It is a hysterical car, this. Mad. Bonkers. Stupid. It sits on the road network like a Class-1 powerboat would sit at the Henley regatta. Of course, it is also utterly pointless. No one is going to buy a lumbering Q7 for outright speed.
However, let us not dwell on such things. Let us instead rejoice at the fact that it exists. It’s crap. But it’s brilliant too. I don’t want one. But I don’t want to live in a world where I never had the choice in the first place.
-Jeremy Clarkson
Much has been said recently around CAFE standards and how we need to raise these standards to protect the environment. I think that this is completely ridiculous. When the price of gasoline spiked last year, we did not need the government to tell us which cars would be best for us. With those high prices, people avoided SUVs like the plague. The point of CAFE standards is to dictate what cars that a company can and cannot make. This is completely counter to conservative ideals that any invidual should be able to purchase what they want. If there is a market for fuel inefficient vehicle, any company should be able to produce it. The fuel efficiency race is a natural part of competitive behaviour regardless of any government standard. The free market determines whether or not they are willing to pay more up front for a vehicle that is (all else held equal) more fuel efficient. They are also free to decide if they want to trade horsepower for fuel efficiency.
It may be a misperception on my part but I find that Progressive (liberal) thinking is full of policies where you HAVE to do something. You HAVE to recycle, you HAVE to do what is in the best interest of everyone, you HAVE to make your vehicles run on ethanol. Conservative thinking on the other hand sets restrictions and then lets the free market decide how to proceed from there. Liberal thinking has a solution to the end goal in mind, conservative thinking does not limit itself to one solution.
If I had the power I would end CAFE standards entirely in this country. This is not so that we can go back to producing SUVs for all but to at least give people a choice. Fuels produced from crude oil are a finite resource and as they become more scarce the prices will rise. This will give other alternatives a chance to become more competitive. Right now, there is no other solution that can replace gasoline and diesel fuel with any immediacy. However, vehicles that use alternative fuels or use less fuel in general are a good thing. But why do we need to mandate that on all?
I really do think America needs to become energy independent. As long as we are not, it is potentially a national security disaster. If government were to step in, here is what I would propose as a solution. The gasoline tax would increase by $0.25 every year over four years. Since we cannot track how much gasoline every family uses, each family would be given a gasoline tax credit based on the size of the size of the family. We would then estimate how many miles we think are appropriate to be driven and reimburse the housefold for gasoline tax they paid up to that level of appropriate use. So lets say that you have a very long commute in a ineffient car. You may have paid $1000 in gasoline tax throughout the year, but only be reimbursed for $300 (the standard level). Someone who has a short commute in a fuel efficient vehicle may have only paid $200 but will still be reimbursed for $300. Finally, someone who uses an all electric car will be reimbursed for $300 without paying any gasoline taxes. One day, at the rate we are heading now with CAFE, a Corvette with its 7.0L engine may be ILLEGAL to produce. Under my proposed system, companies could still produce these cars. As long as they were driven mainly for leisure, a family could still come out ahead on fuel taxes. The whole point is to provide financial incentive to people to use energy more efficiently. Instead of increasing CAFE standards as we do now, we may in the future decide to lower the standard reimbursement rate to make sure we are not paying out more than we collect. Having to reduce the standard rate would mean the action was indeed working and people were using less or using energy more efficiently.
Now I am not sure that this action even needs to be done. Even I do not find it ideal (or even close) but it would have the desired goal of swaying individuals to make choices for more efficient vehicles. I would rather the free market sort it all out on its own rather than government step in at all. Letting that happen, though comes with the assumation of risk.
In the future, we will also need to find a new way to collect transportation taxes. If vehicles in the future run on electricity, we would then have to levy a tax on electricity to fund improvements for roads. This transition is going to have to be managed very carefully to avoid leaving highway infrastructure projects unfunded.
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