Numbers that don’t add up

Some people never learn. In an editorial last week castigating the energy bill, the New York Times fell back on the tired old claim that the solution to our nation’s oil import problem is stricter fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. This “solution” — officially known as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard or CAFE — has long been the favorite of New York’s Brie and Perrier set, a group always anxious to tell the rest of us poor mortals how to live our lives.

To bolster their argument, the Times editorialists cited China’s plans to impose fuel economy standards on their vehicles significantly stricter than those currently in force in the United States because of concern over rising oil imports. Noting that the United States has an even higher import dependence, the editorial chides: “The difference is that the Chinese are ready to do something about it, whereas Congress is not.”

Setting aside the fact that the Times chose to cite one of the world’s most repressive dictatorships as its policy exemplar, the simple fact is that someone at their editorial page must have flunked second grade math. Nothing else could explain such a stance.

The calculus is really very simple, consisting of three basic facts:

In October, we imported 61.6 percent of our oil.

Currently, the transportation sector accounts for 67.5 percent of all oil consumed in the United States.

The U.S. passenger fleet currently averages 24.4 miles per gallon.

Therefore, in order to eliminate imports by increasing automobile efficiency, we would need to achieve a fleet average of around 413.6 miles per gallon.

But even that would provide only a temporary respite.

The problem is that oil is a finite resource, and U.S. reserves are in a steady decline — a situation made worse by the consistent resistance of environmental groups to developing known reservoirs in Alaska and offshore. So we have to keep running faster just to stay in place. Even a doubling of automotive efficiency would do little more than prolong the agony.

Most important, no matter what rules the bureaucrats put in place, it’s the public’s buying habits that count, and the public has made its opinion abundantly clear.

The simple truth is that the automobile is much more than a mere means of transportation for most Americans, it is nothing less than an expression of self. This fact is manifest in the phenomenal growth of SUVs as a mode of personal transportation. In less than a decade, consumer demand transformed the once-utilitarian quarter-ton truck into a living room on wheels, complete with CD and DVD players. Why? Because many of us rejected the boring uniformity foisted on passenger cars by the need to meet arbitrary CAFE targets.

The cramped interiors, banal styling and feeble performance that accompanied the CAFE standards were an anathema to those of us brought up on 1957 Chevys and 1963 Corvettes. Moreover, as any automobile salesman can tell you, fuel efficiency doesn’t even register as a factor influencing car-buying decisions. It’s small wonder that Detroit found a way around the rules.

So what to do?

Story Continues →