I read an interesting article in Newsweek about why it is that we won’t see cars on the market getting 50 miles per gallon any time soon. In addition to a professional interest, I had a personal interest. My Volvo station wagon, at only 167,000 miles –- barely past middle-aged for a Volvo — is making monthly visits to the mechanic these days. I’ve begun to consider my next car. My plan when I bought my Volvo in 1999 was to pass it down to my son, who would be getting his license around the Volvo’s 200,000 mile mark. Seemed like a good idea to pass along a car with the reputation as the world’s safest to my teenage boy just when he was starting to drive. I plan ahead.

I also planned ahead in this regard. When I bought my Volvo there were no fuel efficient options for station wagons. With several dogs and often several kids piling into my car, I wanted a vehicle big enough to carry us all, and I figured my Volvo would last me until a better option was available (this was long before the Prius). Just one more fuel-inefficient car in my life I assumed. But nine years later, there is still no fuel efficient station wagon on the market, and the two small hybrid SUVs (Toyota’s Highlander and Ford’s Escape) get barely more per gallon than my Volvo. Fuel efficient, hybrid wagons won’t be rolling off the assembly lines for a few more years. Not in the U.S. anyway. It seems that people in the U.S. aren’t willing to sacrifice all the other things we want, even for fuel efficiency.

I planned to feel indignant as I read the Newsweek article. Until I realized that I wasn’t willing to sacrifice much myself. I, who implore people to live according the MOGO principle, was no different than those I often criticize. I want the safety the steel in my Volvo affords. I want the space of a station wagon. I don’t want to spend $50,000 to get a lithium battery-powered, highly fuel efficient vehicle. And I don’t want to move from my beautiful, rural Maine community to a city, even though such a move would obviate the need for a personal car.

The technology exists for 50 mpg cars. In fact such cars are ubiquitous in Japan and Europe. They’re not in the U.S. because we want our big, safe cars more than we want fuel efficiency. We’ll get it all, eventually, hopefully before we cause too much more climate change, but there’s a good, free-market, capitalist reason why I still don’t have the option I want. Car companies don’t want to lose money for their stockholders, and that’s what could happen if they put the tiny, lightweight fuel efficient cars on the market, or, conversely, the highly expensive new technologies. We might not buy them, despite the Prius’ success. And to produce the fuel efficient vehicles we do want takes investment, personnel, and time. It’s risky.

There’s a way to get what we want sooner, however. Government investment. If we make the production of 100 mile per gallon cars a national goal and priority, and if we invest in such a goal (the way we invest in our military, for example), we’ll have what we want in a flash.

Personally, I’m eager for my tax dollars to be invested in the technologies that will help us reach our best goals, stop global warming, and protect people, ecosystems, and animals. Seems MOGO to me.

~ Zoe

Filed under: MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: cars, fuel efficiency, government investment, MOGO | 2 Comments »