Fast Fiction

I saw a link on PriusChat today to this article in The American Spectator’s Political Hay section: Kerry and the 2006 Chevette by Eric Peters.

I don’t even know where to begin. The guy is talking trash. He really doesn’t have any basis for his assertions either, which you know is one of my pet peeves.

It starts like this:
If John Kerry wins the presidency, most of us will be driving Chevettes—or the modern-day equivalent, at any rate. The Massachusetts senator has proposed jacking up federal fuel economy requirements for new cars to as much as 36 miles-per-gallon as part of his plan to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

He goes on to further contend that there are no mid-size cars that would be able to meet that. This is true. There is only one, and that’s the Toyota Prius and there won’t be that many manufactured this year. But the technology exists and is being implemented. Toyota plans a Highlander hybrid, Lexus will make a hybrid version of the RX330 and Ford is preparing a series of SUV hybrids and Honda is moving forward with a hybrid version of the Accord. They won’t be super efficient, but they’ll be loads better than they are now.

Also, the new CAFE standards will be enacted over a period of time. 36 MPG is not the goal for 2006.

Better get your V-8, before it’s too lateÖ

What do regular folks need a V-8 for anyway? Sure, you might wanna tow something occassional, but really, why does anyone need more than 200 hp for commuting?

But the idea of imposing top-down fuel efficiency requirements is not a new one. It has been tried before—during the energy crisis of the 1970s. It didn’t work then. And it won’t work now, either.

Just because it didn’t work then doesn’t mean that it can’t work. And lets face it, government imposed emissions reductions have worked.

Today’s cars and trucks are indeed more efficient than the cars of the 1970s and 1980s. But Americans drive greater distances as a result—burning more fuel each year than they did in pre-CAFE days.

These two statements linked together make no sense to me. The object here is to get more fuel efficiency, because people refuse to curtail their driving. No one, at least I don’t think they are, is saying that increased efficiency leads to increased use.

I think the reason we drive more is because of urban decay and the flight of the middle class to the suburbs, leading to insane commutes because people are afraid to live near where they work. You might also blame it on the collapse of worker/company fidelity. Folks are no longer employed by one company for life, so there is no reasonable way to live near your work. Most of the time it’s pure luck if you do.

CAFE requirements have also had unintended side effects—most notably the boom in SUV and pick-up sales—which now account for about half of all new vehicles sold.

Yeah, well, let’s go ahead and include all consumer vehicles (those that can be driven with an ordinary license) in the CAFE requirements. End of story. They’ll come up with the technology right quick.

Does Kerry have another “plan” to deal with the unforeseen consequences of CAFE II?

Good question, Eric. I’m glad you brought it up and I will try to find out.

One consequence, though, is a sure bet. If the government imposes the draconian new fuel efficiency requirements Kerry is agitating for, the automakers will have to build smaller, lighter—and thus less safe—vehicles, just as they did in the 1970s.

Dude! Don’t get into safety. You can’t advocate these huge SUVs and then bring up safety.

The safety of the Prius, a rather light car, is pretty damn good. The NHTSA posted the results of their crash tests on the Prius just last week. It got a five star rating for the driver side and four for the passenger for head on crashes and four stars each for both the passenger and driver. These test were not done with the side and curtain airbags - an optional feature that well over 50% of Prius buyers opted for. Compare that with something like the Jeep Grand Cherokee, which got only three stars for front impact and four for side. Its rollover resistance rating was two.

What really needs to happen is some overall standards for bumper height. No wonder smaller cars (hell, even large sedans) do poorly when they tussle with a high-clearance SUV - their bumpers don’t match up.

While non-engineers such as Kerry like to talk in generalities about “new technologies” that will somehow allow us to drive mid-sized and larger cars that also manage to return the fuel economy of subcompacts, the fact is such technology does not yet exist—and may never exist. The internal combustion engine has already been refined to the nth degree and significant improvements in fuel economy will be hard to come by—or very expensive.

The gas/electric hybrid is now a proven technology. New low sulfur (cleaner burning) diesels can also be adapted for use in hybrids. They are very affordable. The diversity of fuels and technologies will actually help the US become less dependent on foreign fuel sources.

People need to stop for a moment and make positive choices.

Few Americans—excepting perhaps a millionaire such as Kerry—could afford a $60,000 family car, even if it can get 40-mpg.

Okay, I comfortably carry around three passengers (plus me) in my Prius. I’m getting 49 MPG. The car cost $22,000. The LEXUS Hybrid RX 400 will cost $60,000 or more. And you know what, lots of folks who aren’t millionaires buy expensive cars. It’s a mystery to me, but they do. It’s called being an American.

It has been estimated that about 2,000 people are killed every year as a result of the CAFE-induced “downsizing” of the typical passenger cars—which lost about 1,000 lbs. on average between the 1970s and the 1990s. All the air bags and crumple zones in the world won’t prevent a similar body count in the event Kerry’s proposal becomes law.

I’m curious where these figures came from.

But only if Kerry becomes president first.

Yeah, he’s powerless as a Senator to push through CAFE reforms.