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Posts Tagged ‘Cars’

Don't Read This Post

Quick, how many of you can tell me:
1. Your cars’ fuel economy in miles per gallon or, even better, gallons per mile.
2. How much you drove in the last year.
3. The cost to fill your tank.
4. Your monthly and annual fuel expenditures.
5. How your cars’ fuel economy sits in relation to other cars in their classes.
6. What your fuel savings in gallons and dollars would be if you switched to a hybrid or other highly economical vehicle.



Watt's Next: Your Thoughts

With a large number of electric vehicles in the pipeline (see this new piece in The Economist), my staff EV expert (my brother Brad) and I asked for your wit and wisdom on their prospects. Some of your thoughts on whether EV’s will “clean up”:



Want a Glock With That Hummer?

Jim Lynch, who owns a Hummer dealership in Chesterfield, Missouri, has begun selling guns and ammo alongside the vehicles.



Watt's Next?

With almost every major automaker working on one, electric propulsion may finally be poised to break out. Or is it?




Bicycle Inflation in Paradise?

When I arrived in Portland last month, the first thing I wanted to do was buy a bike and get around the way the locals do. Since I wouldn’t be in town for too long, and it wasn’t clear that I’d be able to take the bike with me when I left, I wanted something extremely cheap.



Cash for the Climate

Edward Glaeser (over at the Economix blog) and I are doing a few posts on the high-speed rail (HSR) component of the economic stimulus package (find the first post here). HSR promises to reduce carbon emissions, but so does the other hot transportation policy at the moment, Cash for Clunkers (CFC). Under CFC the federal government is providing rebates to consumers who trade in their vehicles for new ones that get better gas mileage. Which program is the more effective way to cool down the ice caps while heating up the economy?



The 50 Worst Cars of All Time

A few years back Time magazine teamed with automotive critic Dan Neil to compile a list of the 50 worst cars of all time. It is pretty amusing to read. My own opinion is that they are way too tough on SUV’s — among the handful included on the list is the Ford Explorer (one of the best-selling vehicles in this country for over a decade), for example, because its success helped trigger the super-sizing of American vehicles.



Is Somebody Lying About "Cash for Clunkers"?

Congress set aside $1 billion to fund the program. If all of that money was going to pay these subsidies, there would be enough money to pay for 250,000 clunkers.
The program went into place on July 24th. One week later, the program was said to be out of money.
In 2006, before the current ills of the automakers, the average number of new cars sold in a week in the United States was 125,000.



Still No Cash for Clunkers

Last year I blogged about the Cash for Clunkers program in which the government subsidizes consumers who turn in their beat-up old cars to buy new ones. I noted that this program was likely to have a host
of negative unintended consequences that its proponents were ignoring.
The bad news is that the House of Representatives has now passed a Cash for Clunkers bill. The good news is that the version they passed applies to so few vehicles that there is virtually no incentive for anyone to take advantage of the program, so its unintended consequences will be smaller than they otherwise would be.



Buy an S.U.V., Save the Planet

Scientists and engineers are racing to develop technologies that will improve fuel economy and perhaps replace gasoline altogether. This is certainly to be applauded. But there may be an easier and more effective way to help wean ourselves off foreign oil and fight global warming. Interestingly, it involves not 21st-century technology but 28th-century technology — as in 28th-century B.C.E.
What’s better, it will enable us to shed the pounds with comparatively little diet or exercise. We can improve fuel economy not through the onerous task of developing next-generation lithium-ion batteries but simply by getting people behind the wheels of S.U.V.’s. How?



Turning the Corner on Driving?

Nate Silver, a Freakonomics favorite, wonders if the American car culture is finally coming to an end. Silver points out that Americans drove much less this January than last January, even less than expected in a bad economy with high unemployment. Part of the decrease may be explained by a delayed response to last summer’s high gas prices, but Silver . . .



Would Electric Cars Increase Property Values on Noisy Streets?

A reader named Tomas asks an interesting question: If electric cars became the dominant form of urban transport, would houses on main roads jump in value due to a decrease in noise? Of course Tomas’s scenario may never come to pass, since quiet electric cars pose a danger to blind pedestrians. That’s what the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 . . .



How Laziness Makes Me Keep My Used Car

Prices of used cars are rising, and the reason is substitution: in tough times, people substitute away from new cars and toward used cars. The two markets are closely related, so a decrease in demand in the new-car market causes an increase in demand in the used-car market. I’m sorely tempted to trade in my gorgeous 1999 Honda Civic SI, . . .



The Rebound Effect of Higher M.P.G.

In my last post, I blogged about my (mostly) favorable reaction to California’s program to increase fuel economy. But for the record, I should mention a few petty details — like the fact that these regulations will increase congestion, damage our roads, cut tax revenues, promote (for better or worse) low-density suburban development, and reduce pollution less than advertised. Oh, . . .



California Gets a "Green" Light

As you may have read, the Obama administration is moving toward giving California approval to cut greenhouse gas emissions by mandating better fuel economy. The California regulations should mean 40 percent more miles per gallon for new cars starting in 2016. The good thing is that the innovations that can make this happen are not in the realm of science . . .



FREAK Shots: Not Everyone Likes Free Parking

Blog reader Paul Gorbould emailed us this photo from a parking lot at the Joggins Fossil Cliffs on the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada: Photo: Paul Gorbould Gorbould understands the good intent of the spots: The site was recently declared a Unesco World Heritage Site, and it appears to have taken the designation to heart. I’ve never seen . . .



What’s the Point of Bailing Out the Auto Industry?

Governments intervene in markets all the time — and they should, in order to make markets more competitive; to solve problems of externalities (which are ubiquitous); to resolve difficulties caused by individuals’ shortsightedness, including the spurring of innovation; and to reduce transactions costs. Where does the auto bailout fit in? It certainly doesn’t make markets more competitive; instead it subsidizes . . .



The Big Three and Underfunded Pensions

The Big Three auto companies are back in Washington this week, asking Congress for more money to keep themselves afloat — and, of course, to keep their employees employed and their retirees able to draw pension benefits. The Times reported last week on the state of the automakers’ pension plans. In a nutshell: not as bad as might be expected . . .



The FREAK-est Links

Is the “Google generation” really so Internet savvy? 2007 tied for Earth’s second-warmest year. (Earlier) See it to believe it: the eco-friendly Hummer. (Earlier) A complete guide to Marginal Revolution’s “Markets In Everything.” (More)