The next time you drive by a gas station and see $3.00 gas, … smile. It doesn’t matter whether you’re riding your motorcycle or driving that gas guzzling pickup many of us have for hauling or towing. Smile, because in the next several years we are going to see huge advances in technology caused by all of the scrambling companies are doing to come up with alternatives to those high prices. If you like technology and motor vehicles, this is a great time to watch it happen. Every possible invention and idea will appear, some crazy, some cool and a few will astound us.
The absolute worst thing anyone could do now is try to cap high prices with laws or regulations or take away incentives with windfall profit taxes. Windfall profits come to those companies that supply things we really need or want. Take away the possibility of high profit and why bother going to the trouble? Suppose someone came up with a great, new efficient fuel cell design, would we cap fuel cell prices or penalize the company with windfall profit taxes when it started selling like crazy? I don’t think so, the real motive with windfall profit taxes is to punish oil companies, easy targets to score a few political points with people who don’t understand how markets work, or don’t care.
High gas prices also mean great deals. Before you rush over to your new car dealer and get into a bidding war with everyone else and pay a huge premium for that new hybrid, avoid the crowd and look at that lonely truck or car the dealers are trying so hard to move. Compared to the hybrid, you’ll spend more for gas but add up the savings and incentives they’ll give you and also add in the premium hybrid buyers are paying. That buys a lot of extra gas which is all you care about, just the extra you’ll buy. Hybrid buyers need gas, too, so take your many thousands of dollars and calculate how long it will be before you break even. You might be surprised and in the meantime you get more room, more capability and mature technology that’s easier to maintain.
Another bit of perspective is in order. If you remember the big change in emission regulations in the early 1970’s, you’ll also remember car companies were building absolutely awful cars because the smog control equipment was in its infancy. Right now, hybrid cars are in their infancy. Wait until the technology advances and more competitive pricing pops up and you can get a hybrid then that will get better mileage and better performance. Let someone else blow their money to be cool. In the meantime, enjoy whatever you’re driving, … and smile.
Kevin White says
Wow, well said!
aaron says
i don’t know if cars were bad in the early 70’s due to emmissions controls, or the big three’s unwillingness to create a good product. I’ve driven an early 911 (’73? give or take a year) and throttle response and power were good. I doubt the beatle lost driveabiliy or power, in fact wasn’t the super beatle created around then? a new car for the primary market due to a change in law. I can’t say i’ve sampled pre and post jags, mg’s or any of the french/italian cars, but the 70’s was the upswing of foreign sales in north america. big three’s tactic was “strangle the big motors, (take ’em out past 500 cubic inches if we have to) and build small cars, but we don’t have to build them well.” remember the pacer, gremlin, chevette, pinto, etc? I found a quote from gm chairman robert lutz that actually owns up to the attitude to small cars in america in those days (but gm defenders will, no doubt, still have a good reason to defend their brand of choice’s dedication to quality)
Lutz said U.S. automakers are better positioned than in the past to make appealing small cars.
“I think the American industry has stopped considering (small cars) as commodity vehicles,” Lutz said.
“There used to be a view expressed: ‘Hey, let’s just make these cars. Nobody cares about them. Nobody cares whether they are bad or good. It’s for the people who can’t afford anything better, and price is the only thing that counts.’ ” (from autoweek.com)
wow. chalk that one up, next to “the equation” for gm’s good sense and empathy for the consumers
the equation – see fight club. I don’t have the energy to find the reference i have stacked somewhere in my library, besides my fingers are tired from all this typing. the equation paraphrased goes “if we build a flawed car, and the estimated cost of paying out injury and death compensation is less than redesigning the car, F**K IT.”
otherwise i agree with everything else you say, my only issue was with emissions regulations alone making for the “awful cars” of the 70’s.
i say bring on five dollar gas. that way, i won’t have to worry about ten dollar gas in 2015.
kneeslider says
I’m not talking about bad car quality or questionable designs like a Pacer or Pinto, I’m talking about smog controls and drivability. Were the Big 3 perfect? Of course not. Did they make mistakes? Absolutely. I guess I never saw the perfect and mistake free company to which they are being compared.
I get a kick out of all of the hindsight many people have, especially the ones who weren’t there. I speak from experience with a lot of cars from before, during and through that period, having driven and owned many at that time. Among those I owned were a 72 Jaguar E Type, a 73 Mercury Capri (German) and a 73 Toyota so I can also mention cars from across both ponds.
If you get a chance to drive a car from the 70’s today, before you pronounce judgement on how it responds, make sure all of the original smog equipment is still on it. That was the first thing to go when many enthusiasts got their hands on one because the car wouldn’t run with all of it connected. It’s also why that early smog equipment is in such big demand by restorers. They can buy an old car but the smog gear is missing.
The problem was that stringent emission regulations were put in place and engine controls were extremely primitive by today’s standards. Engines used carbs, not fuel injection and ignition curves were altered by changing weights and springs inside the distributor, hardly an exact science. This was also the period when leaded gasoline was going away due to the coming of catalytic converters. Car makers had their hands full and it took time for them to figure things out. At the same time, they were also trying to meet a lot of new safety regulations, which is why there were so many cars with huge rubber bumper blocks added which looked pretty bad. My 72 Jag was the last year before that abomination took place on the E Type.
In today’s world of computer controlled engines where almost everything can be changed with a laptop, it’s easy to criticize the early efforts to make all of this happen. Working with the technology available, they made great strides, some of the cars still ran awful but they were trying.
The funny (or sad) thing about a lot of criticism is that it doesn’t acknowledge the progress made. “Wow, look where we were and how far we’ve come!” Instead, some vision of perfection is imagined and anything falling short is attributed to laziness, dishonesty or even some moral failure. (I wonder how many critics have reached such a state of perfection they are able to withstand the criticism of all others)
My comment about hybrids is right on the mark. Look back in 10 years and see what today’s Prius looks like in terms of technology from that future date. Technology takes time to sort itself out and if you wait a few years you’ll be able to get a lot more hybrid (or something else entirely?) than you can buy today. In the meantime, relax and smile.