September, 2002

The push for higher mileage vehicles just got a flat tire in Congress. Swerved out of control, ran off the road, landed in the ditch of good intention and no guts. Smashed up by that pothole called lobbyist money.

The Japanese will lead us out of this one, just as they did shortly after the '70s oil crisis, while Detroit wrung its hands and Honda et al cleaned our auto-making clock. Detroit couldn't do it then and can't do it now. Not much progress in AutoLand, even though the technology is there.

Detroit, you gotta admit, is good at marketing and has its make-you-want-it blade honed to a fine edge. They invented the SUV, a car-truck hybrid that makes very nearly no sense as a family vehicle, but it's made them big bucks at very little development cost. Which is another thing Detroit is good at. No matter that the best of the SUVs are Japanese, no matter that they're a menace on the road to anyone driving an actual car, God forbid a compact car.

They make money for carmakers. Big money and they've made us need a mountain-climber for our flatland driveways. They make money for oil companies. Big money and Exxon loves 'em. They appeal to the American sense of size and power, our King-of-the Roadism, that kinship to the long vista off a mountaintop, no matter that we live in suburbs.

SUVs and small trucks are being defended against logical and necessary fuel economy on the basis that they provide a safety factor, unavailable in a downsized version.

Safety, the logic goes, is to be had in size, height off the road and sheer bulk. A truck, disguised as an SUV, will better survive a crash with a compact or (shudder) sub-compact car. Duh!

An SUV will submit to a Humvee, which will submit to a Personnel Carrier, which will submit to a Tank---is there no end to this nonsense? Is the family to end up in tanks? Are soccer-moms merely a subdivision of Pentagon futures planning? Can anyone parallel park anymore?

As usual, Congress works with smoke and mirrors. A House bill to require SUVs to achieve 27.5 miles per gallon and a Senate bill requiring overall motor vehicle economy of 35 mpg both died on the operating table. The surgeon's compromise requires these vehicles (a combination of minivans, SUVs and light trucks) to use, after 2006, at least 5 billion gallons less fuel than the 2002 model year fleet.

The smoke: "Well, by George, that's a hell of a lot of fuel saved and it looks like the congress has finally gotten the message."

The mirror: Five billion gallons amounts to 1 mile per gallon increase in fuel economy.

Admiring himself in the mirror, Rep. Billy Tauzin, chairman of the House-Senate conference on energy legislation, characterized the compromise as "a chance for the country to tell Saddam Hussein 'We don't need your oil'."

Nice, timely tie-in, Billy, but we don't get our oil from Saddam, Europe does. Which, when the lightbulb goes on in your head, might give you some understanding of Europe's discomfort at our readiness to bomb Iraq. But that's another subject.

To get back to Japan giving us a 70s style lesson. They are already introducing hybrid electric vehicles into the American market (the cars Detroit can't seem to build) and they're selling very well. Owners love them, they perform competitively and get mileage in the mid fifties per gallon. Japanese hybrid mini-SUVs can't be far behind and mom may damn well get tired of trying to park the Ford Explorer.

The trend toward full time all-wheel drive, pioneered by Subaru, will make 4-wheel drive SUV vehicles redundant to the family sedan except for their bulk and cigar-chomping manliness. Logic will prevail and, despite Dad, the move in this direction will save more nearly 50 billion gallons of fuel. Ten times the congressional requirement with no mandates at all.

Is it germane to this issue that America is the only country in the world outside the middle east, where gasoline is so lightly taxed? Possibly. In most of Europe, gasoline costs upwards of $4 per gallon at the pump. Gradually taxing our pump price toward that figure would

* encourage public transportation

* popularize hybrid vehicles

* reduce our dependence on foreign oil

* pay down our national debt

* prevent the raiding of social security funds for other purposes

* rebuild our failing highway infrastructure.

How much do you drive? 10,000 miles a year? Get about 15 mpg? Your additional hunk of the bill for properly taxed gasoline would be about $150 a month. But driving a hybrid, even paying $4 a gallon, you'd ante up $17 less each month than you now spend on gas for your present car at $1.50 a gallon.

And enjoy the ride! No crackerboxes, these hybrids.

The truckers will scream. Let 'em! Their increased fuel costs get sent along to us anyway and we can afford an extra nickel a bunch for carrots, another five bucks on the cost of a sofa or refrigerator. A country that can afford $10 million basketball players can afford the benefits of expensive gasoline.

Then Detroit wouldn't have to be dragged (again) into reality and the oil companies could do okay without hauling so much product around. We could throw them an extra 10 or 20 cents a gallon. They have to buy fuel too, you know.

Get out of the Archives and read what Jim's writing today