I agree with you 100% here. If we really want to reduce fossil fuel usage, the goal of policy should be to create a more balanced transportation network. This basically means greatly reducing car travel and car ownership, not the reverse. CAFE standards really do nothing in that regard. Even an 80 mpg auto has a huge environmental footprint once you count the roads and parking lots to service it. Better to have a gradually increasing gas tax (I'd say increase it about $0.50 per year), and use that money to fund a new public transportation grid, including especially high-speed rail and connecting subways/light rail/commuter rail. The former will virtually eliminate the need for long-distance passenger transport along Interstate highways plus cut airline use substantially. The latter will allow one to go entirely via public transit. When looked at logically autos serve two and only two transportation niches very well. The first one is rural transport where there is no population density to support even bus service. The second is local errands like grocery shopping or going to/from train stations where electrics would serve quite well. Any other use where autos were shoehorned into is better served by other modes. This is what I mean by a balanced transportation grid where each mode is used for what it does best. For example, using trains for grocery shopping makes no more sense than using cars for state-to-state travel.
. ). Neither are really practical, even in a city like NYC, and are even more impractical in larger cities like Los Angeles or Tokyo...can jtr tell me why? I think not. Not saying subways/buses/trains are not useful, just that they aren't the answer for the way we live now, and will live for at least the next century (aren't the subway of Paris more than a century old?). All I'm hoping for is more nuclear energy, clean coal (if that is ever possible) and avoiding the middle east for oil. The environment is important to me too but I think priority one is reducing our dependance on the middle east. Bio Diesel is nice but if Ethanol helps with that I'm all for it too. I really think E-Flex is the way to go for daily commuter vehicles though. Then it doesn't really matter where the power comes from and pollution can more easily and centrally controlled at the power plants.Um, that's what we have now in most of the country. I hardly call a transportation system where the auto is the sole means of getting around in many places a system with many choices. Suppose you can't drive, or maybe just don't want to, don't want the hassle of owning a car, can't afford a car, or riding in a car for more than a short time actually makes you physically sick (from either fumes or motion). Well, the last four actually apply in my case. Even if I didn't mind wasting my precious time piloting an automobile instead of doing something else as a passenger on a train, and could afford an auto, fact is they're useless to me except on short trips. I get physically ill breathing in the fumes from all the other cars in front of the one I'm in. I'm sure I'm far from the only one with this problem.
While I feel increasing gas taxes is worth a try, I also somehow feel even $100/gallon gasoline won't get Detroit to start making EVs. EVs will cost Detroit a good part of their spare parts business as they break down far less frequently. And then you'll have the mechanics unions and service stations complaining that EVs will put them out of business. Governments will cry because EVs won't be paying gas taxes. Lots of reasons we don't have EVs now. Few of them have to do with EVs not being technically feasible. Like I said, I'm 100% sure if Detroit doesn't make EVs very soon someone else will. I'm betting that someone else will be China. Labor is cheap enough there that they can use a different business model where the sales price of the car generates enough profits to make it worthwhile, even without selling spare parts down the road. Heck, it may even be worth it for them to design these EVs to last 50 years, and charge 10% or 20% more. That would give them yet more environmental appeal.
But you think by eliminating the most popular choice you will create a flurry of choices.
But it's not up to you or the gov't to determine what a "fair price" is. Just because you think that the current price is too low and if it were higher there would be more alternatives doesn't mean the current price isn't "fair".
Show me where in any of my posts I said one damned thing about "eliminating" automobiles. I feel they're not the best choice in many cases, but that doesn't mean they don't have valid uses. I feel if we had a system where each mode was used for what it does best autos would be used a lot less, but that's a far cry from eliminating them (well, maybe in places like Manhattan that might actually happen but nowhere else).
"Fair" in my book means paying the true cost. Right now taxpayers who don't own autos subsidize wars to secure oil, pay for medical conditions brought on by burning fossil fuels, etc. I suppose my main problem isn't with autos perse, but rather ICE autos. EV autos have much lower true costs of ownership, so even in a world where everyone paid the true costs they might still cost less than today's ICE autos.
The truly poor don't even own cars. They can't afford to. That's another myth I'm tired of hearing. And I'm not a Democrat. I'm probably more a Libertarian. This is why I feel everyone should pay the true cost of doing whatever it is they want to do. If you don't feel you should pay taxes to subsidize mass transit that's fine, but don't make me pay taxes to subsidize oil wars, either. BTW, in 2000 I voted for Bush (lesser of two evils). In fact, I've usually tended to vote Republican although less than enthusiastically. While the Democrats may be more in tune with me environmentally, they just carry too much welfare and other socialist baggage I can't stomach. I'm not against helping the poor, but not when they're poor because of drug addiction or having babies or other reasons of their own doing. Last election I didn't vote. I'm not bothering any more. No real differences between the parties at this point. Sort of like choosing between Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck.
Ok, so you didn't use the word eliminate. You don't want to make the illegal or prevent them from being made, but you clearly want to make the economics of owning one so expensive that almost no one can afford one. In this regard you're no better than a communist. At least they're honest about what they're doing. You just want to manipulate the market to get your desired outcome while still telling people they have a choice.
People may be stupid, but the gov't isn't responsible to babysit everyone and turn the USA into a nanny state. You can attempt to force car makers to make more fuel efficient cars, but you will have a very hard time getting people to buy them unless you're going to make them...
Bush a lesser evil than Al Gore? You can really read anything in our forums.
It almost seems like you don't trust the ability of the American car makes.First, to clarify what I was proposing, it is merely an example of manipulating the market towards electrics. A $5 or even $10 gas tax will only make driving less affordable if you insist on driving a gas car. Even then many will still be able to afford it. An electric will of course be cheaper. Heck, they would be cheaper to buy/operate even without any tricks even now. Consider a 25 mpg sedan. At today's gas prices of $3/gallon that's $0.12 per mile for energy costs. Now consider a similar electric. The widely quoted figure is around 0.15 kW-hr/mile but I'll even play devil's advocate and double it to 0.30 kW-hr/mile. Further playing devil's advocate let's use NYC's high electric rates of $0.30/kW-hr instead of the national average of around $0.12/kW-hr. Cost per mile is then 0.3*$0.30, or $0.09. Doing everything I could to make the electric look bad, it still comes out ahead in operating costs! It also wins hands down in maintenance, and if mass produced, in initial purchase price. Now the operating cost difference probably isn't yet so dramatic that the public would scream for electrics, and unless they do they auto makers won't make them. Hence the rational for my gas tax. The public will temporarily pay more now, but once the electrics I mentioned were made, transport would suddenly get a lot cheaper. Besides the direct savings, long term there will be medical savings as cancers decline dramatically. There will also be a dramatic quality of life improvement in population centers from cleaner air. Hardly seems like a plan to eliminate cars by making them prohibitively expensive to me. To be sure, I would certainly want to restrict auto use in very congested places like Manhattan regardless of whether they're electrics or not but Manhattan, perhaps NYC proper, is about the only place in the US where something like this would work.
Bush might be dumber than a potato chip but at least I knew what I was voting for. Gore I just don't trust, especially given who he served under as VP.
I would think autos have gotten too expensive when I can no long afford one. Each consumer should make that choice based on their own situation. It's not the job of the gov't to ensure that they're too expensive to drive. I like being employed, and I need a car to be employed. You're living in a fairy tale.
That's the point I'm trying to make. The average person isn't going to bother doing kW-hr per mile calculations or anything else an engineering type like me or Clocker might. They're simply going to see (using my proposal) gas=expensive, electric=cheaper.
You can get the entire auto fleet 100% electric, charged via solar or other renewable sources, and you still won't even be one-quarter of the way to solving your problem. Thus far nobody in power has proposed doing anything about aeroplanes. High-speed rail would certainly easily replace air on trips up to 500 miles, perhaps even 1000 miles if average speeds were high enough. What about trips over 1000 miles? To me it seems air travel in general is more easily addressed because it is more elastic than most auto travel. If someone needs to drive to work, and no alternatives to auto exist, then there's no much you can do short of encouraging them to buy an electric car. However, most air travel is either business or vacation related. By definition all vacation travel, and much business travel, is optional, meaning that it's a want as opposed to a need. Discouraging business travel, perhaps by no longer making it tax deductible, would be a good first step. Ending subsidies to airlines to make air travel in general rise to true cost would be a good second step. You won't stop such travel entirely, but rather this will cause air travel to revert to what it once was-an expensive luxury which mainly the rich can afford, or a once in a lifetime thing for the average person. Cutting air travel by 90% would do as much for emissions as converting all cars to EVs. It would also do wonders for the noise problem around airports.
I submit that this was a big mistake for two reasons. First, enforcement is pretty much not practical. Traffic will move at its own pace based on the road, traffic conditions, a whole bunch of other factors. The only way to get comliance is with saturation enforcement. However, this costs a fortune, and also results in loss of life from police chases. Second, the presence or absence of speed limits has been found to have very little to do with this pace. The only way to get fairly good compliance is to set the limit at the 95th percentile. This allows enforcement to go only after those who are statistically the most dangerous. By setting limits at the 5th to 10th percentile, which is what we have been doing since the 1970s via legislated speed limits, you basically turn everyone into lawbreakers. Since most people uneventfully drive over the limit, they also feel they can uneventfully violate other traffic laws, such as running red lights. The end result is what we have today-a group of largely incompetent, largely inconsiderate drivers.
If there were a way to selectively limit acceleration rates to about 3 mph/sec on local roads, perhaps by means of sensors embedded in these roads, I've long thought this might be a good idea. While high acceleration rates might be justified for highwy merging, they just aren't needed when driving on local streets. However, drivers use the acceleration capabilities of their vehicles to do all sorts of stupid weaving in and out maneuvers to jockey for position. Limit acceleration rates to about that of a city bus for in-town driving, and this selfish behavoir is no longer possible. Frankly, it never made any sense anyway. These drivers waste gas, nearly cause accidents, and then end up a big two car lengths ahead at the next light. Wow, they saved a whole second, if that! Everytime I see these bozos, I think they should be in a commercial with the tag line "Driving is so easy even a caveman can do it."
