Why Ford will ask for a bail out

Well, not exactly a bailout, but guarantied loans backed up by money supplied by you and me.

You may remember that I speculated that Ford had a car that got over 65 mpg but probably wouldn't import it. Just a gut instinct based on the Occam's Razor of History: if confronted with two equally plausible explanations, always go with the one that assumes the maximum amount of stupidity on the part of those involved.

Bingo. Ford won't import it because they KNOW the American public will not buy it and they would have to charge too much for it. If you read a bit further, you will see that Ford really believes it couldn't make enough on each copy to make it worthwhile.

Meanwhile the out of date Focus soldiers on, with a restricted line-up and a dwindling customer base.

Driving and fuel

Off and on I have made comments on my blogs about how I have adjusted my driving in order to improve gas mileage. It's not hard to do actually, the way most of us drive. Now I find this advice from a Republican governor we all know and love.

Now if he would just ditch the Hummer, buy a Tesla electric, and bus to work it would be even better. Any news yet on ditching article II, section 1 of the Constitution?


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Automotive Artifact from the Past

I have often mentioned my fondness for weird little cars. As a sign of that, I was reading an old Edmund's review of the 2001 Toyota Echo. They really hated the car. It was too expensive, too weird, too... well, they just hated it. But the Echo remained pretty much unchanged until 2005 when Toyota retired the little beastie and used it innards for the Scion and the Yaris.

Here is what I find fascinating as an historian: Edmund's final sneering put-down.

In European and Japanese city centers, where the Echo is called the Vitz and is purchased by people with fewer and more expensive parking spaces to utilize than dwellers of Manhattan, this car makes perfect sense, particularly when overseas fuel prices are factored into the equation. It is a wonderful little low-speed, high-mileage, no-fuss urban commuter. But in America, where it takes three or four full days of high-speed motoring on some of the cheapest gas in the world to get from one side of the country to the other, Echo is ill-suited to the driving most of the people do most of the time.

Notice how the high mpg is of no interest to a REAL American. And most of us are going to drive across country? Maybe, but most of us, really, spend most of our time driving less than 35 miles round trip, usually on our daily commute and our trips to Wal-Mart.

BTW, the EPA mileage they are so smarmy about was 34/41. How much would you like one now that gas is $4? For a slightly more appreciative review, read this.

so here's my plan. Buy a low mileage base version of the 2005 model, the one with standard transmission and no AC. Then cut the back seats out, and anything else that isn't absolutely necessary. Ought to get almost 45 plus mpg.

How much petroleum is left?

I think that gas prices may drop before long. But only by a little bit, and not for very long. Then they will stabilize if we are lucky, or continue to climb if not. Most commentators seem to think that prices will go up in the long term. Up by how much is trickier to say.

Now T Boone Pickens, an oilman from way back, puts forward his opinion, and it is not reassuring for those who want to keep on using petroleum and claim that there is plenty of untapped oil out there, somewhere. Here's some of what he has to say:

Let me share a few facts: Each year we import more and more oil. In 1973, the year of the infamous oil embargo, the United States imported about 24% of our oil. In 1990, at the start of the first Gulf War, this had climbed to 42%. Today, we import almost 70% of our oil.

and

Consider this: The world produces about 85 million barrels of oil a day, but global demand now tops 86 million barrels a day. And despite three years of record price increases, world oil production has declined every year since 2005. Meanwhile, the demand for oil will only increase as growing economies in countries like India and China gear up for enhanced oil consumption.

Of course, T Boone has a plan. Tap the vast reserve of wind power in the midwest to run our power plants and use the natural gas that currently fuels them for our cars.

Don't know about the solution, but I think he see the problem clearly.

Tough love about Petroleum

The life blood of our civilization. Without it, we die, at least as a civilization as we understand it. Yet ... we are going to have to adjust. Consequently for all the suffering it will cause to the deserving and undeserving, I agree with this post from Andrew Sullivan:

Megan notes greater efficiency from costly energy:

"If the price of oil does come down, we'll emerge from this substantially more productive - good for us, good for our descendants, good for the planet."

$4 a gallon is the best news this country has had in a very long time. Here's to $5. It's the only way Americans will ever learn.

On a brighter note, it does seem as if the public at least is rapidly adjusting its driving habits and at least some of its expectations. Now, could our political elites do the same, please?

Update: I suppose I should note that Sullivan does not drive. Does not know how, in fact. I would point out this is positively un-American but he is not an American.

Expensive gas - a changing America

Actually, I am not sure we can say that we now have expensive gas in America. Gas prices have gone up to where we are getting close to the price much of the industrialized world has paid for decades. I remember driving around in a rented Renault Twingo in France twelve years ago and marveling at both how expensive gas was and how fuel efficient the little Twingo was.

This clearly spells the end of cheap gas, however, in America. Changes will be made, either slowly and painfully as each family adjusts or more quickly but equally painfully by big government. I would favor a mixed approach, but even that will be expensive and painful for some.

At any rate, Paul Krugman has some interesting observations about the problem.

Is there an SUV Graveyard?

Sort of like the legendary Elephant Graveyard? We may be headed that way, according to this AP News article. The article is interesting because it ties the cooling market for huge SUVs to something other than rising gas prices alone. There is the fact that baby-boomers have raised their families and are beginning to retire, the popularity of cross-over vehicles, the slowing of the construction industry (and hence the slowing of the pick-up market*), etc.

Anyway, it is fascinating. Could be an important change to our lives. If the high price of gas doesn't get you to economize somewhere, and your driving habits and choices is one easy place to begin, the rising cost of food will.

Here's the best quote from the article, I think:

Menicocci, a resident of the upscale Miami suburb of Palmetto Bay, recently placed his 2003 Chevrolet Tahoe with leather seats and 39,000 miles for sale on Craigslist for $16,000 — roughly $2,000 less than what his research determined was the Kelley Blue Book value.

He bought a 2003 Kia Spectra for $5,000 because he was tired of paying so much for gas with his heavy Tahoe. "I was wasting $30 a day compared to $10 a day," he said. [my emphasis]

"Everybody is like, `What is that? Is that the maid's car?'" said Menicocci, who sells marble and granite for a living. "But I don't care. At this point, I'm way past looks and appearances."

Mr Menicocci sounds like a smart, practical man: $30 a day versus $10. But why a used Kia when he could have gotten a used Toyota Echo with 40 mpg?

*the slowing of the pick-up market is much sadder to me than the slowing of the SUV market. The former were for working people to work with; the latter mainly so suburbanites could feel safe and make a statement about it. In college towns like mine, the locals drive pick-ups, the faculty drive either little cars or cheaper SUVs while the tourist drive big honking SUVs and Hummers.

Hydrongen cars - here NOW!

Although they are a little small.

But, if they can build a toy hydrogen fuel cell car now, what will they be able to do in ten years?

Probably nothing if it is left up to American car companies. But ... I could be wrong.


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Huckabee says something that makes sense

For several reasons it would be a tough sale to get me to vote for Huckabee. Not impossible, just very tough. Still, I thought this quote made a lot of sense.

"None of us would write a check to Osama bin Laden, slip it in a Hallmark card and send it off to him. But that's what we're doing every time we pull into a gas station," - Mike Huckabee.

An addendum to transportation in San Fran

I was pretty well convinced that the Segway Scooters were simply toys - great for a tour while on vacation but not for much else. Then on our way through downtown San Francisco to get to the airport for our flight home, I saw a distinguished man with gray hair and beard (looked a bit like me) wearing a business suit calmly riding his Segway up the street in front of us.

Middle East, Oil and Common Sense

Finally. Some common sense over on NRO regarding the connection between the gasoline you use, the price of crude, and the coffers of our enemies. Not surprisingly it comes from Victor Davis Hanson.

If the United States could curb its voracious purchases of foreign oil by using conservation, additional petroleum production, nuclear power, alternate fuels, coal gasification and new technologies, the world price might return to below $40 a barrel.

That decline would dry up the oil profits of those in the Middle East who now so desperately use them to ensure that their own problems must also be the world’s.

I say that it is mere common sense because for the last five years at least I have been making the same point. Usually to the complete derision of my more conservative friends for being so PC and green. No - this is Econ 101 for protecting ourselves in the 21st century.

So - just exactly what I have been doing to support my theory? I've shortened my daily commute by about a mile, have forced myself with gritted teeth to drive no faster than the speed limit, have a car that gets up to 30 mpg, and take the bus to work whenever I can.

Not much, but if enough of us did it, enough.