Editorial from NYT: R.I.P to the S.U.V.

These are the sorts of things that make me nervous. (Editorial at the link)

It’s hard to convince most Americans that there is a silver lining to $4-a-gallon gasoline. But General Motors provided a nugget of good news when it announced that it would shutter much of its production of pickups and sport utility vehicles — and might even get rid of the Hummer, the relative of the Abrams tank unleashed on the streets in the cheap-gas days of the 1990s.

It’s hardly the solution to global warming, or the country’s dependence on imported oil, but it’s a start.

Playing the urban warrior in a Hummer was a fairly inexpensive thrill when a gallon of gas cost just over $1. But at $4 a gallon, driving a full-powered Hummer H3 or a big Ford F-150 would cost a typical driver, who drives 15,000 miles a year, almost $4,300 in gas. This is more than 10 percent of the median earnings of full-time workers and about $2,200 more than it would cost to drive the same distance in a Honda Civic.

By May, there were signs that the S.U.V.-era was over. For the first time, Detroit’s Big Three automakers and their trucks were outsold in the United States by fuel-efficient cars made by Asian companies. And monthly sales of Ford’s muscular F-series pickups fell by a third, bumping it five spots from its previous perch as America’s best-selling vehicle, behind the Honda Civic, the Toyota Corolla, the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord. It was the first time since December 1992 that a car, not a truck, claimed the top spot in monthly sales.

The F-series pickup has been the nation’s best-selling vehicle, on an annual basis, since 1981. But last month, the Ford Motor Company said that it would slash production of pickups and S.U.V.’s. Its full-size pickup plant in Cuautitlán, Mexico, is expected to be used to produce the Ford Fiesta, a subcompact car, instead.

Expensive gasoline is not good news for most American families. In some rural areas where people must drive long distances, and a pickup is more of a necessity than a lifestyle choice, filling up the tank can eat up nearly 15 percent of a worker’s take-home income. Pricey gasoline is acting as a brake on the economy and pushing up the price of food and other goods.

Still, Americans’ response to rising gasoline prices makes an excellent case for a gas tax. It proves that drivers will change their behavior in response to high fuel prices. And even if Detroit doesn’t buy global warming, drivers can help persuade it to embrace fuel efficiency. They don’t even have to know that the Honda Civic emits less than half the 13 tons of greenhouse gases spewed by the Ford F-150.

That's the full editorial. Having drove a Honda Civic for the last 10 years, I can tell you, it's a wonderful car. I can also tell you, that its tiny 4-cylinder engine goes from 0-30 in about 10 seconds. That it's trunk space, while spacious considering the car itself, is hardly enough to carry two suitcases, and that the 3 seats in the back are uncomfortable, and passengers hate riding there.

I can also tell you that their dangerous. An accident above a rolling fender bender or parking lot squabble will land you in the hospital or worse. It's just too tiny, and it's made of tinfoil. I will not carry a baby in one.

Now, do I think Hummer's are impractical? Yes but I thought so in the 90s too. Really, do we need to drive around tanks? And more than that, they force people with Civics (like mine) to be nervous (see paragraph above) because if that thing hits me, at any speed ... I'm road kill!

But banishing an entire car line, be that SUVs or Trucks, is not the answer. Cars are not the problem. Any car, is not the problem. The problem is the fuel that it takes to run them, and the fact that we're held hostage by importing our gas.

Gas is expensive now for one reason, and one reason only: the dollar is not worth what it was this same time last year. To get the same money out of us as they did last year, The Sauds and Opec have to charge more.

So, their are two solutions: 1 - increase interest rates to encourage foreign investors (and our own investors) to invest here, instead of over seas. The side effect of this is that the weak housing market will crumble and banks will fall apart under the strain of the bad loans.

2 - instead of importing our oil, use our own oil. In fact, I'm increasingly interested in the oil shale in Colorado, and the lighter oil that it would produce.

This clearly isn't a 20 year plan. Oil will eventually go away. But if the scientists and even OPEC are to be believed, they have no shortages at the moment. Or even any shortages predicted for the next 40 years. So the warming crowd screaming SEE! SEE! We're running out of OIL! That's why gas is so HIGH! SEE!

It's all chicken little crap. It's not high because of anything except a weak dollar and speculators in the market who are out to make a profit.

And I think it's all because we don't want oil fields in our country. They can have them over there, but we don't want them here.

Also - in the article it fails to point out how many jobs are going to be lost by this GM cut. Over 35,000. That's 35,000 American's who still have to pay for high food and gas, but have no job with which to do it. Maybe, instead of trumpeting the death of their livelihood, they should think about the effect this is going to have on the US economy.

And in Mexico? Yeah the new plant there is going to create 4,500 new jobs. In Mexico. For Mexicans. So yeah for GM firing 35,000 people and sending those jobs to another nation. Let's all thank the NYT for such a great editorial.