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I
will admit it: Warren Brown is my favorite WaPo
columnist.
In both his "On Wheels" and "Car
Culture" columns, Brown provides useful
insight into private vehicles and their impact on
human settlement patterns. His observations
illuminate issues related to mobility and access
far better than the pontificators found on the
Editorial and Op Ed pages or in the Outlook
Section. It is a shame that Warren’s columns
often appear on the first or second page of the
Sunday autonomobile classified section.
For proof of Brown’s ability to summarize
reality, check out Sunday’s "Car
Culture" column "There
Ought to Be a Law." Brown scores point
after point about the stupidity of the current
congressional pursuit of fuel efficiency and
clean air without touching the phenomenon of
Mass Over-Consumption.
Having praised Brown, let me also say he
sometimes misses a point.
In stories filed from (and following) the Geneva
International Autonomobile Show that were
printed on 7 March ("Why You Can't Buy This
Car") and 11 March in WaPo ("Too
Little to Fly in Size Obsessed America").
Brown swallows far too much of the line from
Robert Lutz, Vice Chairman for Global Product
Development at General Motors. Lutz told Brown,
and Brown repeats the view, that the reason
small, efficient cars are not sold in the United
States is that no one would buy them.
We
view this issue differently. The reason that
small, efficient private vehicles are not sold
in the United States is that all autonomobile
manufactures would make less money per unit than
they would if they continued to design, promote,
build, advertise and sell big, inefficient
vehicles.
Yes, there are federal, state and municipal
regulations that make it hard to import or drive
small vehicles... did someone say
"lobbyist?"
If small, efficient private vehicles were sold
in the United States, the Big Three (and the Big
Importers) would face competition from small,
regional firms. (Full disclosure: my Grandfather
made a lot of money selling his company to
General Motors in the 20s. Further disclosure:
My parents and I never saw a dime of that
money.)
If you think there's no role for regional
manufacturers in an industry dominated by
globe-girdling mega- corporations, look more
closely. Small builders, egged on by X Prize
Foundation, are way ahead in the race to build
100 mpg cars according to Billy Baker in Popular
Science (See "The
Race to 100 MPG," 9 March 2007.)
GM’s Lutz says what will sell in Europa and
not in North American reflects the fact that
they are "two different worlds." He is
right: One is controlled by big manufacturers
and the laws they lobby for,
the other by market forces reflecting a rational
price for gasoline and intelligent agency
action. After all, Euros love their cars too.
As for the market for tiny vehicles, we admit we
would not buy (or ride in) the three- and
four-wheeled mini-vans and pickups we have seen
on expressways in Europe. These vehicles were
built to reflect incomes before October 1973 and
gas prices after October 1973. We
also would not ride in or drive one of the
Second-World/Soviet Era stink bombs we saw in
Praha, Dresden or Berlin in 1989. For starters
at 6 foot 4, we would not fit.
However, when we first recall seeing a Mercedes
Smart Car in Kobenhavn in 1991 we had the money
and the interest. That was 16 years ago come
May. To this day a lot of alternative vehicles
deemed safe in the "over-regulated"
European Union are not available here.
Warren
Brown’s column focused on the hearings 14
March before the House Energy and Commerce
Committee's subcommittee on energy and air
quality which was covered in a
business-section article ("Automakers
Tell House to Lay Off On Fuel Economy,"
(
March
15, 2007
).
On Sunday, 18 March, the same section of WaPo
highlighted a quote by Lutz’s boss G.
Richard WagonerJr., saying:
"Many of the recent legislative proposals
to increase [mileage standards] ... would be
extraordinarily expensive and technically
challenging to implement – all with little to
show for actually reducing oil consumption or
emissions."
Rep John D. Dingell responded: "Inaction
and telling us what doesn’t work is ... no
longer sufficient."
What did Warren Brown say again? He said a core
problem is that consumers do not want efficiency
as individual drivers and consumers.
He
didn't say, as he should have, that consumers
would desperately want efficiency in
Autonomobiles if they understood the
consequences of Business As Usual. Now, if those
politicians were honest with those who they were
elected to represent...
What did Wagoner say again?
"Many of the recent legislative proposals
to increase [mileage standards] ... would be
extraordinarily expensive and technically
challenging to implement – all with little to
show for actually reducing oil consumption or
emissions."
In fact, Wagoner, Lutz, GM and the rest of the
Autonomobile crowd are correct: The legislative
proposals will not work.
There are two choices to make private vehicles
more fuel efficient and less polluting:
Make private vehicles much more costly
Make private vehicles much lighter and much
slower
The first option would widen The Wealth Gap,
leading access and mobility in large New Urban
Regions to the Sao Paulo Condition outlined in
"The
Whale on the Beach," 28 August 2006. As
Wagoner et. al. know, this option would destroy
the mass market for the North American
autonomobile industry.
The second option does not meet the current
consumer "demand." It also would tank
the North American autonomobile industry. Most
important, it would not provide mobility and
access for most citizens.
Small, light, inexpensive, fuel efficient
private vehicles are unsafe at high speeds, and
at low speeds they do not serve the
disaggregated human settlement pattern which has
evolved in the US of A.
Light, small vehicles require half the space to
park and provide significant savings in the
paved area devoted to driving. In that sense,
they could be part of a comprehensive solution
for small urban agglomerations. But they are not
much help in large New Urban Regions where most
citizens live and work. This is a matter of
physics, not policy:
The disaggregation of human habitation required
to accommodate autonomobiles is a dead end just
as "urban horses" were a dead end.
When it comes to space required to drive and
park, smaller is better -- but it does not
affect mobility. Given dysfunctional human
settlement patterns, even non-polluting cars
given away for free would not eliminate traffic
congestion.
What to do?
Rep. Dingell and the rest of those who have
relied on Politics As Usual need to read Warren
Brown’s column and then go to the microphone
and announce:
"In the long term,
Autonomobility is not sustainable."
In
the short term, the only way to reduce oil
consumption at all and carbon emissions
significantly is to change human settlement
patterns.
Even
if the cost of energy and the carbon emissions
were not an economic, social and physical drag
on civilization, Autonomobility does not provide
access and mobility for most citizens in large
New Urban Regions. This is physics, not
philosophy.
--
March 21, 2007
Note:
An unedited version of this column first
appeared in the Bacon's Rebellion blog as "Autonomobility,"
on March 18, 2007.
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