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Pages:
Automobiles Index:
Jun 8/2007: Toyota's global hybrid sales top million
(Bromley judges this achievement against ice cream trucks and concludes that
ugly cars sell, hybrid or not)
May 5 /2007:
Governing auto safety (Governors gone wild!)
Aug 10/2006: Safe at all costs
(Ralph Nader & the fetish of design safety over driver responsibility)
6/23/06: Fixing Old Wrongs?
A modern ambulance chaser chases back to 1902!
6/5/06:
Why the world needs automotive historians (gasoline, steam -- or corn?)
6/4/06:
Early autos in early films!
2/22/06: Hybrids or Nobrids?
12/9/05:
Green is good, or too much green?
11/25/05: Reports
From the Roads (Automotive
Thanksgivings)
9/9/05:
Back in Gas! Freakin' over the price of gasoline.
7/4/05:
Happy Fourth!
3/29/05:
More Detroit Layoffs.
3/18/05:
Collin Powell a speeder -- and what a road he chose to speed upon!
3/14/05:
"24" Wrong on the Chauffeur
3/11/05: Leftlaness... just get out of the way, you stuck
up hybrid driver
3/10/05
Headlight theft (con't)
2/22/05b:
Baron Munchausen Syndrome: Maryland SUV
surcharge (con't)
2/22/05:
Baron Munchausen Syndrome: Maryland SUV
surcharge
2/18/05:
Headlight theft
2/8/05:
Toll roads & Texas highways (article link)
2/5/05:
Too many horses (Easterbrook con't)
1/28/05:
Too many horses: Easterbrook theories put to test
1/19/05:
Too many horses: or so says Gregg Easterbrook
1/13/05:
Roads, dead deer, insurance, & State Socialism (aka,
who's gonna pay?)
1/6/05:
You are what you drive (Porsche Drivers For Bush!)
1/3/05:
Drunks & Euroweenies
12/28/04:
Taxes and autos: one up, the other down
12/27/04:
Santa Claus Car (Kit Foster explains)
12/25/04:
Santa Claus Car: Merry Christmas!
12/19/04:
Taxes and autos: parking fees in DC
12/9/04:
How Sally's Mustang got Into the museum
Older Pages
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... of Automobiles!
Jul 2/2007: CAFE CON'T
Now this is scary:
Chinese Tinker-Cars
by Charles Krauthammer
The senator was vexed. The U.S. auto companies were
resisting attempts by her and other Senate well-meaners to impose a radical rise
in fuel efficiency by 2017. Why can't they be more like the Chinese, she
complained. Or to quote Sen. Dianne Feinstein precisely: "What the China
situation, or the other countries' situation, shows is that these automakers, in
all of these countries, build the automobile that the requirements for mileage
state. And they don't fight it, they just do it."
Welcome to Princess Dianne's Law Law Land, where she
fixes everything with a new statute and a bureaucratic wave. Won't someone
please give the woman a vacation in reality? She can live in my basement for a
couple weeks. I'll let her drive my car (may have to teach her the stick). I'll
giver her an allowance she can use to buy frozen dinners and a six pack of
Miller Lite every Tuesday.
And I'll make her read Krauthammer's column every night before
bed:
Yes. That is how things work in Communist Party
dictatorships. It is odd to hold up China as a model of corporate-government
relations. It is also poor salesmanship. Just a week after Feinstein made that
statement, the Brilliance BS6 sedan -- "a car with which (China) wanted to
conquer Europe's automobile market" -- failed a German crash test so miserably
that it might be banned from Europe, reported the European news agency AFX News.
"It was the second time in less than two years that a Chinese-made car has
failed the test, following the spectacular failure of the Landwind sport-utility
vehicle made by Jiangling Motors 18 months ago."
You get what you pay for. When you build lighter cars with more fuel efficiency,
you know that ultimately -- even with the best (let alone Chinese) technology --
safety is compromised. That happened three decades ago when U.S. mileage
efficiency rose dramatically in response to the oil shocks of the '70s. It will
likely happen again.
Well, I'll cut the Princess of there, because then Charles goes
into lowering consumption through higher taxes instead mileage mandates. Come
on, Charles, maybe you need a walk outside the Beltway, too! You know it, we all
know it, let the price of gasoline float and consumers will choose in their own
best interest, not what the U.S. Senate thinks it is.
Jun 26/2007: CAFE Update: Be Like Europe?
(Or why the world needs Automotive Historians, con't)
The Wall Street Journal posts today an interesting
question:
Can U.S. Adopt Europe's Fuel-Efficient Cars?
Whether by presidential order or congressional mandate, car makers in the
foreseeable future will likely have to build fleets that average about 35 miles
per gallon. But what kinds of cars and trucks will gasoline-guzzling Americans
drive to achieve that average? In the U.S. today, about 70% of car and truck
sales sport six- or eight-cylinder engines. In Europe, 89% of vehicles sold have
a four-cylinder or smaller engine, according to the Alliance for Automobile
Manufacturers, a trade group representing nine auto makers from three
continents.
The Journal states that it is gasoline taxes and tax
breaks for diesel that motivates European consumption of small gasoline and
diesel engines Indeed, yes, but there's also a strong legacy at work of
public policy aimed against large engines. Europe has a culture of small engines
that the U.S. does not. Going back to the earliest days of the automobile,
European governments punished large cars and large engine displacements as
incendiary agents of class warfare. That these policies were themselves warfare
escaped them, of course, and the result was the democratization of stupidly
small cars and not a democratization of big cars, which remained the tools of
the upper classes.
Once again, we find the distinct need for automotive
historians. If cars weren't so damned important, then we'd just be an obscure,
ornery set, befuddled by this odd technology and its products. But guess what:
everyone needs cars. So, too, do we need correct historical interpretation of
them.
The Journal' article almost gets it. See this, from a
man whose livelihood depends on satisfying consumers:
"If we have a big disconnect between what the consumer is
asking for and what the manufacturers have been ordered to produce, that's
extremely difficult," says Mike Jackson, chief executive of AutoNation Inc., the
nation's largest publicly traded dealership chain. "That's sort of like if you
want to do something about dresses in America, [mandating] that we can't sell
anything larger than a size eight. If you don't put America on a diet at the
same time, you have a disconnect between the regulators and what the consumer is
willing to do."
Here's the key to this whole business: American consumers can't
be taught so easily. It's possible, but unlikely that they'll just turn over
their big tastes for big. In Europe, the mass market never had the opportunity
to taste big, so demand for it was not stifled, it was never allowed. Stifling
it here will be another thing. My guess is it won't happen.
Too many trailers out there, and, most importantly, too many
old habits that not even Congress can break.
(It never can, can it?)
Jun 22/2007: CAFE Update: The Bill passes
From The Detroit News:
Senate OKs big hike in fuel rule
Raising standard to 35 mpg shows loss of clout by Big 3; House to take up bill
in the fall.
The News is calling this a big defeat for Detroit,
representative of its generally lowly state of affairs. I'm not so sure. While
CAFE should be abolished entirely, that ain't gonna happen. So, it's up to "next
best" scenarios. It's pretty clear that the Senate was going to "do something"
about the supposed fuel crisis. Unsurprisingly, "global warming" was given as a
prime motivator. Detroit's Senator explained:
In an interview, Levin said he was disappointed, especially
in colleagues he thought would have supported his legislation. "We're not going
to give up," Levin said. In the end, Levin said his bill was doomed by growing
concern about global warming -- "totally understandable." But, he added, that
issue "politically made it difficult for some of my colleagues who we were
counting on."
The key defeat for the American makers is the lumping of cars
and trucks/SUVs into total averages. Levin tried to increase passenger cars and
trucks distinctly, as is the case under current CAFE rules. However, there's so
much fudge room in the bill's requirements that there's no certainty that even
those core fuel-efficiency rules, much less the alternative fuels requirements,
will ever be enforced.
Here's the perspective on the House, which will get to The Bill
in the Fall:
Now, debate will turn to the House, where U.S. Rep. John
Dingell, D-Dearborn, an auto industry ally, will face a difficult effort to
craft a more "realistic" bill, yet one that environmentalists and liberals will
support.
"It's clear that the political movement to increase our nation's fuel economy,
and decrease our oil dependence, has shifted out of neutral and into drive,"
said U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, head of the House select global warming committee.
So, "Global Warming" gets its due. Pathetic. But the good news
is that even the House Chairman of Global Warming doesn't see pressure for much
more than this in the future. Again, I suspect that Global Warming will be a
weaker cause come next Fall, which will be more fully into the next election
cycle, during which moderation will become again a virtue.
Whereas The Detroit News gave the automakers' angle, Reuters,
of course, speaks for the Left. Listen to Nader's pal, Joan "Kill 'em Softly*" Claybrook:
Senate approves new auto fuel standards
.... Joan Claybrook, president of Consumer Group Public Citizen and a former
head of the agency that administers CAFE rules, called the measure a "step
backward" because it would give regulators and industry too much discretion on
how to achieve mileage targets.
One thing is certain: the unintended consequences of this
bill will be fun to watch. My guess: Chrysler, GM, and Ford spin off SUV
production into multiple, independent luxury makes, and keep each brand's
production to under 60,000 cars, which would exempt them from all CAFE rules --
right along with Ferrari, Bentley, and Lamborgini.
Well, that won't happen, either, but it's a fun thought.
Imagine twenty different makes, each offering customized gasoline-indulgence!
Get yer 17mpg! Get yer 5-tons of steel! Get yer big-ass hunk of
automobile!
Whatever The Bill ends up being, it will not achieve what it intends. Just as the original CAFE and its 1980s update ended up
creating the SUV, something odd is going to come out of this latest attempt to
get people to do things they don't want to do. That, after all, is what
The Bill is all about that.
**Note: Joan "Kill 'em Softly" was Jimmy Carter's
auto safety czar in the late 1970s. A Nader protege, she participated in the
lobbying for, and under Carter oversaw, the creation of massive "safetey"
regulations of the period, especially "passive restraint" systems such as
automatic safety belts and air bags. Following the Naderite view that "all evil
starts in Detroit," Claybrook's regime attempted to fix individual road behavior
in auto design. Doing this, drunk driving and individual choice in seatbelt use
were ignored -- both of which continued as, and continue to be, the largest road
killers.
In that half of the nation's automobile deaths last year
involved occupants who were NOT using seatbelts, I'd say that Claybrook has
quite a murderous legacy going on. Thankfully, our current DOT head is promoting
individual choice in seatbelt use instead of the old Claybrook-style fix-it-all
through bureaucratic solutions.
Jun 21/2007: CAFE Update
The Senate has passed a bill requiring 35 mpg fleet average for
all personal vehicles, including SUVs and pickups.
Sadly, the House will pass it, and President will sign this
into law. The only good news here is that an amendment to increase the Federal
gasoline tax for expenditures on alternative fuels was defeated by a Republican
maneuver. This tax would have mandated a doubling of the price of gasoline. I'm
sure it wasn't hard to kill it, but at least it's dead for now.
See below for more on CAFE:
Jun 20/2007: A CAFE rant!
Yes, too much coffee. Or not enough. Either way, I couldn't
hold off, so I went off on The Washington Post editors on their
"comments" page on this editorial today:
Strong CAFE Needed
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) holds the key
Well, let's hope Senator Babs reads
my rant and votes against the Post and automotive self-destruction:
The editors base their conclusion upon a very elusive and
unprovable standard:
"This seems to be to the liking of the industry, which seems to resist, its
long-term self-interest notwithstanding, every time a regulation is proposed
to enhance passenger safety, improve gas mileage or help the environment."
For the editors public policy trumps market self-regulation every time. But
they don't know this. Indeed, this assertion, even if occasionally true in
some particular, is far more generally and dangerously false. For every
example of industry resistence to a bureaucratic solution the editors might
offer us (they don't), there are thousands of practical market-driven
solutions. Worse are the unintended negative consequences of federalized
solutions that the Post is once again calling upon.
When NHTSA's predecessor agencies were formed in the 1960s, Detroit was on the
leading edge of safety technology. By moving the standards from the factories
to the DC bureaucracy, NHTSA actually stifled innovation. Rather than
resisting advance, what Detroit resisted was the government fiat -- which led
to so many destructive results, such as the deadly NHTSA decision from the
1970s to push "passive restraint" systems while ignoring the role of the user
in safety belts. Tens of thousands of lives were lost by this bureaucratic,
not market, -driven policy.
As for CAFE, the editors fail to recognize that these are corporate AVERAGES.
I can see the sanctimonious editorials in 2020 when it turns out that the
makers are pushing out loss-leader, super-high mileage mini-cars in order to
bring up the overall averages that allow for continued sales of what the
market demands in large, comfortable, high-powered gasoline vehicles.
The SUV is an unintended consequence of CAFE. So are road-deaths that followed
the dangerous, small cars forced upon consumers to meet CAFE (and which the
editors have told us over and over are unfairly demolished when they come into
contact with SUVs...) Another important unintended consequence of CAFE and of
the new standards is increased fuel consumption. CAFE will do nothing to
reduce road usage. By lowering cost, it creates a backwards incentive to
increase use.
Above all, new CAFE standards are unnecessary. The salient difference between
today and the 1970s, when CAFE was introduced, is that today there are no
price controls on fuel. The 1970s controls kept prices unnaturally low,
spurring consumption while at the same time suppressing production. Then along
came CAFE which was intended to resolve a "gas crisis" of the government's own
making. The 1973/74 and 1979 shortages were caused by price controls, and not
by oil embargos. Those international incidents were catalysts and not causes
of the "crisis," and they would never have impacted the nation as they did
were prices allowed to float, as is the case today. There is no "crisis"
today, hence there is no need to redouble a bad policy that did next to
nothing to achieve its intended goals. (To argue that modern engines with
greater fuel efficiency than pre-CAFE are the result of the fuel standards is
to put the cart well before the horse; CAFE is a reactive, not generative
policy.)
I suppose it'd be unfair to ask our public officials to let consumers figure
this out on their own. Are consumers abandoning SUVs in reaction to higher
prices? Yes and no. What's wrong with that? Let 'em choose for themselves.
Did I do good?
Well, if you're wondering, you can always go back to this
classic 1999 expose by USA Today's James Healey:
Death by the gallon
James R. Healey. USA TODAY, July 2, 1999
....
A USA TODAY analysis of previously unpublished fatality statistics discovers
that 46,000 people have died because of a 1970s-era push for greater fuel
efficiency that has led to smaller cars.
Add to that list the tens of thousands of lives lost to the
Federal auto safety highway establishment's wrong-headed, Nader-driven focus on
"passive" safety as opposed to driver safety, especially as concerns seat-belt
use and drunk driving. By blaming the manufacturer, the government and the Trial
Attorneys exempted individuals from bad choice. By pushing airbags and automatic
seat belt systems, the government diminished user responsibility and thereby
actually lowered seat-belt use.
See Bromleyisms Safe at
All Costs for more on this.
The latest CAFE is more of the sad same brew.
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