Posted on 08/12/2002 8:16:08 AM PDT by dubyagee
No gas hogs in LaLa Land
ROWLAND NETHAWAY Senior editor
Californians are strutting about congratulating themselves for their new state law requiring higher automobile fuel efficiency.
They believe that California's new state law will force car manufacturers to stop producing gas-guzzling vehicles responsible for global warming.
The logic behind the new law requiring greater fuel efficiency from car manufacturers is a faith-based belief that the automobile industry is involved in a giant conspiracy to deny the public fuel-efficient cars.
Ford, General Motors and the other car manufacturers, according to these anti-big business addicts, have the secret to 300-miles-per-gallon internal combustion engines locked away in a safe somewhere. The car industries make immoral profits by keeping this information from the public.
These urban-myth conspiracy theories have been around since the invention of automobiles.
Since I was a boy I've heard stories about the invention of new spark plugs, carburetors or fuel additives that could allow cars to run for hundreds of miles on a gallon of gas.
Generally, the stories included specific details about how the inventors of these miracles had been paid off and threatened to keep their mouths shut, if not simply murdered. Their supposed inventions were guarded more closely than the Coca-Cola recipe.
Same conspiracies, different era
Fifty years ago, these fanciful tales were voiced by run-of-the-mill drug store and pool hall conspiracy buffs.
In recent years, it has been the greenies, environmental groups, anti-globalists and Californians who think that government laws can force General Motors et al to finally release these secret fuel-efficient technologies.
It was cockamamie nonsense in 1952 and it remains just as harebrained today.
Car manufacturers wouldn't have to offer zero percent interest rates to sell cars if they could build cars with the size and power that buyers want and also get hundreds of miles per gallon.
Every car, SUV and truck owner in the nation would line up to buy such a vehicle.
The oil industry might not be pleased with 300-miles-per-gallon cars and trucks, but, hey, that's the breaks. There will always be uses for oil.
Since no knowledgeable person expects revolutionary efficiency breakthroughs on the venerable internal combustion engine, about the only way to increase fuel efficiency is to decrease safety by making cars and trucks smaller and lighter.
Anti-SUV acolytes may want to see everyone in scooter cars and public buses, but that's a hard sell to motorists who don't feel better about themselves driving around in lightweight, cramped, underpowered vehicles.
The last I heard, the car manufacturers said they would contest the new California fuel-efficiency law.
I suggest that the automobile industry simply ignore the California law.
Californians think their state law will force the car industry worldwide to build cars to California's standards.
Instead, car manufacturers should notify all the car dealers in California that they will be out of business on the day the state's new fuel efficiency standards go into effect.
If Californians want to own a new car, they will have to move to another state.
After a while, California would look like Havana, Cuba, where the cars are caught in a 1950s time warp.
Californians want the rest of the nation to pay to subsidize their lifestyles, which includes a gluttonous appetite for oil, electricity and water taken from other states.
There will be a lot less self-righteous strutting in LaLa Land if the auto industry simply ignores California's new fuel-efficiency law.
Rowland Nethaway's columns appear on Wednesdays and Fridays. E-mail: RNethaway@wacotrib.com
Babs on a moped wouldn't be a bad sight to see either. 8 * )
Quote 1: "Some technologies already in existence today could significantly reduce fuel consumption of new cars over the next 15 years, with light-duty trucks having the greatest potential reductions. These technologies, which would increase the purchase price of new cars and trucks, include engine advances that reduce friction, such as variable valve timing, and more efficient powertrains, such as five-speed automatic transmissions."
Quote 2: " The committee also noted that there is a marked inconsistency between pressing automobile manufacturers for improved fuel economy from new vehicles on the one hand, and insisting on low gasoline prices on the other. Higher gas prices would create a demand for more fuel-efficient vehicles and an incentive for owners of existing vehicles to drive them less."
Ahhh...there's the out for the Hollywood crowd. They'll use vintage limos...
Don't be so sure. Yesterday we had another car meets SUV incident on the road, SUV flipped over, killing the two occupants, car was damaged but the driver survived.
Have fun in your SUV, but don't get a false sense of security in it.
BWAAAAAHAHA! You say that like it was a bad thing.
Anyway, hopespringseternal had the best reply in #18.
I think that boils down to...when it's time to go, it's time to go...
Hah! I know the feeling, I have a twinturbo 300zx, gutted cats, turbo turned up to 14psi, intake and exhaust systems... there is NO RATIONAL need for this car, but I'll be damned if that is reason enough to have the government tell me I can't have it. Hey, I dislike most SUVs (drivers actually) on the road, but I am not about to tell them they can't drive em.
I maintain that any person may use his legally purchased SUV for any legal purpose. Who are you to classify legitmate uses of a product that SOMEOME ELSE owns?
Exactly.....like this '68 limo version of my car
And what's the point in spending an extra $10,000 for a vehicle which will save $100 per year in gas? None.
Reminds of that old Monty Python saw: What's brown and sounds like a bell (and fills politician's heads)? Dung.
I certainly didn't mean to imply it was a bad thing.
When two people of my acquaintence were killed in separate traffic accidents (no SUVs involved, by the way), and a third seriously injured in another, I decided that having a mass of metal around me was a good strategy these days. So, yep, I'm one of the pigs just 'driving around' in a tank. If I'm ever hit, I hope to be a live pig.
And who are you to make such a declaration? If I am productive enough to be able to afford an SUV, then it is my right to purchase one. I buy what I want, not what someone else thinks I should buy.
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