To the Press:
“Gentlemen: I today announce a NEW “Manhattan Project”-which will free us from the world petroleum market. We can no longer rely upon the importation of a vital component of our economy.
First:
The heads of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have agreed to build (within 18 months); car models which get 75 MPG on the highway. These vehicles will be available to all American citizens, on a cash-for=scrap basis-you surrender you present vehicle to be destroyed, and receive a new high mileage vehicle. You will receive a Federal tax credit, and will be assisted in obtaining a low-interest loan.
Second: the heads of EXXON/MOBIL. SHELL, GULF, HESS, have announced a joint venture-to exploit the oil shales of the Green river formation. A plant will be in operation (within 12 months) with a capacity of 2 million barrels/day. This plant will be built for the DOE, at a cost of production plus 1$
Third; offshore drilling in the lower 48 states will be expanded, the DOE will lease all of the areas for exploration.
Finally, a concerted program will begin to replace all oil-fired power plants with nuclear power plants-construction will begin immediately.
My fellow Americans, the proram I have announced will result in some hardship-but ultimately, the USA will NOT have to import a single barrel of oil!”
Oh it’s a nice day dream…
And I like venturing there in my mind every once in a while. But I doubt Bush would be able to do such a thing, but a president in the future may be able to.
If they could, why wouldn’t they already have done so?
Bread, cash, chips, currency, dough, gold, jack, legal tender, pelf, wampum i.e. MONEY
I think if they could market such a vehicle they’d get a pretty good return on the wampum.
Because a car that could get 75 miles per gallon would not be a car that people would want to buy. They could theoretically build nothing but Insights, Priuses and Metros, but such cars are very small, underpowered, and generally lack the ability to carry anything but passengers. When you add dead weight to a car you decrease the mileage, which is one of the reasons that EPA mileage is never the same as actual mileage.
Also, due to the law of unintended consequences, by cutting the price of gas in half by more than doubling the gas mileage, you actually encourage more driving, which would considerably offset the fuel savings you might anticipate getting. If your car gets 25 MPG at $5 per gallon, at 50 MPG you’re paying $2.50 in real fuel costs. People have demonstrated that they can swallow that price without too much pain, so any attempt to have market forces push them to something like mass transit would fail.
There’s no easy answer here. We’re too spread out to have truly efficient mass transit, we’re much too dependent upon cars to get where we need to be. They are a fact of our reality for the foreseeable future. Frankly, if discouraging driving is something you want to do I think that the best way to do that is to drive prices still higher, making it cost prohibitive. But then you’ll have an even greater rich-poor divide, and in this country that is not politically acceptable.
If you really want more nuclear plants, there are some major hurdles to overcome. From The Nation:
Una Persson can correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t most power plants coal-fired, rather than oil-fired?
I think he’d be lying. The auto companies have fought tooth and nail against much weaker and more gradual increases in fuel economy, claiming that they were not feasible. And, while I think their claims of infeasibility are mainly bogus, I think what you are proposing would be infeasible at least in the timescale that you are proposing.
What is the justification for this? And the environmental consequences, both from the drilling and from greenhouse gas emissions? This doesn’t seem to be at all a solution to the full set of problems we face from our addiction to oil.
As jayjay correctly notes, only a very small percentage of our electricity is produced by oil (2% or something like that, as I recall). Coal is the biggest, natural gas second (and increasing), nuclear third, hydroelectric fourth, and oil fifth.
Do you have a cite for your claim that the Prius is “very small”, “underpowered”, and “lack[s] the ability to carry anything but passengers”? My Prius apparently has almost the same interior room as a Camry, has more than enough power to get good pickup, to maintain high speeds on the expressway, and to pass on a two lane road, and carries all sorts of stuff from furniture to skis to quite a bit of luggage.
Your description does apply pretty well to the Insight from what I have seen of it(although I don’t have any idea about the “underpowered” part) but it does not apply to the Prius.
Could you move a washing machine with your Prius? How about a boat? How about a tall tool chest full of hand tools? Could you bring a sow to the slaughterhouse? How about multiple sows?
What is the towing capacity of your little car?
I will be the first to admit that most people with trucks and SUVs don’t put them to work - and in fact I drive to work every day in a Toyota Echo. But some people need larger vehicles, and expecting them to use Priuses is just silly.
You answer an assertion that your car can’t carry much by saying you can carry skis in it - I think that isn’t a concern for a lot of people, frankly.
DIMENSIONS:
Wheelbase: 106.3 in Length: 175.0 in Width: 67.9 in Height: 58.7 in
Curb weight: 2900 lb
C/D-ESTIMATED PERFORMANCE:
Zero to 60 mph: 12.5 sec
Zero to 90 mph: 32.5 sec
Standing 1/4-mile: 18.9 sec @ 75 mph
Top speed (governor limited): 99 mph
ESTIMATED FUEL ECONOMY:
EPA city driving: 60 mpg
EPA highway driving: 50 mpg
The EPA Estimates listed here (from 2003) aren’t even close, by the way. There has been no shortage of complaints (Cite). 0-60 in 12.5 seconds? While I don’t think it necessary to go 0-60 in under 4 seconds, a bit more highway merging ability would go a long way to alleviating the fears of the average driver while simultaneously cutting deeper into their vaunted fuel mileage.
There’s a reason why the Prius has remained a low-volume status car. Most people recognize that the premium that is charged for the car will take a long time to return it in fuel costs, especially when the inflated EPA miles are factored in. Most people (though perhaps not you) buy it for the “green” image it projects- they want people to know how much “they care”, and willing to eat the overage as a result.
I will retract the “small” portion, though. They’re not puny things like the Insight or the Metro, so that comparison isn’t warranted outside of fuel mileage considerations.
And what about the increase in the waste stream caused by “scrapping” the returned vehicles, what would be more logical would be an engine/transaxle modification or replacement, swap out your petroleum powered internal combustion engine for your “snake-oil” powerplant, or a diesel-to-biodiesel swap (yes, I know biodiesel works fine in conventional diesels with no mods neccecary), why scrap perfectly good vehicles when all that’s needed is a new engine and transmission?
But what about the resulting Smug storms? 
You’ve nailed a large part of the problem here. The vast, vast majority of people do not need a workman’s van or a farm vehicle on order to do their daily chores like getting groceries and commuting to work.
Yet that is what they buy.
This depends a lot on driving habits. When I was driving back and forth to my last job, I averaged 51 mpg combined over 30K miles. With my current commute, I’ve got aroung 45 mpg over 17K miles. So, there are a lot of variables to consider when comparing real-world mileage to EPA estimates, which don’t reflect the way anybody drives in real life.
I’ve never been afraid to get on the highway in my Prius. Would I like a little more pep? Sure. Can I drive in a reasonable and safe manner in my Prius? Absolutely.
My bold. The Prius was the 11th-highest selling vehicle for the month of March 2008 (16th highest-selling for the period Jan-Mar 2008). Of the cars ahead of the Prius in sales that month, four were other hybrids.
I’m not saying that some people don’t need larger vehicles although I think people should ask themselves if it is not more cost-effective to occasionally rent a large vehicle than to buy a vehicle for their greatest needs (such as hauling furniture and such) that they may do only very rarely. And, I admit that the Prius is not made for towing things. However, the description that I objected to was “lack the ability to carry anything but passengers”. In fact, it can carry a lot more than just passengers.
I agree that the original EPA estimates were inflated. However, this was true for all cars…although the percentage that it was off for the hybrids compared to the new ratings were on the high end (see here). The new EPA estimate of 46mpg overall is very reasonable, if not a bit conservative. I think my lifetime mileage is between 46 and 47mpg. However, that is number is lowered from what it otherwise would be because the mpg takes quite a hit in the cold Rochester winters, especially since a typical commute time around here (15 minutes is mine) does not allow the car to warm up very much. In the summer, my mpg averages in the low 50s.
As for the performance, that 12.5 sec number seems a bit inflated. I seem to recall a number of 10.[something] from Consumer Reports and here is a figure of 10.9 sec from Edmunds. At any rate, I have found it plenty peppy for my needs.
AFAIK, towing with a rental vehicle is a no/no. And places like U-Haul only let you use their trailers.
:shrug: I’m all for better gas mileage, provided you aren’t forced to buy a small sedan.
I see a LOT of big trucks-totally empty! I don’t understand this. True, if you need a truck, no small sedan will do. But i see a LOT of very big trucks-with NOTHING in back.
When Bush took office gasoline was $1.34 a gallon. Today it’s well over $3.00 and will likely reach $4.00 before the end of the year. Bush was a (failed) oilman. He was elected with oil money. Starting a project that would result in less oil being bought by Americans is just not something his masters would let him do.