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http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/2/AmericanFlag.jpg At $2 a gallon for regular unleaded, the most-enthusiastic purchasers of hybrids are governments and corporations eager to wear green. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124147217951984705.html)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/2010_Ford_Fusion_Hybrid_2.jpgJoseph White - The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com) - May 5, 2009

This "29mpg on the highway is efficient!" claim has to end. --Ed.

The government's rescue plan for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC has focused on financial engineering. Soon, the Obama administration and whoever is running GM and Chrysler will have to confront a more-challenging problem: how to sell the cars they want America to buy.

President Barack Obama said during his press conference last week that just because the government could hold shares in GM and Chrysler doesn't mean he intends to micromanage their affairs. Then he added, "I'm not an auto engineer, I don't know how to create [an] affordable, well-designed plug-in hybrid. But I know that if the Japanese can design [an] affordable, well-designed hybrid, then doggone it, the American people should be able to do the same. So my job is to ask the auto industry: Why is it you guys can't do this?"

GM and Chrysler's new management teams will likely treat this question as something more than a suggestion. What's worth watching is whether they will deliver a complete answer.

It's not as if American consumers won't buy efficient vehicles. Seven of the top-10-selling vehicles in April were cars that average 29 miles per gallon on the highway or better. The top seller was the Honda Accord, which gets 30 mpg on the highway in its four-cylinder version.

But this must be kept in perspective. Total small-car sales are down 33% for the year, and small cars from domestic brands in the segment that includes the... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124147217951984705.html

This "29mpg on the highway is efficient!" claim has to end. --Ed.


No, kidding

Lets see my 1987 Volvo wagon with 368,500 miles will pull 29 mpg all day at 65 mph.
My 1997 Volvo 960 will pull 28.75 - 29.0 mpg all day at 65 mph.

Edit: This is the main reason I haven't replaced my wagon yet and it's getting about time to retire her. Unless the replacement vehicle gets at least 35 plus city and 45 highway it isn't economically prudent to replace it even at $3.00 per gallon gas. That as we all know that only leaves me one option, A Hybrid.

I get better city mileage in my Camry. My last 3 mileage numbers in reverse order were 30.5 mpg, 31.5 mpg and 30.7 mpg. When I go hiway then the fun begins. I have averaged 39 mpg hiway if I stick to 55 mpg no A/C. My Camry's actual EPA rated mileage numbers are 24/32.

U.S. car makers have lobbied for higher gas taxes as the simplest way to push consumers into high-mileage cars. The Obama administration is betting on a different approach: Leave gas taxes alone, and instead invest government money in advanced battery development, offer tax breaks of up to $7,500 on hybrids and mandate tougher mileage standards to force car makers to use new fuel-saving technology. Washington now has a big financial stake in getting this right, or billions in public money plowed into Chrysler and GM could be vulnerable to energy markets.


Why not give them what they want, higher gas taxes? Tax breaks might help in the short term, but Tax breaks will decrease or expire over time. Then what? If we still have low gas prices, people will not buy high MPG cars.

Why not give them what they want, higher gas taxes? Tax breaks might help in the short term, but Tax breaks will decrease or expire over time. Then what? If we still have low gas prices, people will not buy high MPG cars.


That is a very tough decision to make, and as it has been said, whoever decides to increase the price of gas by adding a tax will face a slew attacks from every angle and every angry citizen...not realizing that the tax will cause more money to stay in the US than go abroad :(.

Why not give them what they want, higher gas taxes? Tax breaks might help in the short term, but Tax breaks will decrease or expire over time. Then what? If we still have low gas prices, people will not buy high MPG cars.

Here's the conundrum with a gas tax in the states.

If you raise it too little or too gradually, you'll have rationalizations such as this (http://www.vpcga.com/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=152), and there won't be enough force to overcome market inertia. I mean, a near quadrupling of gas prices resulted in more marketing of FE but little rise in actual fleet MPG for new cars. In about 2003-2004, gas prices broke $2/gallon, and people considered that extortionary. Now, it's considered normalcy, or pretty cheap.

If you raise taxes too sharply, then consumers and automakers are ill-equipped to deal with the pain of a sudden spike in cost of a very heavily-used commodity. We have an incredibly car-dependent society, a very low fleet MPG, a hot-rodding culture, and automakers that aren't keen on raising the bar themselves. I think gas taxes are needed, but a lot more than market forces (which tend not to be very proactive in automobile markets) will be needed to actually make these results stick with an acceptable amount of pain.