but dont u think if one maker was getting 20 mpg and everyone started buying them that the others would follow? Now I know that the hemi's and the chevy's are starting to claim the 20+ mark but even a couple of years ago that was unheard of.
I think they should follow, and the fact that Ford reversed its decision to can the Ranger after reviewing 2009 sales may be an example of how some consumer demand for efficient pickups is affecting some auto maker decisions.
But I think that full-size pickup buyers have demonstrated (by continued buying) that they don't care too much about fuel efficiency. That puts an auto maker who thinks maybe he could gain an advantage with a more fuel-efficient truck in a tough spot. Does he buck the trend and throw a LOT of development money at a very fuel efficient truck, hoping that consumer tide is turning toward efficiency?
Current experience says, "No." With today's fuel efficiencies in the mid teens at best, people who need full-size trucks (real or perceived need) have gotten accustomed to putting a lot of their budget into gasoline. Even if a whole bunch of them suddenly get budget conscious and go truck shopping at the same time (pretty unlikely), few are going to dump their brand or dealer affinity to get a truck that gets 16 mpg when the one they're replacing got 14.
I am not pro-regulation in general. I've just seen very good results from diesel emissions regulations. Yes they've gone too far with the way they've regulated existing machines in the field, but regulation on the manufacture of new diesel equipment has achieved the desired results pretty well.
Regulation had to deliver clean diesel because a free market (even our faux-free one) never would. Not enough individual buyers would pay for clean diesels to swing the market in that direction. That doesn't make clean air any less necessary. It hasn't been free or easy, but few valuable protections of public health and safety are.
We need more fuel-efficient vehicles. Yes, we do. Let's count the reasons:
1) Look at our balance of trade. Reason enough righ there.
2) As long as we're in the neighborhood, look closely at the socio-political ambitions of our trading partners; the jolly recipients of the money we spend on foreign oil. Yep, that's a really convincing reason to dramatically reduce our oil consumption.
3) Check the long-term outlook for oil supply. Only so many decomposing dinosaurs buried out there. Our 5 percent of the world's population is using up 25 percent of the oil burned. Seems like bad business to pursue the "use with abandon" policy with the prospect of Asia taking over global economic dominance. Might make some good foreign policy to at least attempt to save some oil for their burgeoning middle class, even if we are too short sighted to care about the inevitable long lines for $15 per gallon 87 octane.
3) Check our air quality. It's not worsening quite so fast as before we started regulating almost everything. Clearly, something more needs to be done.
4) Global warming. (Yeah, I went there.) Let me just ask a question: Do you really think 187 countries have signed the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union has mired itself in the divisive politics of a multi-national carbon cap and trade program because none of them could come up with somebody smart enough to see problems with climate-change statistics? Energy companies are among those with the most to lose from regulating greenhouse gases. Virtually no other entities on the planet have more political clout than energy companies. If there were the slightest problems with the assertion that human activity is contributing to global warming, there would be no Kyoto or European Union Emission Trading Scheme.
Pickup and car buyers need dramatic fuel efficiency increases to change their buying behavior (as long as we're going to keep fuel prices so low).
Auto makers need a level playing field -- all of their competitors have to make the same dramatic fuel efficiency improvements -- for the process to be fair. And boy will they create more fuel-efficient vehicles! Innovation is what we do best.
So to get more fuel-efficient vehicles, we need regulation to raise the fuel-efficiency of that level playing field.
Oh my, that took longer than I thought. Sorry.
Hope it helps,
L
