Gas Prices and Fuel Efficiency
Thursday, November 23, 2006 | 1:34:00 PM
Most Americans want 40 mpg legislation. Sure it's a noble statement, but hardly realistic at the moment.
Right now, very very few cars are above 40 mpg. I took a quick peek at the Toyota website and only the Camry Hybrid and Prius are above 40. The Prius is well above and the Camry is only just at 40; its highway mpg is actually 38, even. Basically, we'll be stuck driving one of those two cars out of their 7 total cars and no trucks, vans, or SUVs.
There was earlier a legislation to give compensation for drivers who bought a hybrid vehicle. The Highlander hybrid (an SUV) actually has worse mpg than the corolla. People got compensation for getting a vehicle with lower fuel efficiency.
Many people own SUVs also. So there's a bit of hypocrisy with people wanting cheaper gas, but not willing to give up their gas guzzlers.
Prop 87 was also defeated in the election earlier this month. It would tax the oil companies and use the money to find alternative energy sources. The oil companies spent a lot on advertising to convince people that it would only raise gas prices. Part of the legislation is that gas companies are banned from increasing gas prices as a direct result from this. They'll probably find some way to raise it anyway, but now they also have to pay for the advertising money.
People vote for their pocketbook in the immediate future, not thinking about the greater effect or the feasibility. So we want to make a standard that only 5% of our vehicles currently pass to make things more efficient, but we won't try to look for alternative energy sources because it might make us pay a bit more until we do find it?
So we want the challenge of making cars more efficient rather than the fuel less expensive. And 40 mpg is ridiculously high with the cars currently available. It takes trucks and large vehicles pretty much off the road.
A couple things:
If legislation was passed that raised the fuel efficiency to 40, we wouldn't be stuck driving two cars, because the law wouldn't take effect until they had time to develop cars at that level (which usually i think is 7 years? or maybe 11...)
As for Prop 87, I voted no on that, but not because it was going to raise gas prices... the concern for me was that 40 bureaucrats in Sacramento would be 4 billion dollars or whatever it was to basically do whatever they wanted with. There were no parameters set. And we all know how irresponsible those Sacremento types are with their $30B debt before Arnold came in. So I don't know if there were exit polls, but personally I think voted no to more bureaucracy, not no to higher gas prices.