[QUOTE=Chronos]
But you (generic you, not just you specifically) will eventually replace that car and buy a new one, anyway. When you do, will it be a guzzler or a sipper? You have that choice. Now, there are (as you say) many other factors that go into that choice, and you may decide that, given everything, it makes more sense to buy the gas guzzler
[/QUOTE]
The generic ‘me’ will probably make a decision based on perceived need and requirement. If the generic ‘me’ is single, or has no children, or has a short commute and plenty of disposable income, then ‘I’ might decide a Leaf would be just the thing. Different factors are going to impact that, obviously.
The actual me decided a few years ago that I wouldn’t buy a car that gets less than 30 MPG, and optimally it would get 35+.
Well, obviously the actual me is doing no such thing…I’m militantly unsurprised by the rise in the price of gas, especially in the short term and based on how things are going in the ME right now, as well as several other factors. And I EXPECT the price of gas to just keep going up…supply and demand after all. As oil becomes more scarce and the easy oil goes away and we have to expend more resources to get at the harder stuff it’s going to cost more…Q.E.D. The generic ‘me’ probably thinks it’s all a conspiracy by Big Oil™ to screw over the little man and maximize profits or some dippy shit like that, and ‘we’ all feel that Big Auto™ is holding out on those 200 MPG gizmos you can attach to your engine and deliberately stifling all electric vehicles because businessmen and oil barons can’t make a profit on them…or something.
But the reality is that whether we use the gas in guzzles or sips is pretty much irrelevant (taking stuff like Global Warming out of the picture)…if we don’t use it someone else will, because it will be cheap enough and there won’t be as much competition for what there is. If the US cut our use of oil in half that wouldn’t mean that the earth would that much less…it would mean that someone else would snap it up at a cheaper price. The only thing that will stop that is when oil finally crosses the price event horizon and it’s simply more expensive than it’s worth for people to use…and far before that point alternatives will start seriously competing with the current system.
So, getting back to the OP, boycotting any individual gasoline company is really silly, as it will do absolutely nothing. If you want to do it to make yourself feel good, well, that’s fine…those folks who boycotted French products because we were in a snit about France probably felt pretty good about what they were doing too. And they had exactly the same effect…none.
-XT