 versus $900 for a 45,000 BTU 40 gallon tank-type version by the same manufacturer as the original. The installer said the tankless would’ve saved me about 20% in gas, or $4/month. It would take 33+ years for it to pay back the $1,600.00 premium I would’ve had to pay for it. In other words, about twice as long as the tankless is projected to last.
Bottom line, I’m all for looking for ways to conserve including exploring alternate technologies, but it HAS to make financial sense. Like most things, I’m sure once some of the alternate energy solutions start gettting produced in volume, the prices will come down and make them financially attractive. Until then, I’m absolutely against slapping taxes on what we have today to make them artificially expensive. Instead, let the government do what they’re doing now and provide tax incentives to those people that want to be early adopters.
We’ll keep disagreeing where we disagree. I will point out that Obama is pushing nuclear despite the fact that utilities absolutely won’t build the plants unless almost 100% of the funding is from risk free loans. I understand that, the economics aren’t there – it’s like solar, you have to have very expensive natural gas, oil, and coal before nuclear starts making sense. Europe uses nuclear because prices for everything else is high – and stability of supply is low.
Subsidies… tax breaks for searching for oil come to mind; exceedingly light enforcement of the most basic safety rules for coal; and the cleanup of toxic waste that falls onto the taxpayer. (Not always but when it does, it’s a doozy.) I’m kind of in a rush between things so I’m not giving you a good reply. Just a couple of examples. As for foreign policy, can you think of any other reason to be Saudi Arabia’s friends? Remember who supplied the 9/11 terrorists. There’s a ticking-time-bomb for you.
That said, I respect your arguments. I thought about tankless too; I’ll swear they shouldn’t be that expensive though they are. Now those little electric gizmos for your shower that everyone in the UK seems to have, those are $200-$300 for around 1.5 – 2 gallons per minute. 240 volts input, 50 amps, so they seem to suck down power pretty quickly. 4 gpm goes to $823 but I suspect that’s the kind for a whole house. Sometimes I think plumbers mark them up because they dislike the idea — (these are Lowes’ prices). Like the way they try to sell those awful Cadet toilets to prove that low gpf is bad.
Dave, yes, agree to disagree. I absolutely agree if it weren’t for our dependency on Middle East oil we wouldn’t be as invested there as much as we are militarily or otherwise. That’s the price we’re paying, like an insurance policy, to make sure our energy supply isnt’ disrupted. Nothing would make me happier than telling them we’re not sending any more money their way.
One thing I think most Americans can agree upon and that is achieving energy independence. I’m all for making some reasonable and justifiable sacrifices to get there. Conservation can cost us essentially nothing just by being smarter in how we utilize these resources. You don’t need a hybrid or an expensive array of solar panels on your roof to conserve. Just keep educating people. As for alternatives or tapping into more of our own local resources, I think we should be putting all of those efforts into overdrive. Plenty of Presidents have talked about it, but I think we need more focus and a higher level of effort to get there…..like sending a man to the moon.
“Al Gore might have made money, but if you saw an opportunity AFTER you left office [note dig at Dick Cheney who had a conflict of interest that he took full advantage of], wouldn’t you take it? Heck, for a while I had stock in a solar cell maker because I figured oil prices would rise. I guess that makes ME an opportunist. (I sold it when oil prices rose on the assumption they’d fall.)”
But did you promote the end of the world if everyone didn’t switch to solar, because that is what Al Gore has been doing. There’s also the scientist that get the grants to do research on the subject, and if they didn’t promote that global warming was a danger, they wouldn’t get the grants, or not as much.
ScottB, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Keith, you seem to believe that scientists don’t get grants if they don’t report the “right” findings. That’s not how science works – not now, anyway.
“One thing I think most Americans can agree upon and that is achieving energy independence. I’m all for making some reasonable and justifiable sacrifices to get there. Conservation can cost us essentially nothing just by being smarter in how we utilize these resources. ”
Achieving energy independence will be very difficult because of entrenched political powers. I have been watching some groups battling clean coal technology for three decades, some people in high political office killing research during the pilot phase. Every group has a magic bullet solution, they will promote theirs, but condemn everything else. The NIMBY crowd will be there to kill any new power plants, wind turbines, light rail, trolleys, bus rapid transit and park-n-ride lots.
From 1970-2005 the average dwelling size has grown 60%. Despite this a new public storage industry has grown with the housing size. The taxpayers have bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last year to the cost of 110 Billion $$$. It would be far more beneficial for America’s energy independence to rebuild our urban cores. Instead of that, federal housing programs contributed to reckless speculation and the housing bubble. Federal financing of housing involves a lot of one size fits all, centralized planning, resulting in sprawl and energy wasted. Most any Main Street in America could not be built under the current rules. That includes small rural communities. Housing starts are an indicator for the economy. I can’t imagine politicians saying “it is time to close the money pipeline for the federal housing programs.” “Oh, by the way, while we are at it lets change the zoning codes to what they were before WWII. We’ll do this right after the gas tax is raised another dollar.”
Energy independence will require a conscious act of determination on the part of each citizen. Do we have that in our national character any longer?
“Energy independence will require a conscious act of determination on the part of each citizen. Do we have that in our national character any longer?”
Not as long as our national discourse consists of screaming names and making stuff up out of thin air and sending chain mails that have been debunked a hundred times already. Though we had a chance on 9/12.
I agree regarding housing as being a major issue. Removing the tax deduction for mortgages and first time home buyers would be an excellent first step – though for the former, I’d argue that current owners should be grandfathered during a phase-out period to avoid bankruptcies from those on the edge. That would bring in more revenue, too.
Part of the storage issue goes with the “garbage is free” mentality that has toxic waste costs paid from collective funds instead of dealt with up front.
Dave,
I’m not saying all science is like that, just the stuff about global warming. In the past few months there has been an incident all over the papers involving a professor at Penn State University, which is where I attend school. It’s been nicknamed climategate and involves a series of emails between researchers on the subject of global warming from universities in different parts of the world with researchers being asked to leave out a trick they used to make it appear the temperatures are rising. From what I got out of reading the articles in the newspaper and elsewhere, was that it is a common practice in the global warming camp to fudge numbers and if nobody believed we were causing global warming then there would be no need to pay scientists to figure out how to stop it. They had to keep it in the headlines to keep the funding up because if it wasn’t deemed urgent, the grants would get smaller.
I also heard (wasn’t around then) that in the 70′s, they were saying were going to be in an ice age by now, and they were absolutely right then, just like they are now. People getting manipulated, by the media usually, but also by others in the spotlight, and not getting the facts right is a sore subject for me.
You heard a lot of stuff that’s either misleading or inaccurate or irrelevant. You really need to dig down beneath the flashy media and get into the actual journal articles.
I have done a lot of reading on the subject of global warming and even wrote a few papers on it. I’m not saying I’m a scientist, or even know any personally, but I have done a lot of reading about it in the past and found there are a few examples of people out there that are promoting global warming for their own benefit, regardless if they’re accurate or not. I have also found that there is no real evidence that it’s happening like they say or we’re causing it or can do anything about it. Scientist just have not been studying the weather and climate long enough to make the claims they are, which leads to events like the climate summit in Copenhagen and all sorts of regulations, which not all are bad, but most are unnecessary and are driving manufacturing out of the country to where they can pollute all they want and have basically free labor, which leaves us with the unemployment rates we have. Some questions that are popular in engineering textbooks are about redesigning a workplace or if Company XYZ should move the jobs oversees where there’s cheap labor and no restrictions. It’s the global warming scare that’s causing it and all the profiteering of people like Gore don’t help at all. A little long winded, but I have done enough reading on the subject to form a very strong opinion on it, and that’s all anyone has on it because nobody really knows what’s going to happen. All of the predictions are based off of computer models that were created by people, because computers don’t know what will happen either, just what their programmer told them will happen.
I will say this about global warming, whether you believe in the science or not, you have to admit that we’re polluting the atmosphere at an astonishing rate every single day. Anytime I see pictures of gridlock on the morning traffic report the first thing that comes to my mind is “Look at all that tailpipe emission.” We can argue all day long about whether that contributes to warming, but one thing is undeniable, we’re still screwing up the air we breathe. To be honest, I think people like Al Gore would be smart to drop to global warming hysteria and reframe their argument into something everyone can buy into: Clean air. Clean groundwater. Clean soil. Nothing controversial about those.
While I believe our planet has demonstrated an unbelievable capacity to take care of itself by absorbing and filtering our crap, there has to be a breaking point, and have we exceeded that limit already? There have been changes made to control CFC’s, VoC’s, and auto emissions of every kind. Autos seem to have taken the brunt of a lot of the pollution control efforts. I’d like to see building codes get more focus. There have been some high-rises built in recent years that are very green when it comes to electricity, natural gas and water consumption. We should start to mandate that for all new construction. Just ask the owners of those “green” high-rises about the savings they’re enjoying. They’re seeing a payback they can live with. That tells me the time has come where
When it comes to housing, maybe any FHA backed mortgage has to be for completely “green”, almost “off the grid” capable homes. I think the technology is there today and the cost, when factored over a 30 year low interest mortgage with other tax credits, can be competely affordable.
What we’re lacking is leadership. Where are the leaders that can unite people on a common mission? I don’t see any. I am interested to see what guys like T. Boone Pickens might be able to accomplish with alternative energy to compliment traditional sources. And I’m really tired of environmentalists coming up with yet more obstacles to those alternatives, like the battle we’re watching up here in Massachusetts around the Cape Wind Project which can provide essentially pollution free power for 70,000 homes. Seems the benefit FAR outweighs any of the downside issues if any exist at all.
After a while I sort of realized the underlying theme here: Why do electric cars keep showing up at auto shows when most of the population of the US could pretty much care less about the hybrids they can’t afford more less electric only cars. I have no answer to that one considering that they need batteries that haven’t yet been invented to get any sort of reasonable range. I live 17 miles from work and live in an apartment. There is nothing in the parking lot of our building to plug a car into. The infrastructure is not there. The cars cost too much.
All of this posturing is pointless. Give us cars with good performance and good mileage. I had a Neon and know it isn’t impossible. Do that and you’ll sell lots of cars. Don’t and you will take down the fortunes of TWO car companies…
I agree with you, but I still think electric has potential… at some point I really do believe they’ll crack the battery problem.
Yes they will at some point. Just look at how far it’s come since the last batch of ev’s with a trunk full of lead-acid batteries. An good example of this is laptop batteries, like the telsa uses. My laptop is 3 years old and the battery doesn’t last more than an hour, two if you really stretch it. Now they have batteries that are the same size that last up to 8 hours. The technology is coming, but who knows when.
When I visit family in Florida I see a lot of neighborhood electric vehicles. I’m not suggesting everyone should be driving one, but there should be something affordable between the Tesla Roadster and a NEV. The electric Fiat 500 is about right. I hope someone does solve the problems of cost and disposal of the batteries. Infrastructure is another headache, as mentioned by Bob Taylor.