So long as large % market swings in price are the norm investment in new technology by those outside the energy industry is futile.

But solutions are neither costly or difficult, for example:

A flexible tax on AUTOMOBILE FUEL[1] that insures that the price will remain at X cost is a way outside investment could be drawn in to support alternate technology to the internal combustion engine.

As an engineer, I find the fact that an electric vehicle is not available at competitive price in this "free market" as prima fascia evidence of collusion between Oil, Auto & our political lords. An electric car has far few systems which require no maintenance or PARTS, the electric car does not need polluting fluids such as cylinder lubrication and engine coolant. For folks that don't know, REPLACEMENT PARTS and FLUIDS constitute a large portion of the automobile industry. Think of that slick in the middle every driveway and every road, thats the result of our choice not to have electric vehicles.

All our increased electrical needs can be met with raw material that are within our borders or that of our strongest allies.

By going after gasoline consumption we would have the maximum beneficial impact and the minimal impact on the economy as a whole. The vast majority of us could happily meet our needs with electric cars and when we couldn't we could always rent another vehicle!

[1] Over the road trucks with DOT logs would be exempted. Tax rebates should be available to low income wage earners. Diesel purchase by cars trying to circumvent the tax would be treated as lawbreakers who are using their vehicle to commit a crime, i.e. they risk their vehicle being seized.

Posted by: S Brennan | August 8, 2008 11:52 AM

I too have heard the debates go back and forth like that. And I don't think that those in favor of an urbanist policy are saying that cars should be eliminated.

But sometimes you get the impression that the urbanists aren't very familiar with how people live away from the urban centers. And I sometimes want to ask them, "How are your policies going to work in small and medium-sized towns, where mass transit really isn't practical?".

And part of it is regional bias; if you live in a small town you have to wonder how a Manhattenite's take on the subject reflects your experience.

I suspect that what Terry is really complaining about is the marginalization of his hobby out of the public mainstream. Terry senses that muscle cars are becoming incompatible with using them as one's primary means of transportation and is becoming viewed as a sort of eccentric hobby akin to having your own horse and stable.

We're getting to the point where people are either going to be more likely to live in inner-ring suburbs or city and use more public transport, if they live out in the exurbs, own a fuel-efficient commuter car with operating costs that are as low as possible. That leaves gearhead culture to be something that only the specifically obsessed or those with a lot of disposable time and income participate in. In a world where neighbors are competing over who can get the highest average MPG on their Toyota Prius, Terry's bothered that his concerns and interests aren't as popular anymore.

I see no reason to concede that anybody has the right to drive a gas-guzzler. I mean, we don't let people drive tanks down the street. Why should we let them drive Hummers?

As an engineer, I find the fact that an electric vehicle is not available at competitive price in this "free market" as prima fascia evidence of collusion between Oil, Auto & our political lords.

As an engineer, I find the fact that an electric vehicle is not available at a competitive price in this free market as prima facie evidence that, due to the laws of physics and chemistry, battery technology is not too far advanced from Alessandro Volta's time.

From Wikipedia

Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 documentary film that explores the birth, limited commercialization, and subsequent death of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the 1990s.

The film explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, the US government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles, and consumers in limiting the development and adoption of this technology.

Topics addressed
The film deals with the history of the electric car, its development and commercialization, mostly focusing on the General Motors EV1, which was made available for lease in Southern California, after the California Air Resources Board passed the ZEV mandate in 1990, as well as the implications of the events depicted for air pollution, environmentalism, Middle East politics, and global warming.

The film details the California Air Resources Board's reversal of the mandate after suits from automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, and the George W. Bush administration. It points out that Bush's chief influences, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Andrew Card, are all former executives and board members of oil and auto companies.

A large part of the film accounts for GM's efforts to demonstrate to California that there was no demand for their product, and then to take back every EV1 and dispose of them. A few were disabled and given to museums and universities, but almost all were found to have been crushed; GM never responded to the EV drivers' offer to pay the residual lease value ($1.9 million was offered for the remaining 78 cars in Burbank before they were crushed). Several activists are shown being arrested in the protest that attempted to block the GM car carriers taking the remaining EV1s off to be crushed.

The film explores some of the reasons that the auto and oil industries worked to kill off the electric car. Wally Rippel is shown explaining that the oil companies were afraid of losing out on trillions in potential profit from their transportation fuel monopoly over the coming decades, while the auto companies were afraid of losses over the next six months of EV production. Others explained the killing differently. GM spokesman Dave Barthmuss argued it was lack of consumer interest due to the maximum range of 80–100 miles per charge, and the relatively high price.

Batteries
Limited range (60-70 miles) and reliability in the first EV-1s to ship, but better (110 - 160 miles) later. Research says the average driving distance of Americans in a day is 30 miles or less and that 90% of Americans could use electric cars in their daily commute. Towards the end of the film, an engineer explains that, as of the interview, lithium ion batteries, the same technology available in laptops, would have allowed the EV-1 to be upgraded to a range of 300 miles per charge.
Car companies
Negative marketing, sabotaging their own product program, failure to produce cars to meet existing demand, unusual business practices with regards to leasing versus sales. The film only explains this behavior once, saying that electric cars needed fewer expensive repairs and would hence not make the car companies as much money over the long term as gasoline-powered cars. The film also describes the history of automaker efforts to destroy competing technologies, such as their destruction through front companies of public transit systems in the United States in the early 20th century. It also, in one interview, mentions that automakers introduced important safety and emissions innovations including seat belts, airbags and catalytic converters only when forced by government legislation.
Government
The federal government joined in the auto industry suit against California, has failed to act in the public interest to limit pollution and require increased fuel economy, has promoted the purchase of vehicles with poor fuel efficiency through preferential tax breaks, and has redirected alternative fuel research from electric towards hydrogen.
California Air Resources Board
The CARB, headed by Alan Lloyd, caved to industry pressure and repealed the ZEV mandate. Lloyd was given the directorship of the new fuel cell institute, creating an inherent conflict of interest. Footage shot in the meetings showed how he shut down the ZEV proponents while giving the car makers all the time they wanted to make their points.
the car cost $299-plus a month to lease

"And I sometimes want to ask them, "How are your policies going to work in small and medium-sized towns, where mass transit really isn't practical?"."

We could always do things like raise CAFE standards, build more sidewalks and build new developments in small towns in denser ways so that people can walk or just take a short ride to local businesses.

I think though that we are probably going to enter a time soon when the exburbs in particular come in two types: slums and luxury ranches/estates. Once China, India and the rest of the industrialized world have car ownership levels comparable to the industrialized world (or even half that), oil prices are going to be too high to make exburban and maybe suburban life unaffordable from day to day.

S Brennan-

I'm thinking my favorite part of the Wikipedia theory is that GM was able to get the other two (ok one and a half) US car makers, and all the German, Japanese, Scandinavian, Korean, French, Italian, and British car makers to conspire together to not produce and electric car.

also, 300 dollar a month in 1996 was above average for a car lease. (the 60 month car loan I got that year for $15K came out to just under 300/month -> but the car was mine when it was paid off)

the car cost $299-plus a month to lease

How much did it cost to manufacture?

Kolohe,

In reference to:

"I'm thinking my favorite part of the Wikipedia theory is that GM was able to get the other two (ok one and a half) US car makers, and all the German, Japanese, Scandinavian, Korean, French, Italian, and British car makers to conspire together to not produce and electric car." - Kolohe

Shamefully...for engineer, you are pretty ignorant of the subsequent effort in hybrids by the Japanese. Hybrids, which are an internal combustion engine + electrical drive motor...sold at a price which is moving briskly...which is amazing since part count and price are closely related and hybrids would have a substantially higher part count. Honestly Kolohe, you sound more like an ideologue than a properly trained engineer?

Also please note Kolohe, Wikipedia knocked down all your arguments. Is the Wikipedia post lying? say so directly, don't be a sniveling coward.

Hopefully Tyro, you are able to answer your in implied question to me my response to our "expert" engineer Kolohe.

I love cars. I love to drive. I do not love to drive in cities. When I go to NYC, I take the train there (from Albany), and I take the subway around town. When I go to Boston, I drive because the train service sucks rocks. Once I'm there, I take the T. There's room for both sides here, you know. There are parts of the country where mass transit just isn't ever going to be a good solution. But I'd love to get all the people who obviously don't want to be driving and aren't very good at it off the highways so they'd be less crowded when I do want or need to drive somewhere, and the rest of the time I'll be first in line for easy, convenient mass transit.

Mike Jones,

Transit in the form of bus services can make sense anywhere there are roads and highways, provided there is sufficient demand for it.

But for rail transit, there really are very few parts of the country with enough density and the right kind of infrastructure layout to support it. Something like a third of all rail transit trips take place in just one state, New York. No other rail system in the country even comes close to carrying as many passengers as the NYC subway. The places where rail makes sense already have it, and now we're in a situation of massively diminishing returns. We're not building any more New Yorks or Washington DCs.

And gee, how did New York get to that point? Surely they built New York the way it is now and put in rail transit later right? Surely Washington DC would look exactly the same as it does now without the Metro right? NOT.

The point of building and developing rail transit systems is the change the land use around them. The Orange Line in Arlington County is a perfect example. Once a tired strip commercial dead district, it was transformed by the Subway. Now 7% of the land produces 33% of the tax revenues and Arlington has the lowest overall tax rate in Northern Virginia. Transportation policy drives development policy. Development policy drives energy policy. Energy policy drives foreign policy which means filling up your tank pays for Dubai's metro and gives money to people that hate us because of our need for more oil and messing in other people's politics.

Aside from that, Edison had a deal with Henry Ford to make electric vehicles. Someone torched his lab and his work was gone...hmmm.

But sometimes you get the impression that the urbanists aren't very familiar with how people live away from the urban centers. And I sometimes want to ask them, "How are your policies going to work in small and medium-sized towns, where mass transit really isn't practical?".

Isn't this true by definition? For example, I am a smart development advocate, but I live in a small town embedded in outer suburbia in Northeast Ohio, and so I have a tendency to look at how smart development can be applied in small towns and outer suburbia.

If you focus on people who give the impression of being "urbanists", and exclude smart development advocates who talk about clustering development around dedicated transport corridors outside of densely populated urban areas are excluded at the outset, the fact that "urbanists" are focused on cities should be no surprise.

Indeed, speaking in terms of "mass transit" reveals a strong urbanist bias. Back when we last relied heavily on dedicated transport corridors with the public right of way playing a supplementary role, small town Ohio did not have "mass transit" ... but it did have regular interurbans and regional stopping trains.

Transit in the form of bus services can make sense anywhere there are roads and highways, provided there is sufficient demand for it.

But for rail transit, there really are very few parts of the country with enough density and the right kind of infrastructure layout to support it.

Talk about framing your argument to lead to your conclusion. The claim on infrastructure is a total red herring ... it is a policy choice, not a law of nature, that road-motor transport is subsidized far more heavily than dedicated transport corridors.

And obviously it is not trains that suffer the most from gross population densities at the normal US suburban level, but buses ... trains are capable of running full speed without slowing down for congestion bottlenecks, and so they compress the effective space ... for a given route, the effective service population to a rail stop in terms of population catchment within a given travel time is larger than for the semi-private car portion of the road-motor system.

Buses, on the other hand, get bogged down in traffic bottlenecks, and so the effective service population density in terms of population catchment within a given travel time is smaller than for the semi-private car portion of the road-motor system.

overhead,

And gee, how did New York get to that point?

By growing into a major city long before the rise of the automobile. There'll never be another New York. Our new cities look like Houston and Phoenix, not New York. Mile after mile of low-density housing and infrastructure. Rail transit just doesn't make sense in these cities.

Transportation policy drives development policy.

Housing and commercial development is a durable commodity. We've been building low-density suburbs and exurbs for decades. We're not going to tear down all that development, erase the road layout, and rebuild these areas from the ground up to make them conducive to rail transit. It's a fantasy. The only kind of transit that makes sense in most new development is buses. Rail would be a hugely expensive boondoggle. It couldn't possibly replace more than a tiny fraction of car trips at a remotely competitive price.

Rail transit also makes no sense in new developments. Americans have consistently demonstrated an overwhelming preference for car travel and larger housing. They don't like small houses. They don't like having to rely on slow, inconvenient and uncomfortable public transportation. Waving your finger at them and insisting that they should want the same things you want isn't likely to change this.

trains are capable of running full speed without slowing down for congestion bottlenecks, ... Buses, on the other hand, get bogged down in traffic bottlenecks.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. As usual, Bruce, you have no idea what you're talking about. Urban light rail generally runs along existing roads and highways and is subject to traffic management systems.

The average speed of light rail in the United States is a pathetic 15 miles an hour. This is only 2 miles an hour faster than the average speed of a transit bus. And rail is hugely more expensive.

We don't have to rearrange streets, there are plenty of streets with strip development that no one likes to retrofit into transit streets. This is simply a case of your transport ideology leading you towards your conclusions. And Houston and Phoenix are building light rail. Houston's light rail is the highest passenger density of any new system in the United States. Inside the 610 loop is sufficiently dense and will get denser.

overhead,

We don't have to rearrange streets, there are plenty of streets with strip development that no one likes to retrofit into transit streets.

"No one likes" to put rail transit on such streets because it would require huge sums of money and produce very little benefit. It just doesn't make any sense.

And Houston and Phoenix are building light rail.

Er, Phoenix and its suburbs comprise a vast sprawling metropolitan area of over 4 million people, criss-crossed by thousands of miles of roads and highways. When it opens in December, the Phoenix light rail "system" will comprise a single linear route of only 20 miles. Its projected daily ridership will comprise only a tiny, tiny fraction of the city's population. It's share of passenger-miles will be even lower. And most of those riders will probably be former bus riders. In other words, it will have virtually no effect on the use of cars and driving.
And it's taken more than a decade to approve, plan and build just this single 20-mile line, that will have virtually no impact on driving (except maybe to increase congestion by taking road space away from cars and buses). If the "system" is ever expanded at all, it will take decades more to expand it even by just another 20 miles, during which time the population of the Phoenix area will likely expand by hundreds of thousands or millions of people, the overwhelming majority of whom will be living far away from the tiny route served by the light rail line and for whom it will be totally useless. The idea that the Phoenix light rail system could realistically substitute for anything more than a tiny fraction of car travel within the Valley of the Sun is a joke.

Houston's light rail is the highest passenger density of any new system in the United States.

Of any "new" system, you say. If that's true, it's only because "new" rail systems in the United States (which pretty much means anything built in the last 20 years or so) have such pathetically low passenger densities and because the Houston light rail system is so small. It only covers 7.5 miles. That's a drop in the ocean compared to the thousands of miles of roads and highways that serve cars and buses in Houston.

Of course its a drop in the bucket in terms of investment. That is the problem, we've geared ourselves for so long towards the automobile, its no wonder that it gets most of the passenger share in the United States. But you like every other transit opponent always believe that one line is a failure because it doesn't solve a region's congestion. That is so wrong because you don't use one highway interchange on the northside of a region to say that it relieved congestion on the southside. These investments are the start. You can't undo something in 6 years that took 60 years to start.

In the specific corridor that the line operates, they will create a greater person capacity on that corridor. We must invest more in a multi-modal system and in capacity for people, not just for cars. Unlike you and other conservatives, i'm not trying to push people into a one mode system. I, like others, would like a choice, but you've backed them into a corner and forced them to take high gas prices with no other alternative.

Yes Houston only covers 7 miles, and gets 50,000 passengers a day. Not bad for a small investment compared to the trillions of dollars that have been spent on freeway infrastructure. Tell me. If you have one telephone line, doesn't the ability to reach out to people increase exponentially when you increase the Network? New York proves this, San Francisco proves this, Philly proves this, Chicago proves this.

I'm sorry that Ezra has to deal with such an urbanism troll.