Commentary: After bingeing on cheap oil, drivers wake to a gas hangover
Related
Advertisement
5/21/2008 - 5/22/08
It's morning after in America. Our bacchanal affair with oil has ended. But too many of us are too dazed to clean up the mess.
We now are paying the price, as much as $4 a gallon for regular unleaded, a stiff tab for Americans hooked on cheap gasoline but a relative bargain for motorists in the rest of the developed world where gasoline is taxed heavily to control consumption.
Like most addicts, we knew we had a problem. But we compensated with rationalization, becoming remarkably adept at finding excuses to justify the next fix. "We need it," we told ourselves, and we did things to buttress our claim.
We built suburbs with mini-mansions miles from urban work centers. We demanded idyllic neighborhoods served by a vast network of roads, all leading to and from genteel cul-de-sacs untouched by the unpredictable democracy of mass transit.
Oil fueled our ambitions and dreams. The more we drank, the happier we felt, the bolder we acted. We believed in the eternity of oil, the everlasting cheapness of it; we looked askance at anyone who questioned our faith.
In all of this, we had enablers, politicians who supported our habit, told us not to worry, that there was more cheap oil to be found somewhere — in another country, perhaps, if not our own. They said they would fix whatever needed fixing.
They did this in 1975 with approval of the first Corporate Average Fuel Economy rule mandating efficiency standards for companies selling cars and trucks in America. The car companies obeyed, doubling the average technical fuel efficiency of their vehicles at a research-and-development cost totaling billions of dollars.
The rules made driving cheaper. So we drove more, more than doubling the vehicle miles driven in the United States from 1975 through 2006, according to the Transportation Department. The more we drove, the more we demanded comfort, safety and speed in driving.
The car companies, of course, were more than happy to meet our demands. By 2001, at least 50 percent of all new vehicles bought in the United States were pickup trucks, sport-utility vehicles or vans.
The good times rolled and horsepower roared — the more, the better. As a result, all technical gains in fuel efficiency made from 1975 to 2006 were wiped out by consumer behavior.
To fix that problem, Congress last year turned once again to the car companies to boost fuel efficiency. And, again, Congress asked voters and consumers to do nothing.
"But there is a silver lining for us in all of the pain at the pump," said Michael J. Jackson, chairman and chief executive of AutoNation, America's largest retailer of new and used cars and trucks.
America has been saying it wants to kick the oil habit. "But we didn't begin to change our behavior until pump prices passed $3.50 a gallon for regular unleaded," Jackson said.
Consumer reaction to high gasoline prices is showing up in the showroom, according to Jackson and other industry sources. Sales of consumptive, high-horsepower vehicles, especially big trucks, are down. Sales of smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles are soaring.
It's morning after in America. We can't afford another binge. Turning away from addiction is painful enough. Hitting absolute bottom before deciding to turn away could be substantially worse.
Geo Metro owners get the last laugh
I've had an eye out the past few years for the perfect Geo Metro convertible, but it appears I took too long. That tinny droptop with the awkward colors and questionable safety potential, I figured, would be a perfect dog convertible: small, cheap, economical, and the well behind the two seats opens into the trunk, so Scout could escape the sun whenever she wanted.
But it's not going to happen now: A 1993 Geo Metro XFi with "22,501 original miles" — "a absolute cream puff one owner older couple that sold this to me" — sold last week on eBay Motors for $7,200. It had one outside mirror, on the driver's side, and a radio; the 1.0-liter three-cylinder put out 49 horsepower new.
Edmunds.com says you should expect to pay $501 for an XFi, or a whole $833 for a convertible, but not anymore: The vital number now is that the XFi was EPA-rated at 53/58. Converted to the new-for-2008 mileage numbers, that's still 43/51. Compare that with the current mileage winner, the Toyota Prius, which is rated at 48/45.
The difference is that the Prius has all those things drivers thought they needed until this latest run-up caught fire: AC, power everything, navigation, satellite radio, safety equipment of any kind.
Remember that everything is a tradeoff: John Linkov, Consumer Reports' managing editor for autos, quoted in USA Today, advises shoppers to ask, "What is your life worth for that extra 10 miles per gallon?"
So stay away from my current dream car, the weekend-project Metro I've seen around town, shown in the photo above. — Jay Binneweg