Fuel-Efficient Cars May Be Good, But They'll Kill the American Car Culture
By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I know I should be happy that President Obama and the U.S. car industry have joined with environmentalists to raise mileage standards to almost 40 miles per gallon.
On an intellectual level, I know that the billions of newly affluent Chinese and Indians buying cars in the coming decades will place a stunning demand on the world's supply of oil, and that polar bears are threatened by global warming.
I am glad that we are on a path toward freeing ourselves from our dependency on petro-dictators.
And I am hoping—really hoping—that there are brilliant engineers somewhere who will continue to design cars that growl, with names like Corvette, Porsche and Mustang, that will meet the new mileage requirements.
But I figure those growlers are going to be pretty pricy, and that more and more Americans will be looking at sensible hybrids and electric cars, to drive on ever-more crowded highways.
The death of the American car culture—like the demise of newspapers—is going to be a painful thing to watch.
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Tags: cars | fuel efficiency
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Reader Comments
We've had it for years
My first new car was a Pontiac Sunbird manual transmission. It got 30 mph city/33 mph highway. That was in 1986. While four cylinder, it certainly had enough power. When I sold it at 180K miles on it, it still got 27 mph city/30 mph highway. My brother owned a Ford Sprint in the 80s that averaged 56 mph highway, and old VWs were averaging 50 mph in the 60s-70s. Good gas mileage is not so far off, nor are electric cars necessary. (Where do you think electricity comes from. Without nuclear power, something has to be burned to generate electricity.)
Many people are scared of knew technology
I had a audio panel siting in front of me which seemed like it had hundreds of slide bars and knobs but after it was explained to me it only had 10 stations with 9 knobs and a few slide bars. New is scary but not hard to understand if you work at it and have the right support group. Plus with new technology comes new ideas which brings new technology............
it never ends even if you try to hang on to the past. Which some scientist has suffered at the hands of other scientist and communities and even religions but they only slowed technology but nobody can stop it. If we embrace change change will reword us but if we stand in it way we may slow it down but it could run over us to.
Don D. Brock
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New technology PERPETUATES car culture.
Quite to the contrary, the next generation of electric cars and other advances in fuel efficiency will SUSTAIN the "American Car Culture" and ensure its proliferation around the globe. WITHOUT these advances, driving would become unsustainably dirty and unaffordable.
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