May

22

The future of the US automobile

May 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment

440px-08_Chrysler_Town_and_Country.jpgWELL NOW. If you’re in the market for new wheels you have some tough choices: regular gas guzzler or healthy hybrid? SUV or one size down? Free gas for a year, or fixed-price gas for three years? Chrysler, for example, offers a gas card that sets your gas price at $2.99 /gallon for those three years.

(And what if the price comes back down? Not a hope in hell, I hear you cry! Once the US public is used to paying prices higher than they have ever paid, the government will just go with it…)

Gas or gun?

But here’s a real doozy: $250 free gas, or a certificate to pick up your spanking-new handgun? This is a deal being offered in Butler, Missouri. Here’s the scary thing. Walter Moore, from Max Motors, claims 80% of the buyers are turning down the free gas and taking the gun instead. It’s all ok of course: those certificate-holders are subject to the routine background check that’s done on all applicants for small arms licenses. And look how well that’s gone, aside from the odd school massacre…

max-motors.jpg

If it isn’t a choice between guns or gas when you buy your new vehicle, it may just be that you have to do without the next generation Ford monster, er, motor. And all because there is a trend (gasp!) of folks actually downsizing their SUVs to more economically sized cars — after all, those pesky Europeans somehow seem to manage, even the soccer moms. (There must be soccer moms in Europe, right? Or did the US invent soccer too?)

Never mind that Europeans and their children are, shall we say, often somewhat trimmer than their American cousins, and for decades now Euros have been paying nearly twice the price for their fuel compared to US consumers.

Ford focuses on economy drive

So anyway, Ford is cutting production in North America in an attempt to break even in 2009, and maybe turn a profit in 2010, which is what Ford was aiming for next year. It’s primarily pickups and SUVs which will be affected since sales have dropped off more than expected.

C’mon people — what were you thinking? The Iraq war was going to bring down gas prices? Hybrid would only catch on in a few years? Oil is a renewable resource? How could you not see this coming? Just over a year ago, reported US sales of hybrids were up 26%. Last year in November, sales of hybrids in the US had risen 82% year-on-year. You have the Escape Hybrid (pictured below) — what have you been doing with it? (for one example of Ford losing the faith, see below…)

440px-Ford_escape_hybrid.jpg

Ah but, you see, it’s about big fat profit margins, and the smaller Ford vehicles just don’t deliver:

The smaller cars for which it will ramp up production — Ford Focus, Fusion, Edge and Escape, the Mercury Milan and Mariner, as well as the Lincoln MKZ and Lincoln MKX — generally have lower prices and profit margins than the light truck models for which it is cutting production, such as the F-Series pickup, still the nation’s best selling vehicle.

— Ford: Fewer trucks, more losses by Chris Isidore for CNN money

So could it be that US automobile of the future will be smarter, smaller and cleaner? Cheaper? Better designed? I suppose anything is possible … once US car manufacturers get a little more can-do instead of just griping that efficiency is too expensive. The other problem is a half-hearted approach where auto companies are producing hybrids that get terrible mileage. Please — do it right or don’t do it at all.

So who are the good guys?

The good guys

In 2005, Wired’s Hacking the Hybrid made mention of a few innovators. Check these out:

pia0.jpgPlug in America: This group advocates the use of plug-in cars, trucks and SUVs powered by cleaner, cheaper, domestic electricity. Up to this year, the organization had been a network of individuals who were proponents and users of electric vehicles and led several successful campaigns preventing the destruction of 1,000 of 5,000 production electric cars. One of the companies which held off crushing the cars as a result of joint efforts, was Ford:

In August of 2004, the Ford Norway headquarters was taken over by Greenpeace. 300 Th!nk City electric cars were saved! This reversed a decision by Ford who had purchased the EV maker in 1999. Ford had planned to close the small company and destroy remaining Th!nk City cars. After the activism, Ford agreed to send EVs back to Norway, not to the crusher. Ford also agreed to sell the electric car company to Norwegian buyers, so that the company could remain in the EV business.

— Plug in America website

In January Plug In America became a California Non-Profit Corporation to raise public awareness of and to advocate for plug-in transportation.

hybrid-consortium0.jpgHybrid Consortium: Component Suppliers make up the membership of the Plug-In Hybrid Development Consortium. These suppliers co-operate to accelerate the commercial production of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) with compatible technologies and innovative solutions that make affordable plug-in hybrids possible.

cal-cars0.jpgCalCars: The California Cars Initiative is a non-profit in Palo Alto made up of a bunch of entrepreneurs, engineers, environmentalists and consumers who are working to promote high-performance, clean hybrid cars and so build demand for the vehicles.

What can the little people do?

For a start, we can keep up to date with green developments. How else would we know that for around $4,000, you can convert your existing gas guzzler into a hybrid? Connecticut outfit Poulsen Hybrid will provide the kit and suggest an authorized installer or if you’re handy that way, you can install it yourself: there are instructions on their website. Bring it on — we want more of these kind of initiatives. Hybrid cars aren’t going to build themselves while the fat cats are sitting pretty.

hybrid-cars0.jpg In the meantime, we can subscribe to Hybrid Cars put out by tireless proponents of clean green vehicles, Bradley Berman (whose articles have appeared in BusinessWeek, the New York Times and other publications) and his team.

And of course, we can always start our own cooperatives, consortia and organizations for the furtherment of clean transportation!

Images

- Chrysler Town and Country vehicle from this wikipedia page
- Screenshot of the Guns or Gas ad unashamedly grabbed from the Max Motors website. Find your own link — I’m not playing for their team
- Ford Escape Hybrid from this wikipedia page
- logos for the good guys captured from the named and linked websites

See also

Tickets for the Gas Guzzlers: Your 20-minute crash course in driving green, number 5 in the series b radical, the seat of armchair activism


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