energy efficient cars

[spag68]

I know it's late, but I would like to pose the question; Why can't the federal government start the process by ordering only the highest mileage cars? Most of these vehicles are only used for short distances and these fleets number in the thousands. It's such a win win situation that i'm amazed that it hasn't been done.

[Selatius]

1. For short distances, electric cars could prove advantageous.

The EV1 is one of the first electric cars to enter full production, but GM eventually stopped making them, and now it's trying to have all the EV1s they leased out destroyed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21991-2005Mar9.html

[spag68]

2. electric cars

This is my point exactly,If you gave GM an order for 100,000 or so I'm sure they would build them. I know part of the answer is the oil influence, but hopefully that will be corrected. IN the meanwhile hybrids can at least help, and they are out there.

[Hekate]

3. Because Bushco has zero incentive to do so, tho it'd be best for us all

In May 2001 Dick Cheney said "Conservation is a personal virtue" by way of explaining why he was NOT going to have anything to do with conservation as a federal energy policy. That was the moment when I realized that the oil companies have no incentive to help us all move toward the next step. I realized that, left to its own devices, Big Oil will simply go on drilling until every single drop of oil is drained from the Earth.

(Full quote: "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." See also: http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/050801.htm)

If the Bush-Cheney administration were truly interested in energy independence and the welfare of this country, not to mention the planet, after 9-11 they could easily have ordered solar panels plastered on every government building in the 50 states and various territories. That would have set the tone.

Various local governments and some businesses have bought or leased electric or hybrid vehicles for their fleets. But that's a "personal virtue" I guess.

Big Auto, allied with Big Oil, also has zero incentive to do better. Even the demise of the American auto industry is not enough to deter them. People like me buy Japanese cars because they get better mileage, but after 9-11 the American auto industry pushed gas guzzlers like there was no tomorrow. My heart goes out to the employees, whose corporate masters are betraying their future for today's profits.

IIRC during the Clinton administration the American auto manufacturers were told they had to produce a certain number of electric and/or hybrid cars and get them on the road -- the California legislature keeps pushing for such things, so I think it was in response to our regs that a bunch of electric runabouts came to Los Angeles. (I read this in the LA Times a couple of years ago, so some details are a bit hazy. However, the overall story is quite true.)

But Ford (or GM, whoever) wouldn't actually sell them -- you had to lease. All the people who leased them were extremely happy with the performance, and they all wanted to buy them. What happened? Want to guess?

Yeah, once Dubya came to office the little electric runabouts ceased to exist. People got to keep them to the end of their leases. Every one of them asked if they could buy their car -- and every one of them was told the cars had to be turned in.

During the past miserable 6 years I have concluded that we have all the technology we need to achieve energy independence and save the planet too. We KNOW what to do, and we know HOW to do it. All we lack is the political WILL -- but as Al Gore optimistically pointed out, political will is a renewable resource.

Hekate

[rman]

4. It's not to the benefit of the energy industry,

which has a major stake in government (and vice versa).

The fact that they don't do this is one more piece of evidence that the government does not rule by consent of the governed - in other words: that we don't have democracy. It's called democracy, and we go through some of the motions associated with democracy (which have degraded to little more than rituals), but that's about it.