This week has seen the "nationalization" of Rod Blagojevich hate - something Illinois residents have come to expect. Rod now is the poster-boy for all the vices, but mainly "hubris" - that oh-so intellectual damnation. It's something Chris Hitchens and Rachael Maddow could agree on.

As we say with burglars or murderers, the accompanying vices of sloth or pride are the 'real' sin - not theft or killing - e.g. "He was a successful burglar - till he got 'lazy' in his method." Or "He was a great serial murderer, but then he became too proud of his murders and spilled the beans."

Right now, Senators from union busting states in the south like Alabama and North Carolina are really making no bones about their desire to smash union labor - and the entire mid-west economy if it comes to it. That an Alabama Senator would crush the Midwest economy in order to do his duty for Mercedes or BMW truly shocks my conscience - but I suppose it is to be expected. These senators will be handsomely rewarded by Chamber of Commerce types for smashing the labor movement.

So Rod's sin was that he was too frank about his horse-trading. But that falls in line with other examples of his "hubris." We've been hearing for years about how Rod refuses to play ball with Illinois' elite families. Dick Mell, his father in law, seemed offended at one time that Rod wouldn't kowtow to him - imagine a city council member who expected to dictate terms to a governor - but that was one of Rod's sins. Another was his refusal to 'play ball' with the Madigan family. Majority leader Mike and his state prosecutor daughter Lisa have certainly benefited from Rod's ouster.

Now as an outsider, I was always puzzled at why the Governor was expected to kowtow to a city councilman, or why we outsiders were expected to pity poor, poor Mike Madigan.

Personally, what do I care about the hurt feelings of elites? Mike Madigan - a Democrat - had resisted the imposition of Rod's signature accomplishment "Kid Care" - the state sponsored program to insure children with uninsured parents. Similar protests were made by 'reasonable' elites regarding Rod's insistence that senior citizens should get free bus rides in return for state help with the public transit.

Rod refused to be deferential to important families. He refused to accept the "reality" that poor children or seniors that have been kicked out of their cars don't have any "clout." Morality means divvying up the spoils according to who is the highest on the totem pole. Under his predecessor George Ryan, that meant handing a giant bag of money to the liquor concession or mobbed-up gambling interests. George Ryan was making his money on the backs of Secy of State employees - forcing low level employees to sell his fundraising 'tickets' - and that meant they had to trade commercial driver's licenses for money. That resulted in the deaths of children - but hey they weren't Mike Madigan's children - like his daughter Lisa the prosecutor for the state. 

Why can't Rod get behind schemes to massively subsidize gambling, or sports teams? Providing health insurance to poor children is seen as nothing but 'grandstanding' by Illinois elites. How could Rod be as naive as to direct state funds toward the weak and literally infirm? And when Rod starts putting the arm on the strong - well that's truly a sin Illinois elites cannot pardon.  

I follow the auto industry pretty closely, being both a fan and a critic (my book "Horsepower War" is a collection of essays, some of which are critical about Detroit) of American cars. After reading Tom Friedman's "How to Fix a Flat" column in the NY Times Thursday, I had to get something off of my chest - something that's really been bothering me about the two part 'liberal' critique of Detroit.

ONE: "GM-has-feet-of-clay-and-didn't-make-the small-cars-everyone-wanted."

The first problem is that this story is nearly forty years old now - and even forty years ago, it wasn't strictly true. In fact, it was in late 1968 that GM, worried about increasing foreign competition, announced their "XP 887" project - the car that would become the sub-compact Chevrolet Vega of 1971. The Vega was a bad car, but it did actually sell decently for a while. The problem was, as it is now with cheap small cars -  it just didn't make money.

GM instituted a wholesale downsizing of its fleet from 1977 to 1989. Yet in the 1989-1991 period, Honda created its luxury "Acura" division Nissan created the "Infiniti" luxury division and Toyota created the prestige "Lexus" line. Ironically, these more powerful, bigger cars filled a void in the market GM had abandoned in order to meet CAFE rules. And during the 1980's, as GM cars were shrinking, Toyotas Hondas and Nissans were getting bigger and bigger.

So already, by 1990 the "GM has feet of clay and doesn't make small cars people want" narrative was already defunct. Now, eighteen years after that, Toyota's product lineup in the US pretty much mirrors GMs - mostly SUVs - and the SUVs they make now tower over their old "LandCruisers" of the '70's.

The second part of the problem is the liberal assumption that "Detroit is not profitable because it doesn't make small, cheap cars that everyone wanted." This prescription is simply a concept at war with itself. Would liberals suggest to Mercedes or BMW that their problem is that they "don't make the small cheap cars everyone wants" (?)

In fact, a Mercedes subsidiary does make a car that "Jesus would drive," - the "SMART." If you've been to Europe recently you notice the streets teeming with them, and now the phone booth shaped, two passenger cars are popping up all over big US cities like New York and Chicago. Here's the problem with the SMART though: despite its popularity, it has never made money.

Mercedes makes money not by packaging a set of commodities like steel, rubber and glass in the most efficient and optimized way. They make money on prestige. People don't buy BMWs to maximize their transportation utility either. The profit margin comes in when BMW is delivering roughly the same amount of steel, rubber and glass, but people pay more for it than they would for the same amount of steel and rubber with, say a Pontiac label on it.

By the way, BMW and Mercedes both regularly choose to pay 'gas guzzler' fines to the NHTSA rather than conform to the CAFE corporate gas mileage requirement. The cars are so expensive to begin with that the extra $2000 or so they tack onto the sticker is barely noticed by their prosperous buyers. Where's the outrage about that Tom?  

Lately auto commenters of all stripes have been posing the question of why GM is so different than healthier companies - but the thing is they're not really that different. GM's fortunes in Europe and China are significantly better than in North America. In fact TATA motors, most recently in the news for its NANO people's car, recently purchased Jaguar from Ford. Why? Because they think the Jaguar name will allow them to sell expensive luxury cars no one would have taken seriously with a TATA nameplate.

Tata knows it: the prestige market is where the money is. Similarly, other 'people's cars' makers like Hyundai, once ridiculed for its econo-boxes, is launching a new luxury car with a 370hp V8 engine and $45K+ pricetag - because that's where the money is. Even the NANO is an attempt to get people to move out of cheap motorcycles and into a more expensive car.

So the bottom line is that if Americans are going to take an ownership stake in GM and also demand it be profitable, the first priority of this new "People's Car Company" should be to shore up Cadillac with a $75,000 'flagship' prestige car that could make the kind of profit margin Mercedes gets from the S Class or BMW gets from their Seven series.

There is a powerful but unspoken assumption that the domestic makers should be shouldering the role of some kind of People's National Transportation Collective, but these assumptions don't apply to luxury makers ('limousine liberal' anyone?), or even to the companies exploiting "right to work" anti-labor states where liberally-loved Honda and Toyota work their magic.

Some of that false "collective" assumption can be traced to GM's P.R. efforts. For decades they've paraded various 'responsible' cars at auto shows. In 1990 they were showing a super sedan that got 70mpg. Then in the 1990's under Clinton/Gore there was the "Project for a New Generation of Vehicles." It was a public private partnership that was supposed to lead to 80mpg cars. When the political winds shifted in 2001, the project was tossed in the garbage by the Bush administration.

In 2008, we have the Chevy "Volt." It's an 'economy car' that will cost $40,000 to build at current estimates. But its real mission has already been accomplished - Chevy got some sweet liberal ink in a few Tom Freidman columns. That was what the Volt and its many GM 'idea car' predecessors have always been about - good press. They're a fig leaf meant to cover ugly SUV genitalia. 

Before liberals make their car industry prescriptions, at least they need to join the "reality based" community in their basic assumptions.

Liberal critiques are wrapped up in two super-sized unacknowledged assumptions:

1. "GM should make cheap small cars - the cars 'people' want"

2. "Companies lose money on big expensive 'guzzlers' (the cars 'people' don't want)."

Literally all of automotive history suggests otherwise.

These are demonstrably false - and not just for GM either. Even in Europe, rich people pay a huge premium for big Mercedes and BMWs. It's just that working class consumers buy small(er) cheap(er) cars because that's all they can afford.

If liberals are supposed to be the masters of nuance as opposed to those Manichean ol' conservatives, it's time to acknowledge that our simple minded story about the US car industry stopped being true twenty years ago, and that our assumption about the pious, thrifty US auto consumer is probably one part wishful thinking and nine parts denial. Maybe US consumers really are obsessed with prestige and luxury - maybe they are really 'shallow' and 'vain' and 'conformist' and try to buy the biggest most prestigious car they can possibly afford.

Forcing GM to be a "good" automaker who makes $40,000 economy cars that get 70mpg, while allowing Mercedes and BMW to be "bad" (even blowing off CAFE, our only real attempt at increasing auto efficiency) - will only make Mercedes and BMW even more profitable and speed GM's demise.

"What is to be done, then?"

The problem with American liberals is their American-ness. We want to offer painless 'can-do' solutions that deny the simplest truth there is: We can't have everything. We can't have cheap fuel then expect everyone to conserve it. We can't expect domestic carmakers to enforce our view of consumer piety while the "shallow" vanity obsessed consumer flocks to luxury brands. 

I don't want to see GM or Chrysler die - maybe for sentimental, nostalgic reasons I can't really rationalize. It's probably best to see them through this tough period just to avoid a whirling vortex of unemployment and recession. But the thing NOT to do is saddle these makers with 'pious' conditions that will make them go broke. We might be able to make GM "The National People's Transportation Collective" and make cheap economy cars, and we might be able to get GM in the black again - by making expensive prestige cars, but I would humbly suggest that we can't have it both ways.  

Nothing Left of Liberals 

Reading Legimation Crisis in Tehran. By Danny Postel

Reviewed by Robert Harless

Speaking as a fellow undergraduate of Danny Postel’s, I can testify that his knowledge of academic minutiae was staggering even at twenty. His boundless knowledge reminded me of the ‘buff’ of whatever fetish - like the baseball fanatic who memorizes every player’s stats. Danny developed an interest in academia in boarding school, and watching him quiz elder members of the philosophy department on obscure journals I was reminded of the Bible story where Mary takes the twelve year old Jesus to the temple where he wows the scribes. Danny combines a commanding knowledge of intellectual history and incisive intelligence with a passionate zeal to do the right thing and defend and protect his intellectual heroes. 

The book expresses several inarguable lessons for ‘the left’ – really for anyone in politics but the narrowness of his arcane, ‘inside baseball’ focus turns conventional wisdom upside down. Danny assumes the reader is as familiar as he is with obscure radical journals so the issue of the book’s audience looms over its first half. Its rhetorical heart is Postel’s contention that the left in the US doesn’t pay attention to human rights abuses in Iran because of its anti-imperialism bias. Postel repeatedly characterizes this ‘bias’ as “tunnel vision” that prevents radicals from registering human rights abuses on their “radar screens.”

Yet in America, as in Iran, it’s the right wing that is most dismissive of civil liberties and human rights – something Danny alludes to, although he says some complaints about the Patriot Act can be “recklessly hyperbolic.” Still, the notion that the left ignores civil rights is a mighty big pill to swallow. Remember Bush’s criticism of Dukakis in 1988 for his membership in the ACLU? Remember Ashcroft? You must constantly remind yourself Danny is peering through a microscope at radical amoebae, and not gazing through a telescope at conservative stars.

The first half of the book has the unmistakable tone of a grown-up disabusing a child of his foolish notions, but we never learn the identity of the child. Danny doesn’t help his case by naming left wing luminaries who agree with him. He lauds Noam Chomsky for meeting with Akbar Ganji, an Iranian dissident. Chomsky writes almost exclusively about US imperialism, but he’s all for Iranian civil rights.  Postel notes that Chomsky was “admonished by numerous radicals” to avoid Ganji because he wasn’t critical enough of the US. But the anonymity of the “numerous radicals” and their failure to influence the one radical with a shred of notoriety leaves the reader unconvinced. The left-wing Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Radio, interviewed Ganji, and offered enough sympathy to please Postel despite her vision being blurred through “the prism of American Imperialism.” Richard Rorty supports the Iranian cause and he’s the most famous living philosopher in the US. Who exactly are the people Danny is scolding? Are they ‘radicals’ so obscure that they have no influence? Considering the negligible power of radicals in the US, Postel’s indignant lecturing often comes off as shooting (little) fish in a barrel. Perhaps the radical miscreants will know who they are and appreciate Postel’s merciful refusal to scold them by name.

He rails against the left with, to my count, one specific example of an un-named “anti war activist” who discouraged Iranian intellectual Shirin Ebaldi from discussing Iran’s tyrannical government at an anti war rally in London. She ignored him and said what she wanted to say anyway - yet another powerless radical. Z Magazine and New Left Review are some of the very few named names, but their sin was decrying the NATO actions in Kosovo in the 1990s. Postel says the Marxist Monthly Review did a “smear job” on Ganji for his not being Marxist enough, but then you turn the page over and find out that Ganji and Iranian intellectuals in general, don’t really like Marx. Postel lists the core values of Iranian liberalism, and none of them concern economics. If Postel can criticize the left in America even as he, to his infinite credit, wholeheartedly agrees with the left about the necessity of preventing war with Iran, then why can’t Marxists criticize Ganji even if they might agree that jailing intellectuals is dirty pool?   

Postel’s excoriation of the ‘the left’ includes sins of omission. “Precious few leftists today have more than a vague clue who Ganji even is. Go to the websites of The Nation, In These Times, The Progressive, and The New Left Review and search for his name – see how many times his name is even mentioned, let alone how many profiles of him or essays on him appear.” In other words, leftists are in the wrong for not being as well informed about Iran as Postel, who has spent the last few years focusing on Iran. One might counter that Bush has kept the left pretty busy over the past six years, and it’s telling that Postel all but ignores the 800lb gorilla of the Iraq war. It’s probably best for him to ignore Iraq because he holds up Kosovo as a triumph of “liberal internationalism” even though some of the same rationales used to invade Iraq (fascist in charge) were employed for NATO’s actions in the Balkans. Liberal internationalist Peter Beinert and the pro-globalization liberal Tom Friedman of the New York Times argued thus.

Yet on some crucial principles Postel’s positions are simply inarguable. The first and most important is that thinking liberals should not fall into the trap of opposing whatever their enemies say. Just because George W. Bush says it or Andrew Sullivan sincerely believes it doesn’t necessarily make it untrue, nor should it dictate knee-jerk opposition from the left. Such an un-wise practice would literally be ‘reactionary’ and it allows Bush to dictate the priorities of the left. Related to this notion is the sub-title of Chapter One “We Know What We’re Against, But What Are We For?” It seems to be an object lesson for the US Democratic Party, which has spent thirty years, at best, moderating policies that already started far right wing, or, at worst, just lamenting the right’s unconscionable tactics.   

Of Postel, US war protestors might ask, how do you avoid playing into the hands of US war mongers looking for invasion excuses? Conversely, how do you avoid being labeled as a “US lackey” or “outside agitator” by Iranian clerics if you sincerely agree with the White House that the Iranian government is tyrannical? On the other hand, how do you avoid being called a ‘traitor’ if you oppose US military action? Postel cleverly makes a rhetorical end-around run on these questions. He quotes both Akbar Ganji and Shirin Ebaldi maintaining that to beat the conundrum of national loyalty; liberals should avoid lobbying their governments in such cases. Instead they should offer each other “moral support” in Ganji’s words. They can work through N.G.O.s and civil society and, even better, simply make contact with like minded intellectuals across national boundaries to avoid the labels of lackey, traitor or spy.

Danny spends much of Chapter Two, to my mind, wrestling with his own conflicted, thirty-something soul about what a Proper Liberalism should be. He’s careful to separate the wheat (anarchists and independent socialist forces) from the chafe (Stalinists) when offering a noble example of radical internationalists who weren’t imperialist: the anti-fascist brigades of the 1930’s Spanish Civil War. He claims the modern American left’s logic would negate the idea of the brigades, but the obvious response is that ‘the left’ didn’t convince FDR to make a world war out of a civil war. Isn’t sending the Marines completely different than sending Hemingway? That’s a crucial distinction that Danny ignores. It’s not to say Postel is a broad brush-stroke artist. One of Postel’s sterling qualities is his refusal to over-simplify or speak in bumper stickers. That can lead to confusion for the uninitiated, but it’s impossible for anyone to brand Postel as a cliché monger. He takes great pains to make the finest distinctions.

There are different shades of liberalism, and Postel advocates a specific one for the left. Obviously we don’t want “neoliberalism” because that’s the Republican, NeoCon, Paul Wolfowitz, World Bank variety. In opposition Postel proposes a new “Third Worldism” brand of “radical liberalism” that would rival the washed up, dumbed-down anti-globalization movement. Given that the project of the globalization is literally trade “liberalization” that would seem to amount to replacing the ferocious wolf of the anti-globalization movement with a lap dog that heels on command. Postel is not blind to these contradictions. He admits that on civil rights liberalism is on its “home court” while the radical anti-globalization team has home court advantage on third world economics. Postel says activists do all the global economic leg work while liberals do virtually nothing – undoubtedly true. What’s inexplicable is Postel’s conviction that, despite liberalism’s inherent weakness in matters of global economic justice, his vision of a center left liberalism could rival the foolish anti-globalization movement. Not only do center-left liberals apparently not care much about globalization, centrist liberals in the mold of Tom Friedman are actually the anti globalization movement’s sworn enemies.

Postel devotes a few paragraphs to outlining a center-left vision of economic justice with wince inducing phrases like “piecemeal, reformist organizing” and “tinkering with the (global economic) institutional architecture.” He even advocates “insinuating ourselves pragmatically into these institutions” - institutions like The World Bank - headed by Paul Wolfowitz. This prescription smacks of joining the Nazi Party to spare Jews. Danny doesn’t mince words about these literal contradictions in terms when he asks, “What exactly is our critique of neoliberalism and US imperialism? And how do we make sense of liberalism’s complex historical entanglement with (European) imperialism? I don’t propose any one set of answers to these questions.” Darn. It’s like reading a tract by Da Vinci that says “You know what we need to do? Square the circle. Unfortunately I don’t have the space to do that here.” Postel seemingly can’t accept that liberalism might be a Phillips head screwdriver that just doesn’t work in the flat-head screw of global economic justice.

Danny sees his youthful involvement with left wing movements concerned with 1980’s Central American conflict as an example of ‘good’ radicalism. These youthful activities also represent his radical bona fides. Yet it seems we now have a “latter Postel” who rejects everything about radicalism except his role in it. I see his radical liberalism program as an attempt to push the fools to his left off the side of the earth so that he will stay, at least relatively, ‘radical.’

The crux of the Second Chapter is that ‘boring’ Western texts become exciting in Iran because people voraciously consume them as forbidden fruit. By extension, it’s true that in Iran liberalism is indeed relatively radical, and not the boring mainstream it is in Western nations. This situation fits Postel’s conflicted mentality perfectly. Because his outrage is real, he can use a radical’s word like “solidarity,” which is antithetical to a liberalism founded on liberty and individual rights, and be perfectly sincere about it.

Adults like Danny, not to mention Iranians, are no longer swayed by simplistic radical slogans and are wary of the hazards of revolutions. How did intellectuals fare under Ayatollah Khomeini, let alone today where they’re lucky to be beaten instead of killed? It’s no wonder Liberalism appeals to grown ups. It subdues the Tomfoolery from both extremes. Then again, liberalism is an ideology. It isn’t wisdom, it isn’t experience and it isn’t prudence – just ask the liberals who supported the Iraq war. It’s honest and honorable to ‘call them as you see them’ which is largely the advice Postel offers, but no ideology, even one as pragmatic as liberalism, guarantees that you’ll be honest with yourself.

Even within its ideological borders, liberalism is littered with contradictions and absurdities. Liberalism promotes ‘pluralism,’ but for whom? Pluralism is an inherently paradoxical notion – or outrageously hypocritical depending on which direction the missiles are pointing. Iraq war advocate Peter Beinert enthusiastically lobbies for a new “cold war” on Islamic nations because, in some sense, they refuse to adopt the tenets of liberalism – that is a circle in great need of being squared.

The second half of the book sweeps in as a breath of fresh air because Postel returns to his self-created niche of academic journalist. He has earned his keep for some years doing this sort of thing, so he’s bound to be better at it than conceiving new ideologies. All the tension – both of his reproach of ‘the left’ and in the crippling contradictions of his “radical liberalism” - evaporates. Postel seems to actually be having fun in Chapters Three and Four, rather than valiantly defending endangered Iranians, which was his sacred charge in the first two chapters.

Chapter Three is an edifying take on the 2005 book Foucalt and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islam by Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson. Postel writes in first person so the book still sounds like a speech, but it’s a good speech and it relates all the important information about a hifalutin subject of some controversy. As in the first two chapters, he says things like “My friend Max Cafard poignantly captures the psychodynamics…” which gives the feeling Postel is taking you into his confidence.  Postel manages to not only swiftly and deftly summarize Foucalt’s ideas, but bring out the controversial contention of Afray and Anderson’s book. Their theory is that Foucalt may have repudiated some of his ideas right before his death - possibly  after seeing how badly the 1979 Iranian Revolution (which Foucalt more or less endorsed) turned out. The theory also happens to coincide with Postel’s own intellectual pilgrimage. Danny confesses that he swooned for Foucalt on first reading his radical critique of Western liberal institutions, but perhaps like Foucalt, he seems to have had second thoughts. 

The last and longest chapter is an e-mail interview between Postel and Ramin Jahanbegloo, an Iranian liberal academic. The exchange is densely packed with name dropping intellectual gymnastics – brush up on your Marcuse, Arendt and Popper for this one. However, this exchange gets Danny out of the hot water into which he jumped in the second Chapter. Jahanbegloo attempts to square the circle of the inherent contradictions in a pluralist exchange between the West and Iran. Jahanbegloo suggests a way to establish a dialogue with liberal crusaders like Peter Beinert that would maintain the cultural integrity of both parties. In my mind it boils down to mutual respect – not really an ideology - but he offers a beginning point for rapprochement that sidesteps thorny obstacles. The long exchange shows us the rich and variegated political and intellectual life of Iran. By letting an Iranian paint the picture himself, Danny is relieved of his White Knight role. His probing questions allow Jahanbegloo to strut his intellectual stuff and display the intelligence that motivated Postel to defend him in the first place.

Reading Legitimation Crisis in Iran succeeds as intellectual reportage. It fleshes out the “contours” as Postel calls them, of liberal Iranian thought. It’s also illuminating on the intersection of Western texts with Persian minds, factions and history. Postel’s attack on anonymous, powerless, radicals amounts to tilting at windmills, and his radical liberalism program is a concept at war with itself. But even amongst the rhetoric there are principled words of political wisdom from a mature “latter Postel.” Anyone interested in Iran – particularly current thinking of its intellectuals should buy the book at Prickly Paradigm Press.  

One of the rationales a.k.a. ex-post-facto justifications for the Iraq invasion is that the government of Iraq was tyrannical because a small plutocracy of the Sunnis was lording it over the vast majority of the population, which is Shiite. By toppling this Sunni “tyranny” we were doing God’s work in advancing democracy, since “the will” of most Iraqis wasn’t being done. In Iran also, most people were born after the ’79 revolution and just want to watch satellite TV and go on dates. Remember that even though the US has made implicit threats of invasion and explicit threats of “the use of force,” Iran actually has elections – it is ostensibly “democratic.” Some will say a small council of unelected mullahs has way too much power – they can take action that the majority won’t approve of. To those people, I’d like to tell you a story about the U.S. Supreme Court and the 2000 election.

It does stand to reason that if “the people” insist one doing one thing, and the government actually does something else then that government obviously isn’t responding to the popular will, but imposing the will of the governors onto the governed. This condition of government tyranny can occur – can easily occur in fact – despite periodic “elections.” Hitler was “elected.” Sadaam Hussein had an “election” right before our invasion in which the theme song was Whitney Houston’s theme song from The Bodyguard “I Will Always Love You.” Elections do not necessarily or automatically indicate a legitimate and real living democracy.

When you poll Americans on, well, pretty much all the major issues, there is an amazing “disconnect” or “gulf” – maybe more like a chasm – let’s say it’s cosmic sized black hole, sucking in all light, matter, time and space – between what the US people say they favor and what Congress, the President and Supreme Court impose on them.

Read ‘em and weep:

“A poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes and fielded by Knowledge Networks in January 2005 asked respondents to assume that requiring car manufacturers to meet higher fuel efficiency standards would mean “it would cost more to buy or lease a car.” Nonetheless, 77% supported requiring them, with just 20 percent opposed. This was a bipartisan view, favored by 74% of Republicans and 83% of Democrats.”

There has never been an actual increase in the C.A.F.E standards since they topped out in 1985, and those standards were actually set in 1975. Thirty years – literally a generation ago. The standards were actually set up to respond to…mid-east tension between Israelis and Arabs. Thank God we have all those mid east problems licked. Now oil is no problem for us…right?

But what about arguably more important, domestic concerns like health care? We have a medical system set up to “create jobs” and wealth, then curing sick people is kind of a secondary concern. That’s what we all want instead of universal care – obviously because that’s what we have. Except for one small detail:

65% OF AMERICANS SUPPORT GOVERNMENT HEALTH INSURANCE EVEN IF TAXES INCREASE

A nationwide survey by the authoritative Pew Research Center found that 65% of Americans said they support "government health insurance even if taxes increase." Even among those identified as "social conservatives," 59% support a tax-financed government system. For other groups, the percent supporting were: "populist conservatives" (63 percent), "conservative Democrats" (73 %) and "liberals" (90 percent). Only one group, "Enterprisers" (libertarian conservatives), did not provide majority support (24 %)

Pew Research Center, "Beyond Red vs. Blue," Survey Report, 5/10/05

* * *

Medicare is viewed favorably by 96 % of U.S. adults, according to a Harris Interactive poll of 2,242 residents. "Universal health insurance" was favored either "somewhat" or ‘strongly" by 75 % of respondents.

Wall Street Journal / Harris Poll, 10/20/05

* * *

But then, I’m talking around the proverbial 800lb gorilla in the living room right? The following is the least controversial statement anyone can make about politics in America:

Congress and the President and the Courts do not represent “the will of the people of the United States,” but instead they represent the will of the corporations of the United States. Theoretically, congressmen represent the voters in their respective districts, but everyone knows that they actually represent the corporations who fund their campaigns. This is why we so often refer to “powerful” corporations, even though they are technically not an arm of government. A Senator from Michigan transforms into the Senator from the Automaker’s Alliance lobby for instance.

Now if we got to vote on who ran corporations, and what they do, then at least we could count ourselves as a legitimate democracy. Maybe our corporate overlords would look completely different. But do they really want that? Maybe we should make a much less radical move than abolishing what is called the oldest democratic regime of government in the world.

Here’s an idea. Make campaigns publicly financed instead of financed by our corporate overlords. That way, congressmen wouldn’t be the representative from Wal Mart or General Motors, but of, Arkansas and Michigan respectively. Issues surrounding corporations could be considered dispassionately and disinterestedly if the Senator actually had to represent “the will of the people of the United States.” Even better, the “will of the people of the United States” already favors such a simple and enlightened plan. Look at this poll (thanks to TPM’s own Nathan Newman):

A new national poll finds overwhelming support (74%) for public financing of elections, the result no doubt of soaring campaign costs, lobbyist scandals and the desire for fairer, cleaner elections. The result is bipartisan with eighty percent of Democrats, 78% of Independents, and 65% of Republicans support this reform.

What's important to emphasize is why voters said things would improve with public financing of elections.

• 82% of voters believe it is likely, as a result of publicly financed elections, that candidates will win on their ideas, not because of the money they raise.

• 79% said it would allow candidates with good ideas rather than just the rich and powerful to have a shot at winning elections.

• 77% said that special interests would not receive as many favors, tax breaks and deals from politicians.

Is it even arguable that if the government of the United States doesn’t bend to “the will of the people of the United States,” then that government is simply not a democratic one, but a tyrannical one? Now what does the United States itself say the United States should do about tyrannical regimes? Invade the nation and institute “regime change.” What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Could someone invade the United States in order to impose the will of the people of the United States? How about a coalition of the willing including France, Britain, China and Russia? They all helped lick Hitler and/or Hirohito. Any takers care to enforce our will?

For people like me who follow the C.A.F.E. debate closely, this week has been a veritable Easter – a holy week of gas mileage face time. Our glorious leader G.W. Bush has asked Congress to grant the president authority to ‘reform’ the CAFÉ standard, though the bill doesn’t actually call for any specific improvement. As we know, BushCo is nothing if not cynical. The Karl Rove modus operandi for this administration means that “appearing” to be doing good is the same as actually doing good. It’s important to remember that since it’s so tough to get any movement on the C.A.F.E. standards except during these crisis moments, calling Bush on his bluff might actually move the efficiency football forward. However, unless efficiency hawks get something in return, namely an end to the “light truck” category, I would actually prefer no boost in the car standard.

The reason for the understandable reticence to give extra power to the power grabbing Decider In Cheif lies in the recent “reformed C.A.F.E.” standards just put in place for light trucks at the end of March 2006. They’ve employed a new size based continuous curve (NOT, as some have reported “size categories”) that decreases the mpg requirements as “footprint” (or wheelbase X tread width) increases. This new system is far from perfect, but it has the advantage of forcing makers to improve gas mileage of such “ringer” light trucks as Subaru station wagons and unit body or car chassis “crossover” SUVs like the Ford Escape. By boosting the requirement for small SUVs it discourages makers from slightly modifying “car” platforms just so they can be sold as “trucks” with the dismal truck standard. Read my previous blog entry “Light truck CAFÉ boost reason to celebrate ‘Liberally’” to get all the particulars in more detail. Suffice it to say that the move was a glass half full measure. Any improvement in truck mileage is welcome, and the size based system boosts mileage “targets” for the mega sized SUVs as well – just not as much as smaller “footprint” models.

It’s an improvement, but far from ideal and it's more a silver lining than a rainbow leading to a pot ‘o gold. There were many opportunities to actually make the problem worse that were narrowly avoided. For example, GM and Ford wanted NHTSA to exempt trucks with characteristics like “towing ability.” Since just about every full size truck can tow at least 5000lbs, automakers could’ve slapped a hitch and wiring harness to the back of every SUV and pickup they sell. Thankfully that didn’t happen. NHTSA also could have enshrined weight in the system rather than size. This means that there is an incentive to decrease the weight of vehicles with a large “footprint” to maintain size but increase gas mileage.

If you read the March 29th 2006 rule, NHTSA practically launches into a poetic soliloquy regarding the subject of life saving weight. Since automakers dragged their heels for a good 20 years on airbags (Amazing Fact: you could buy a ’74 Buick with air bags but they were cancelled in later models when the auto lobby got Washington to back off on safety regulation) it’s hard not to think the Automaker’s Alliance isn’t shedding crocodile tears when it weeps and wails about the perils of downsizing, and preaches the miraculous virtues of life saving weight. In any case the silver lining is that size, rather than weight was enshrined as a determinant of gas mileage targets.

The remaining empty space in the half full C.A.F.E. glass could be filled if G.O.P. New York Congressman Sherwood Boehlert, (along with co-sponsor Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey) gets his way. He is proposing a 33mpg C.A.F.E. standard for both cars and light trucks that the National Academy of Sciences (N.A.S.) says is feasible using today’s technology, and without harming crash safety. To your good KingElvis, however, the best part of the Boehlert plan isn’t just a boost in the standard, it lies in getting rid of the illegitimate, unjust and irrational category of “light truck.” For more on that topic, see “Pickups keep on light truckin’” in KingElvis' TPM reader blog.

To get some C.A.F.E. traction, liberals must tirelessly hammer away on a simple truth: jettisoning the light truck category turns market conservatives into honest men. The reason is that the loophole “picks winners” a practice that every conservative from George Will to Pat Buchannan is supposed to abhor. The law unfairly curses “cars” and blesses “light trucks.” Any conservative who sings the praises of the perfection of market rationality has to accede to the fact that treating the two differently distorts the market and skews it toward “trucks.”

Taking the opportunity of this crisis moment in energy policy, the rhetoric could form a perfect pincer move. You attack the truck loophole from the right as a fly in the ointment of market rationality, then from the left you ask for a reasonable boost in mileage standards across the board. Voila, now trucks move from 21.6mpg in 2006 to 33mpg by 2015.

Even if the continuous size curve is used in reforming the car standard, as long as economists or other market conservatives can continue to make the point that the light truck loophole is unnecessary and unjust, the result could be that a small boost in ‘car’ standards then becomes a massive boost in truck standards. While Bush’s C.A.F.E. proposal would likely boost car gas mileage by only 2.75mpg, or 10% (if it matches the ‘truck’ standard improvement of 21.6mpg to 24mpg in 2011) this great argument about ending auto market distortion is lost unless it also applies to trucks, and at least some support from moderate Republicans like Boehlert might also go away. I consider myself quite an energy hawk, but I wouldn't suppport an even wider gulf in gas mileage standards between "cars" and "light trucks."

If I was horse-trading in this art of the possible, I would gladly allow the “car” standard to become size based if I got an end to the “truck” category in return. “Trucks” now compose a majority of the market since they can be anything from a soccer mom’s minivan to a military Humvee to a Dodge Caliber – the newest compact “crossover” SUV from Dodge that has replaced the Dodge Neon compact “car.” In fact a Dodge Magnum “truck” had replaced the Dodge Intrepid “car” and it was only because dealers demanded some sort of large sedan that Daimler Chrysler grudgingly introduced the Charger sedan. The increasingly rapid truck-ification of America will continue apace if there are two different standards - one "hard" and one "easy." Even a big boost in “car” mileage won’t matter if “cars” only represent a sliver of the market. Already "cars" compose a minority of new vehicle sales.

So I say, call Bush’s bluff – let NHTSA “reform” car C.A.F.E. but only on the condition that this new standard will also replace the current “truck” standard. Market conservatives and liberal energy hawks can finally join hands and sing from the same songbook.

As nauseating as it is to pat George W. Bush on the back for anything, we should take solace at least in this: for SUVs and some passenger vans in the once un-regulated 8500lb and higher GVWR category, some new CAFE regulations will come into effect by 2011. This comes out of the March 29th 2006 rule issued by the NHTSA that also boosts “light truck” gas mileage from 22.5mpg to 24mpg. Unfortunately, for pickup trucks with a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) above 8500lbs, usually referred to as “3/4 ton” and “1 ton” pickups, CAFE still doesn't apply at all. It’s important to take note that the ½, ¾ and 1 ton nomenclature for pickup trucks hasn’t denoted actual load bearing capacity since the 1930s, although these designations stubbornly hold on to this day. The actual payload capacity of a ½ ton full size truck is more like 1300lbs to 2000lbs. When the NHTSA news release came out, everyone from NPR to Automotive News just went ahead and edited GVWR down to “gross weight” or just "weight." The truth is, as morbidly obese as American pickup trucks have become, the 8500lb category includes the payload of the vehicle along with the net or so called "curb" weight. No Virginia, there is no 8500lb pickup...yet. But keeping the 8500lb GVWR cutoff for pickup trucks, let alone not boosting “light truck” gas mileage up to “passenger car” standards is particularly troubling when you look at pickup trucks from an historical perspective.

The C.A.F.E. enshrinement of size and weight as specifically “truck” attributes has absolutely no historical basis when you look at the pre C.A.F.E. era. In my book Horsepower War, I spend quite a bit of time proving that actually the opposite was true before C.A.F.E.; the heaviest vehicles were actually “passenger cars,” and pickups were once among the lightest vehicles Detroit made. A 1954 Chevy Bel Air hardtop coupe (the heaviest vehicle Chevy made other than the convertible)weighed around 3400lbs. The biggest Cadillac Eldorado weighed nearly 5000lbs, while a ’54 Chevrolet pickup didn’t even break over the 2700lb mark – that’s not “payload” – that’s the curb weight of the truck itself! By 1967 pickup weight had increased, but Ford’s F-100 pickup weighed about 3500lbs, while a Ford LTD full size sedan was well over 4000lbs.

In fact the F-150 model, along with the “Supercab” six passenger cab, came along in 1976 right after C.A.F.E. debuted. The F-150’s entire reason for being was originally to push it over the 6000lb GVWR class, so it could continue to burn leaded fuel and therefore go without a catalytic converter. Chevrolet did something similar with a “Big 10” version of its ostensibly light duty C-10 “half ton” pickup that same year. The Ford “Supercab” helped turn the so called “commercial” pickup into a passenger carrying conveyance. It is true that recreational uses for trucks were on the rise before C.A.F.E., but there was never a legitimate reason for NHTSA to mandate that “trucks” get lousy gas mileage. The loophole has helped to inflate truck size over the past 30 years. Now a 2006 F-150 long bed, regular cab 4x2 V8 is about 4800lbs. The more common “Supercrew” four door, 4x4 V8 model has grown to a morbidly obese 6000lbs – that’s well over the weight of two 1950s pickups.

The load carrying role of the pickup has shrunk as the passenger carrying part has grown. Chevy didn’t even offer a back seat in ½ ton “recreational” pickups untill 1989. Now pickup makers have shrunken bed size down to a mere 5 feet on many models. Dodge’s Dakota pickup doesn’t offer a long 8 foot bed anymore. In fact, now you can’t even buy a “regular cab” model. You have to get either the extended cab or four door cab.

In addition to size, the halcyon days of the ‘50s and ‘60s had commercial vehicles, a.k.a. pickups, with far less horsepower than passenger cars. There was no V8 available on the ’54 Chevy pickup at all, while the ‘54 Cadillac surged forward in the ‘50s horsepower race – roughly doubling the power of the Chevy pickup. In 1967, the Ford F-series offered three engines – only one of which was a V8, and it made only 200hp from a moderate 352 cubic inches (5.8 liters), about half the power of the mightiest engine available in the Ford passenger car lineup in ’67 – the 427 cubic inch (7 liter) V8. It’s important to note that the 200hp 352 was also the biggest engine for the 1967 F-250, rated at 7500lbs GVWR, and the F-350, with up to 10,000 lbs GVWR with dual rear wheels and about a 5700lb payload. In 2006 the base engine on the F-150 makes 200hp. Even the smallest V8 engine in the 2006 Chevrolet Silverado makes 285hp. That level of horsepower was unheard of, even in the biggest, heaviest pickups – those in the over 8500lb GVWR category - all through the 1960s 1970s, 1980s and even into the 1990s.

But aren’t today’s pickups better than yesterday’s? When it comes to people pampering, there’s no comparing today’s luxo trucks with the stark ones of yesterday, but measured in purely utilitarian terms of payload carrying capability, the answer is no. There are big differences in towing capacity, since the new models have so much more horsepower than those of a generation ago, but in purely “commercial” terms of carrying burdens, today’s pickups haven’t improved much, not just in spite of C.A.F.E.’s bow to light truck’s hallowed commercial role, but partly because of it. How could that be? At first blush these ratings seemed to have “improved” over the years. The 1967 Ford GVWR rating was 5000lbs for the F-100, while the 2006 F-150 rates 6800lbs. However we must subtract the vehicle’s “curb weight” from the GVWR number to get our “payload.” Result? The 2006 6800lb GVWR F-150 only nets about 500lbs more payload than a comparable 1967 F-100. On the “Supercrew” four door that gets all the face time in TV ads, the biggest payload is 1500lbs – nearly the same payload as the ’67 F-100. All the extra body weight of the large 6 passenger cab subtracts from the truck’s ability to do what pickups were originally intended to do before the loophole helped turned them into opulent luxury vehicles. Body weight is a hindrance to the actual payload carrying capacity of the pickup, not a help, and yet the NHTSA “commercial” rationale that heavy duty pickups have to weigh a lot and have massive engines has made them pound for pound at least, less utilitarian than they once were. Remember also that for commercial vehicles, excessive power isn’t a virtue either. Every extra penny spent on fuel could have gone into the business owner’s wallet as profit.

It’s interesting to note just how much these GVWR ratings seem to have “progressed” over the years. The current ½ ton, long bed, regular cab Chevy Silverado has a GVWR of 6400lbs, and a payload of 2000lbs. In 1951 the Chevy pickup rated just 4600lbs GVWR – then again, it only weighed 2600lbs – so basically, even though the GVWR has moved from 4600lbs to 6400lbs for ½ ton GM pickups over 50+ years, the payload has stayed roughly the same. Considering that the 8500lb GVWR has been “pegged” by C.A.F.E. rules and pickup body weight has been increasing for 50 years – and lately at an even faster pace – just put two and two together. Can’t we easily predict that GM and Ford will introduce personal use trucks above the 8500lb GVWR loophole cutoff that aren’t really for commercial or load bearing use?

We don’t have to. It’s already happened. Currently GMC offers a “heavy duty half ton” model called the 1500HD. Remember, in 1976 a GVWR above 6000lbs was considered a “heavy duty half ton” – now this modern heavy duty half ton pickup just happens to rate at 8600lbs - above the 8500lb loophole. It’s interesting to note that it only comes in “crew cab” or four door form and with a short 6.5 foot bed – the body style least suited to carry bulky loads. It’s also telling that the bare bones interior known as the “work truck” package isn’t even available. Even the “Base” trim isn’t. It comes only in highline luxury trim with chrome wheels, leather wrapped steering wheel, overhead console and power accessories, yet this truck is already getting Uncle Sam’s stamp for “commercial” use, at least to the extent that EPA doesn’t even bother rating its gas mileage. However, since the body weight of this bruiser is 5471lbs for the 4x2 model and 5762lbs for the 4x4, the payload isn’t substantially more than the regular ½ ton GM truck. Payload is 2838lbs for the 4x4 and 3129lbs for the 4x2.

Now a fair minded and reasonable TPM reader might ask what these poor, poor business owners are going to do if the NHTSA pries morbidly obese pickups from their cold, dead hands. Isn’t the demand that pickups – especially the “heavy duty” variety – get “passenger car” gas mileage akin to asking Detroit to pursue some Manhattan Project for pickups? Automakers often complain that NHTSA demands something on the order of turning lead into gold when it comes to pickup gas mileage gains. There’s only one problem with that argument. You can already buy a Mercedes built captive import from Dodge called the Sprinter Van that gets better gas mileage than many “passenger cars.” The 2500 series passenger van model has a payload of 3626lbs – far above the speciously named “heavy duty” GMC 1500’s capacity, and it weighs less – 4657lbs - but it rates a similar 8550lbs GVWR.

Somehow the Sprinter carries its load with a mere 2.7 liter, 154hp five cylinder turbocharged diesel engine – one factor that helps rather than hinders is that it has less body weight. GM seems to think you need at least 300hp for such a task – in fact you can’t get anything smaller than a 300hp or 345hp 6 liter V8 on not just the 1500HD, but the 2500 ¾ ton and 3500 1 ton GMC pickups that also share the “commercial” 8500lb GVWR loophole status. The Mercedes built Dodge Sprinter comes from Europe, where a legislative body did not declare by fiat that “commercial” vehicles must be astoundingly heavy and have massive, fuel swilling engines. Since the Sprinter Van is not tested by EPA, Dodge used SAE test J1082 conducted by FEV Engine Tech to determine that the harmonic gas mileage average for the Sprinter – even loaded down with 50% of its weight capacity, is 25mpg. EPA also doesn’t test the gas mileage for the GMC 1500HD, but the closest vehicle in the GMC universe is the luxury oriented Sierra Denali, which has the same crew cab layout as the Sierra 1500HD, a 345hp 6 liter “Vortexmax” engine that is optional on the 1500HD, a shorter bed and wheelbase, and only comes in 4 wheel drive, which EPA rates at 1mpg to 2mpg less than comparable 2 wheel drive Sierras. The Denali rates a dismal 14/17mpg rating, for a 15.5mpg average – so the Sprinter gets 1.6 times the gas mileage of the closest estimate we have to the 1500HD.

Even compared to the “one ton” class, the Sprinter compares well. The 3500 series Sprinter Cargo van with a 140” wheelbase has roughly the same payload rating as a 3500 series GMC Sierra crew cab 4x4 with dual rear wheels – that model is literally the biggest, heaviest pickup truck GMC sells and it nets a 4848lb payload vs. 4824lbs for the Dodge Sprinter. Once again, the Sprinter’s lighter body weight – in this case 5166lbs vs 6552lbs for the GMC – is a help in boosting payload, since the capacity of the axles and other parts is limited by weight, it doesn’t matter if the weight comes in payload or body weight devoted to a bigger passenger compartment or the extra weight of four wheel drive. The greatest payload available on the GMC line is the regular cab 3500 4x4 (a 4x2 would have greater payload, but is unavailable as a 3500 regular cab), which rates at 11,400 GVWR and has a 5687lb payload with the dual rear wheel option. (remember, you could have gotten that kind of payload in 1967 with a dual rear wheel Ford F-350 that weighed just 4300lbs) Compare that to the 3500 series Dodge Sprinter chassis cab model with a 10,200lb GVWR, but a 5774lb payload. Even on the lightest weight, smallest GMC dual rear wheel model (which has the greatest payload) the Dodge Sprinter compares favorably. Keep in mind that in its tow rating, the GMC, with about twice the horsepower of the Sprinter, yields about twice the towing capacity. However, the “commercial” role NHTSA assigned to pickups derives not from towing capacity, but from the cargo hauling ability of the vehicle itself. The lack of a cargo bed in 8500lb GVWR SUVs and passenger vans was used as a rationale to finally include these vehicles in C.A.F.E. regulation, even though they can tow nearly as much as similarly sized and equipped pickup trucks. In other words, NHTSA hasn’t designated towing capacity in the loophole, but the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating.

Conclusions

C.A.F.E. has proven its effectiveness and is worth both keeping and improving, but the ‘commercial’ rationale behind completely excluding 8500lb GVWR pickups has no historical basis in fact. It’s clear that though GVWR ratings keep rising through the years, the actual ability of pickups to carry heavy burdens hasn’t changed much. Considering that the new “footprint” system for generating C.A.F.E. targets takes into account longer pickup wheelbases, the wisest course would simply be to include all light trucks including those above 8500lbs GVWR. Clearly this false distinction between “commercial” and private use vehicles has actually served to make commercial vehicles needlessly bigger and thirstier, when historically pickup trucks have actually been markedly lighter in weight than passenger cars. More importantly, we can see that pickup body weight devoted to expanded cab space for extra passengers must be traded for payload capacity. Therefore, within a given class (i.e. ½ - ¾ - 1 ton) as body weight increases, payload decrease. Ergo, body weight and payload are actually negatively correlated. Given that more body weight is correlated positively with extra passenger space, it is actually passenger cars, and not light trucks that should weigh more – and in fact this was the case in the 1950s and 1960s, before C.A.F.E. granted the light truck loophole.

The 8500lb GVWR loophole has already encouraged makers to game the system in order sell luxury barges like the GMC Sierra 1500HD (obviously not intended for commercial use) without any EPA rating or C.A.F.E. target at all. The recent change in the way NHTSA derives fuel economy targets and the inclusion of some 8500lb+ GVWR large vans and SUVs in the C.A.F.E. system is a major positive step, but this recent effort is only a half measure if 8500lb+GVWR pickups are excluded. Furthermore, even the 24mpg standard that includes most 1/2 ton full size pickups should be boosted to the “passenger car” standard of 27.5mpg. NHTSA has a duty to finish its work in making sure that the system is not “gamed” and also that the auto market is not skewed by a system that “picks winners” by giving special dispensation to light trucks in general, and a totally free pass to any pickup over 8500lbs in GVWR.

On March 29th, 2006, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) threw us liberal "energy hawks" a big ol’ bone. In a headline that should have started "Hell freezes over..." The trade rag Automotive News reported "24mpg CAFE standard for light trucks adopted." Hallelujah and Huzza! George Bush is making trucks thrifty? Yes. How about three cheers for W? Hip hip…wait this is C.A.F.E. – we’ll have 1.2 cheers for MY 2009, 1.8 for MY 2010, and 2.4 for MY 2011. In fact, the best way to characterize the new NHTSA rule change is to say, the glass isn’t just half full, it’s 0.625 full – depending on how you drive of course. Yet it’s the revolutionary new way NHTSA is formulating truck gas mileage rules that is even better news. The changes don’t go far enough, but as Garrison Keillor would say, “It could have been worse.” While summing up the 371 page NHTSA directive in a single blog entry is literally impossible, suffice it to say that up till now, there was one fixed number that applied to the fleet average of every maker. It was based on the “least capable” maker’s ability to conform. In most cases it was G.M., because it had sold the most big trucks. Makers like Honda and Toyota, who made more small trucks cleaned up on CAFÉ credits by exceeding average “fleet” gas mileage standards – then they could apply the credits to future model years.

Now that both Toyota and Nissan are jumping into the V8 SUV and pickup market with both feet, NHTSA’s report says in front of God and everybody that GM and Ford were trembling in fear that Toyota would be able to sell fuel swilling pickups with no C.A.F.E. fines piling up at the end of the year. Even though GM leads in full size fuel economy (little known fact: Chevy’s Silverado V8 pickup is a bit thriftier than Toyota’s Tundra V8 pickup, despite having more horsepower) Chevy might accrue fines due to the sheer volume of big trucks it sells. On the other hand Toyota has both credits built up from years they didn’t sell a V8 truck, plus credits on a current year basis from such popular economy soft roaders as the 4cylinder RAV 4.

With the “continuous” sizing system derived from the totally new NHTSA “bracketed logistic” gas mileage/size ratio curve, all makers will have to make yearly improvements in light truck fuel economy. The system uses a new metric called “footprint.” Measured out in good old American square feet, the “footprint” is the wheelbase multiplied by the tread width. For a big honkin’ SUV like the Lincoln Navigator, it works out to 55.4 square feet, while the compact Ford Escape is a mere 43.5. Yet even this size-centric curve is an improvement on what could have been. In August 2005 NHTSA proposed six new size “categories.” The sticky wicket inherent in categories is obvious. Makers could simply expand the track or wheelbase of certain models that were right on the border of each category, in order to shove them into a higher size class. So the first “could have been worse” good news is that NHTSA instead developed a continuous curve rather than “stepped” categories to prevent makers from gaming the system. In fact the NHTSA report also states that Toyota and my kindred spirits over at the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) successfully argued that further “gaming” would occur if truck characteristics like hauling or towing capability were used as additional rationales to water down economy standards (newly designated as “targets”). Chevy could just tack on a towing package to every mega SUV it sells, because it would be much cheaper than adding new fuel saving technology like 6 speed transmissions or hybrid drive-trains. Thanks to stormin’ Norman Maneta’s new continuous bracketed logistical size/mileage ratio curve, (just trips off the tongue doesn’t it?) each maker will end up having its own precise “target” like 23.28 mpg instead of using a universal rounded number “standard” like 22.5mpg that applies to all. This new number is determined by calculating the harmonic average of all the maker’s vehicle mileage targets, weighted by the distribution of the maker’s production volumes among the foot print increments.

Yet I can just hear the Talking Points Memo cognoscenti screaming, their hands clenched with fists of rage because of, A: the favorable treatment toward domestic makers (Secretary Maneta is in GM’s hip pocket!) and B: the new system’s way of rewarding big SUVs and punishing small ones. Actually those two things are great for energy hawks. Why? Firstly, because the new continuous sizing system eliminates the heinous practice of producing “ringer” trucks based on compact car chassis’ to offset the Big Gulp mega SUVs. For example the Ford Escape will get a 2011 target mpg of 27.32 – that’s nearly the same as the “passenger car” standard of 27.5mpg. It’s also a pretty big increase from the current model’s 24mpg 4 cylinder and 22mpg six cylinder average. Although domestic makes do get a break, remember that Toyota and Honda have been “upsizing” on a continuous basis for the past 25 years. Even Honda has a full sized pickup now. Under the “unreformed” system, there would have been nothing preventing Honda from introducing a 5mpg monster truck. This is because NHTSA couldn’t levy CAFE fines due to these Japanese maker’s many accrued credits from past years. Another “light truck ringer” culprit is that darling of NPR’s “Car Talk” tappet brothers, Subaru. They make a lot of station wagons, but because of a slightly higher ride height and that “flat loading floor” many of their relatively small “cars” only have to make the dismal light truck standard – that’s going to change for the better.

More “could have been worse” sentiment applies to the idea of enshrining “footprint” size in the system. Why? They could have enshrined weight instead. For more than a decade the auto lobby has hammered away on the idea that downsizing cars is akin to murdering people. When you know the history of the auto lobby’s not so noble efforts to prevent seat belts and collapsible steering columns from being mandated in the 1960s, then their 1970s and 1980s recalcitrance against an air bag mandate, it’s easy to accuse the auto lobby of crying wolf. On the other hand, there is Newtonian physics to consider. 6000lbs worth of Chevy Suburban is going to play holy hell with a 2600lb Honda Civic. In fact, in crashes between “light trucks” and “passenger cars” 80% of fatalities occur in the poor saps in the car. There are extenuating circumstances mainly centering around disparate bumper heights, but hey, three tons is three tons. So if the weight difference is the problem, why not mandate lighter trucks? Well, the footprint metric could do that. Thanks to the fine efforts of the aluminum lobby in the new rule’s formulation, the biggest trucks could use more composite plastic, aluminum and, if Amory Lovins’ RMI gets its way, carbon fiber, to retain the same size yet decrease weight and thereby increase gas mileage and decrease the kinetic energy hazard to lighter cars. For safety hawks like “Saint” Joan Claybrook, NHTSA director under President Carter and now head of the consumer watchdog group “Public Citizen,” extra track width generates an acute case of the warm ‘n fuzzies. This is because more track width (and wheelbase for that matter) makes the vehicle more stable and less likely to roll over. This is particularly important for high centered trucks, which have proven far more likely to succumb to fatal rollovers than low slung cars.

The “half full” news for the rationality of the auto market is that although there will be less regulatory incentive for makers to shift from “passenger cars” to “light trucks,” it remains true that simply by having a lower “truck” standard at all, the incentive isn’t completely eliminated. Already 4200lb bruisers like the Dodge Magnum R/T (basically a station wagon) are classed as “light trucks,” and just this year Dodge has replaced its compact Neon sedan with the Magnum’s nom-de-firearm little brother “crossover” called the Caliber. The retention of the “truck” standard is particularly vexing when you look at the NHTSA document, because it spends so much time talking about how rollovers are terrible and heavy weight and wide track width is going to save you from harm. Yet NHTSA uses high ride to determine what a “truck” is. In reality commercial vehicles don’t have to be high riding. In fact a low loading height would be ideal for something like a pickup. With respect to weight and how great the automakers say it is for saving precious lives, why can’t cars have a little too? Particularly since much of the problem in head to head crashes can be attributed to weight difference, why isn’t bringing “truck” weight down and maybe bringing “car” weight up not such a noble goal? This would be the effect of simply jettisoning the “light truck” category altogether and adopting a universal 27.5mpg standard. Even going by the NHTSA document’s own logic, there is no reason this wonderful life saving weight should be defined as uniquely “truck” while cars are defined as “light weight vehicles that kill you.”

The new NHTSA light truck C.A.F.E. rule is indeed a major step in the right direction. Secretary Maneta deserves praise for improving the gas mileage of light trucks, and especially for revising the system to reduce “gaming” of it. He has restored some market rationality to the system and eliminated major incentives for “ringer” light trucks. However, the whole idea of a separate standard for trucks should be eliminated. While Maneta has carried us about 2/3rds of the way to restoring market rationality, the best thing to do is to simply merge the passenger car standard and the light truck standard together. Boost the “light truck” footprint mpg targets up to “passenger car” standards, and completely eliminate the “truck” category.

Energy independence, ending global warming and terrorism funding...sounds like a job for SUPERMAN!  According the NY Times' recent "DriveTimes" article, Superman isn't necessary. Saving America is simple. Raise the gasoline tax. Done. Actually, the econo-metaphysics of gasoline tax ideology is nothing but elitism dressed up as "science." If the gas tax goes up marginally, it will raise lots of revenue, but not "change behavior."  If it is a draconian increase, it might change behavior of the poorest drivers who are already consuming the least land, water, and energy resources anyway! Exploit the poor to make the nation "more energy secure." That is what the NY Times and Tom Friedman advocate. Why not jut pass a law saying anyone making less than $30,000 a year is expressly forbidden from driving? That is what Freidman really envisions, and even a draconian gas tax likely wouldn't be nearly as effective as such a repressive law.

Taxes raise money for the government. Higher taxes could mean a lower US budget deficit - probably a noble goal, but the gas tax just doesn't change behavior on the margin. 
That it does is an elitist econo-metaphysical canard. In all of the NY Times' and Tom Friedman's drum-beating for a regressive gas tax, they somehow forget to mention that Bill Clinton raised the gas tax in the 1990s - in turn the 1990s saw the rapid acceleration of oil importation and petroleum use overall.

Clinton did not increase Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Also, the Newt Gingrich congress passed a measure that forbade Clinton from getting rid of the so-called "SUV loophole,” wherein “light trucks” have about a 30% lower CAFE standard than "passenger cars." Simply put: CAFE measures under Carter and (ironically) Reagan were effective. Clinton's gas tax didn't help anything. To give Clinton some credit though, it wasn't really sold as "energy independence" snake oil - it was just to (surprise - no econo-metaphysics) raise revenue. The 90's became the decade of the guzzling SUV.

"Now hold it right there KingElvis,” some might say. “We need draconian European-style fuel taxes - Clinton's gas tax increase wasn't harsh enough on the poor.” That's the crux of the matter isn't it? Well...

There are many other reasons even a high gas tax likely wouldn't lick terrorism and global warming in one fell swoop. 

1.  There is a tiny area of the US (the inner part of large cities) that is served by public transit. 2. To live in these areas, you must buy a much more expensive house, thereby more than offsetting the tax increase you would save by not driving. 3. The federal government subsidizes home ownership and new housing development, therefore suburban sprawl, and that makes people drive more. Getting rid of these subsidies would effect the middle class - why don't we make the economy more "rational" and encourage short commutes and inner city living that way? Regressive taxes on the powerless are easy and fun, that's why.  4. America has a "car culture" where car use and ownership is prized more than in Europe.

But let's just pretend the elitist econo-metaphysics will work and we get a draconian gas tax - one that will at least double gasoline prices - and the myriad of countervailing forces, including the four listed above, are suspended.

The poor and working class will:

A. Fight and die in Imperial oil wars.

B. Take the bus and therefore waste much more time commuting.

C. Be deprived of the instant mobility and personal freedom a car provides.

D. Have little choice but to live in the inner city.

I hate it when the wealthy talk about “sacrifice.” It’s just like the notion of “personal responsibility,” it’s a concept that is applied in a directly inverse ratio to a person’s wealth, influence and power. The poorer and more powerless you are, the more “personal responsibility” and “sacrifice” is demanded from you. The rich will "sacrifice" nothing. They'll likely devise a way to deduct fuel costs from their taxes, since they itemize everything anyway - even if they don't, the gas tax is a pittance to them, and it's the only kind of tax the wealthy bless: a regressive tax.


By increasing CAFE standards, we will decrease the gas consumption of cars, and therefore decrease oil use. No metaphysics necessary there. It's happened before; it's proven by history to be effective. Under increased CAFE, the rich will have to spend more on higher technology cars to get the excess power and size they want. A big SUV would have to be made out of carbon fiber or aluminum, and/or feature a more complicated, expensive drivetrain (hybrid drive for example) to make increased CAFE standards. These efficiency boosting measures will make SUVs, supercars and luxury cars more expensive. Then again, aren't they luxury items in the first place?

"Forcing" the wealthy to buy more expensive luxury cars and SUVs at least could be counted as a small sacrifice - a shared sacrifice. A marginal increase in the gas tax will do nothing for energy autarchy or global warming, or whatever Friedman's miracle gas tax snake oil diatribes promise - that was proven in the 1990s. A a draconian, regressive gasoline tax, even if it works as envisioned by elites (a big if), does nothing but exploit the poor to solve the problems caused by the rich.

We've been subject to a littany of laments on so called "hybrid hype" in venues like "Automotive News," a daily industry journal, and "Autoweek," an enthusiast weekly. "Car and Driver's" Brock Yates rarely misses an opportunity to decry the "media weenies" (himself accepted apparently) who foist these awful hybrid drivetrains on an unsuspecting populace. Right wing attacks on hybrid cars have reached such a fever pitch that, last month, the EPA agreed to revise its gas mileage window sticker rating downward to reflect the right's sudden new embrace of "reality."

"WUNDERBAR," thought TPM's self appointed automotive blogger KingElvis. Revising the window stickers downward could be a sort of "back-door" method of increasing actual new car fleet efficiency, since the 27.5mpg passenger car and 22.5mpg "light truck" Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards aren't changing. "To make the standard under stricter 'reality' testing, cars would have to be more efficient," I thought upon first seeing the headline. But reading further down, your liberal automotive scribe learned a devilish detail. Turns out that it's actually the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that imposes guzzler fines and administers CAFE, while the EPA actually tests gas mileage. Neat trick huh?

Somehow the EPA will be generating two numbers a "real" rating and a "fake" gas mileage rating that will be used by NHTSA to adminster CAFE. Welcome to Bush's world.

Considering that hybrid cars have the highest EPA economy ratings, their window stickers will take the biggest hit in absolute terms. Bingo - the right wing now gets another rhetorical sword with which it can stab at its most reviled enemy: efficiency and conservation. However, the more "real" the rating, the worse off the anti hybrid lobby will be. Just for fun though, let's take a look at some of the right wing's "realism" criticisms of hybrids.

1. Hybrids get lousy gas mileage during engine warmup.

Yep - that's because ALL combustion engines run a very rich mixture during warmup to keep the engine from sputtering and dying in the cold. All cars have relatively bad gas mileage during warmup. This argument is particulary vexing coming from "experts" - have they never heard of a carburetor choke? Ironically, electric motors don't require "warm-up."

2. Hybrid EPA ratings are uniquely "unrealistic" and "unfair" because absolute gas mileage is many mpg lower than regular cars.

Just to be even handed, I credit "Car and Driver's" Pat Beddard who has pointed out the obvious critique to this argument. If the EPA window sticker ratings are 20% off, an SUV that gets 8mpg instead of the 10mpg rating is "only" two mpg off, while a 50mpg rated hybrid that gets 40mpg is a "whopping" 10mpg off.

Another point I would add that will be pivotal in the EPA's quest for reality. For jackrabbit starts and severe braking that we would associate with fast "realistic" urban driving that the right wing wants the EPA to take into account, hybrids have a major advantage. The electric motor allows the same jackrabbit break-away power with a much smaller gas engine compared to the same vehicle with just a big gas engine, and when the inevitable hard braking comes at the next light, the hybrid can regain some motive power through "regenerative braking" that a regular car just wastes in wearing down the brake pads. 

It's possible that under these conditions the EPA rating might give hybrids an advantage, but these ratings have gotten the "realism" treatment before in the 1980s, and that simply meant dialing down the numbers, rather than actually changing the testing method. This time though, the EPA is promising to use more "real world testing," so perhaps this will make the ratings for hybrids comparitively better than regular gas engine cars - though they'll all be lower. I predict that "city" fuel economy ratings will take a much bigger hit on regular engine cars than hybrids.

Before we leave this topic, lets take a look at a few engineering "miracles" that the industry has developed to save the big V8 engine. Predictably, right wingers like Brock Yates love to offer up these wonderful advancements as proof that their beloved "fire in the can" internal combustion engine, like rock 'n roll, will never die.

There are a number of advances, like variable valve timing and variable valve lift that have indeed improved power relative to engine size. But I'd like to take a look at a trick called "multiple displacement" that applies to larger engines with more reserve power - these are the big V8s and even a few V6s that waste worshippers worship. "Multiple Displacement Systems" allow half the cylinders in a "V" type engine to shut down under low load conditions. Like so many neat engineering tricks, this one has been around for a long time. In fact, in 1981 Cadillac actually produced a V8 that did the same thing. Although it worked on a similar principle, the slower 1981 microprocessors made the engine jerky when moving into shutdown mode, while today's systems are praised as "seamless."

The other reason the ol' V8/6/4 didn't stick around? It really didn't save gas. In any kind of brisk driving, it was just a big 368cubic inch V8. It really only kicked in during gentle highway cruising, and in that case simply using a lower revving axle ratio nets the same gas mileage gains.  

With the new "multiple displacement systems" used by GM, Chrysler and even Honda, the results are mixed. The new engines have much more horsepower on reserve than the '81 Cadillac, but you don't need any extra power to move the same weight at the same speed that you did 25 years ago. Mr. Newton's law's haven't been revised by Bush's science Pharisees - not yet anyway. So ironically, the fact that today's engines have about double the power of 1981 means that the same weight vehicle could shutdown cylinders more of the time than in '81. 

Predictably, the lighter the vehicle weight, the more of the time the "excess" cylinders can be de-activated. In short, the systems work pretty well in passenger cars like the 3700lb V8 Chevy Impala and the even lighter Honda Accord V6. The "as tested" gas mileage on these cars is pretty close to EPA ratings. Chyrsler's popular 4200lb 300C "HEMI" V8 benefits from MDS too, but obviously to a lesser degree, and EPA rating varies farther. Car and Driver has achieved "as tested" mileage of 19mpg on the similar Dodge Charger Hemi - not too bad but its rated at 17/25mpg by the EPA. "Consumer Reports" wasn't so lucky. They logged a miserable 11mpg on a 300C.

Now GM is trotting out the miraculous MDS system on its all new 2007 Tahoe SUV. Car and Driver's Tony Quiroga just tested one. I'll add the caveat that they used the remote starter to warm up the truck in the Michigan winter, so when idling, they were getting 0mpg. Still, that Tahoe is one big mutha - nearly 6000lbs. "As tested" C&D gas mileage? 12mpg. GM has been promising that the 4x2 version of the Tahoe with cyinder shutdown should average 20mpg. 

Conclusion? Auto writers like to talk about how we can't have conservation and efficiency because "you can't repeal the laws of physics." I'll admit that some pie in the sky notions from the likes of the NY Times' Tom Freidman regarding "plug in hybrids" push it a little. But then again, why do auto writers never editorialize about the most basic fact of Newtonian laws of motion? Big and heavy vehicles are going to take one hell of a lot more energy to accelerate than smaller, lighter ones. They love to decry the "magical thinking" involved in hybrid technology, and point out that the EPA ratings are too high, but they tend to be pretty silent on whether gas guzzlers don't make EPA ratings. Even with technological "miracles" in play, heavy trucks still guzzle gas, and decreasing weight remains the royal road to fuel savings.

The "laws of physics" continue to tell us that it makes no sense to excuse SUV buyers from the conservation equation. The "light truck" 22.5mpg standard must be jettisoned in favor of a universal 27.5mpg standard, and that should be based on the EPA's forthcoming "realistic" standard of testing that will first apply to 2008 model year vehicles. Makers can use more expensive materials like aluminum to offer big vehicles that are lighter - yes they will cost more, but then again, they're luxury vehicles already. Soldiers are dying in Iraq, partly for US oil interests - can't wealthy truck buyers pay a little more for the same size truck with more aluminum parts, or drive a 5000lb truck instead of a 6000lb one? Is there literally nothing they can do?  

For the past few years, as hybrid electric/combustion engine cars have entered America's lexicon and driveways, the automotive press has generated reams of reportage on them. The hybrid idea crosses into politics in a way that other more "gearhead" oriented auto stories do not. Nevertheless, industry and the auto press have carefully danced around the most important aspect of hybrid drive. For the benefit of TPM readers, I'd like to give you something surprising to say about hybrids at your next cocktail party.

The number one hybrid car myth: "The hybrid drivetrain is the royal road to super high gas mileage." Yet that doesn't mean they're bad. They're great! Why does Liberal KingElvis speak such hybrid heresy?

The number one way to reduce fuel consumption is to reduce vehicle weight. Hybrid drive adds weight, because it requires heavy batteries, not to mention an additional motor. You want a 50mpg vehicle? They abound in Europe. They use pint sized diesel engines to get Prius type economy without dragging big batteries around. Furthermore, even large European cars use much smaller engines and have far less "reserve power" on tap than typical US cars. It's a truism of combustion engineering that engines are most efficient when running near the peak of their power output - at least in terms of power/gallon.

In fact, the idea of hybrid drive has been around at least since the 1960s, but hasn't caught on where fuel thrift is the primary concern. Don't take my word for it either. None other than efficiency guru Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute will tell you the same thing. He has said over and over that his concept of a super high mileage "hyper car" is about using ultra light carbon fiber construction rather than steel. The drivetrain is a secondary consideration - vehicle weight is primary. He doesn't much care if it's hybrid or fuel cell, though, hydrogen fits in with his vision of a total switchover from oil to a hydrogen based economy. Yet I think he will tell you that unless weight is reduced, you'll just be using more fuel, whether gasoline or hydrogen. 

Hybrid drive is complex and expensive. Even with $3 gasoline you have to drive the car for 5 or 6 years to get the fuel savings to compensate. Now should you be "anti hybrid?" Hell no! Here's the rub about the hybrid question. It has to do with the inborn, inherent quality of automotive "aesthetics" more than any of the allegedly rational arguments like energy autarchy, foreign policy or global warming.

The Theory of the Aesthetic of Automotive Excess:

We have always associated fuel economy with tiny, spartan, low priced cars. They use the least materials possible and have not just the lightest weight, but the least "reserve power." The more expensive vehicles are not only bigger, but faster, despite increased weight over economy models, because makers install a massive engine with loads of "reserve power." It's not necessary that you use the power, but you, and more importantly, that Milquetoast liberal next door, "know it's there." In fact, there is less and less "utility" in the extra horsepower as you spend more and more on it, because once you go past 220hp or so, where the hell are you going to use it without ending up in jail? The point is that the extra power is mostly ornamental - not "utilitarian." Remember that peak power/gallon is when the engine runs near peak RPM. So the bigshot in the 500hp M5 BMW is doubly wasteful - most of the time he is demanding the same power as us mortals, but that engine is particulary wasteful in delivering the relatively low power needed in mundane traffic driving.

OK. This is the part where I tell you what is the best kept secret in auto journalism: The "hybrid question" is being posed in exactly the wrong way. It's literally 180 degrees wrong. Why? "Liberals" should be talking about "gas mileage equallity" rather than consumerism. Liberals should be making demands on the rich, not shouldering the load by "choice." That argument frame plays right into the hands of the right wing! Should a small minority of "nice" people "choose" to avoid global warming, while the immoral majority can "choose" to go to hell in a hand basket?

Since at least 1990, there has been a backlash against the "Corporate Average Fuel Economy" NHTSA regime, despite its stellar success in lowering the growth rate of US oil consumption. Some interest groups allied to Bush senior and the auto companies framed the criticism that CAFE defied that all important totem pole of 'Merikun civilisation: "Consumer Choice." CAFE was outlawing rich people's cars! 

Hybrid drive gets rid of the "Consumer Choice" rationale that has frozen CAFE increases for nearly twenty years now, and auto companies as well as auto magazines have carefully avoided mentioning that. 

Hybrid drive is great at providing vast "reserve power" because you have two power sources rather than just one. Electric motors are uniquely suited to intermittent lead-footing you associate with that asinine jerk blasting around you in traffic, because peak power comes at low electric motor rpm. You get 'instant' power, whereas even Mr. Richy McJerk's M5 requires the engine be revved to the stratosphere to get that 500hp. The rich 'n jerky can then recover some of that battery power used in blasting away from the green light when they invariably jam on the brakes at the red light, since the electric motor becomes a generator and converts the vehicle's kinetic energy into electrical current.

Most importantly, hybrid drive's extra weight and expense doesn't make any sense on a cheap, small, economy car, but on big and expensive models, it becomes a small fraction of the price of the vehicle. 

Complexity itself is a virtue in the realm of "conspicuous consumption," so all that extra stuff under the hood becomes another emblem of automotive status - like having a supercharger or an 8 speed transmission. Also, more expensive materials like aluminum or the carbon fiber favored by Amory Lovins can boost performance and gas mileage by lowering weight, but they would be too expensive to employ on cheap models.   

The question of whether or not to buy a hybrid has been framed as a "moral" one. In fact, one "consumer" cannot have any leverage whatsoever on global events. To believe so borders on hyper delusion. But then again, it plugs perfectly into the biggest myth in America: "Individualism." Even if you want to make it "personal" the cliche of the hybrid driver should be the exact opposite of what it is now.

"Hybrid cars: perfect for rich, selfish jerks who drive like maniacs." 

We should recoil at token measures like tax credits for hybrids. Instead, the focus should once again return to constant, gradual increases in the boring but effective "CAFE" regime. By getting rid of loopholes for SUVs, the market for hybrid drive will take care of itself. Rich, selfish jerks will be forced to buy hybrid drive to maintain their addiction to "reserve power," and most importantly, everyone will be required to help in this noble project of reducing energy consumption.   

General Motors is heralding the arrival of two hybrid drive SUVs at the Chicago Auto show. Even their 3 ton, 300hp morbidly obese Chevrolet Tahoe SUV will allegedly have a 25mpg average EPA rating. So why did GM blow tens of millions of dollars lobbying AGAINST a Corporate Average Fuel Economy boost suggested in Congress in 2003?

Much wiser men than KingElvis have pondered why GM engages in seemingly bizarre and irrational behavior. Look at it: they're the first to market with a honkin' big hybrid SUV, and would be perfectly poised to catch Ford and Chrysler with their SUV pants down. Had GM supported a CAFE boost they could have bragged that their SUV gave up nothing in size and power, while the other makers would have had to decrease power, use diesel engines or (the HORROR!) make them a little smaller and lighter. Remember, the 25mpg figure is the average rating. That's damn good - better than KingElvis gets in his pride and joy, a Mustang GT (17city/25hwy) with a measly 21mpg average. (Don't ask me about "real world" mileage - that's for another blog entry). Even then the Mustang doesn't qualify for a "guzzler" tax and that's in the "passenger car" universe where the fleet has to average 27.5mpg. "Light Trucks" with their famous CAFE loophole are presently going up to a still lousy 22.5mpg. But why not just have one "car" standard if even a giant hybrid SUV can get "car" mileage?

The answer my friends is not blowin' in the wind. It's in my first TPM blog entry. You can get a summary of KE's famous theory of "The Aesthetic of Automotive Excess," for the particulars. Basically, GM want's to hang on to the idea that the problem of national oil dependency/terrorism/global warming, etc is one that can be solved through "consumer choice" and "individualism." Toyota and Honda are doing the same thing in their hybrid marketing. But the idea of a tiny minority of virtuous and big hearted TPM types saving the world by driving cars that get 44mpg instead of 32mpg is, to be polite, horsepoop! Makes The King feel like shootin' the TV when he sees those ads! Does the individualism/consumer paradigm of the global survival of humanity also mean jerks and dumbies can "choose" oil addiction or even apocalypse?

Another reason GM doesn't advocate getting rid of the SUV loophole, despite offering a giant sized SUV that has a higher average than many "passenger cars," is a little more mundane. By selling the hybrid SUV, and more importanly the "Greenline" Saturn soft roader SUV, they will be able to sell more dreadnaught fuel swillers, because the high hybrid numbers will balance out the mega-monster guzzlers.

Let's say the glass is half full with this latest hybrid news, but Elvis knows his 'rithmetic:  full is twice as good. It's not too much to ask "light truck" buyers to contribute to this whole save America project. It's literally the least they could do to help reduce oil consumption: being "forced" to buy a hybrid drive king size SUV. That would happen if we got rid of the light truck CAFE loophole. Now GM has proven hybrid drive can make even massive trucks get "car" gas mileage - too bad they'll apparently just be used to balance out the sales of even more super sized non-hybrid guzzlers.

Here's the press release. Incidentally, if you've got corporate tattoos, is that really rock 'n roll?  

 General Motors Press Conference



Declaring that “we’re in the hybrid game,” officials for General Motors Corp. unveiled two gasoline-electric hybrid SUVs.


The two SUVs will go on sale in the U.S. in each of the next two model years. And the giant automaker promised more hybrids “in every market segment” will come by the end of the decade, including a hybrid version of its Cadillac Escalade by calendar 2008.


GM’s Tom Stephens, group vice president of powertrains, said consumers can expect a 20 percent improvement in fuel economy from the two initial hybrid vehicles—the 2007 Saturn Vue Green Line and the 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe SUVs—over comparable gas-only models.


The Saturn Vue Green Line hybrid will be in showrooms this summer with a starting manufacturer’s suggested retail price of less than $23,000. This is some $4,000 less than the current lowest-priced hybrid SUV, the 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid.


Saturn General Manager Jill Lajdziak estimated fuel economy of the Saturn Vue Green Line of 27 miles a gallon in city driving and 32 mpg on the highway, which compares with 22/27 mpg in a gas-only four-cylinder two-wheel-drive Vue with automatic transmission. The hybrid Vue has front-wheel drive only.


But the Saturn Vue Green Line system operates a bit differently than the Ford Escape Hybrid, as well as hybrids from Toyota.


Different Hybrid Technology
While the Vue uses an electric motor and nickel-metal hydride battery pack to supplement a 2.4-liter Ecotec four-cylinder engine with 170 horsepower, the Vue cannot run beyond a few seconds solely on electric power. The Ford and Toyota Hybrids can run for extended periods on electric power.


Rather, the Vue’s hybrid system is designed to supplement the gas engine, via extra launch power as a driver starts up from a stop, as well as via additional power for passing maneuvers.


The Vue does save gas by turning off the gasoline engine when the vehicle comes to a stop, say at a stoplight. The engine starts automatically when the driver lets up on the brake pedal.


GM officials have called the Vue system a simpler hybrid technology than that of competitors like Toyota. As a result, the Vue system adds about $1,500 to the price of the vehicle vis-à-vis the $3,000-plus cost for the more complicated Hybrid Synergy System of Toyota, they said.


But consumers should note that there’s no gauge or information display in the Vue to tell drivers exactly what fuel mileage they’re getting. GM engineers said the Vue electronic architecture does not support that kind of calculation. Vue hybrid owners can calculate their mileage on their own after each gasoline fill-up, they said.


Full-Size Hybrid SUVs
The second hybrid SUV from GM, the 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe, has a more robust hybrid system that does allow the vehicle to operate solely on electric power, when possible.


When it debuts in about a year and a half, the Tahoe Hybrid and its twin, GMC Yukon Hybrid full-size SUVs will become the largest hybrid vehicles on the market.


“Our hybrid strategy will not be confined to small cars,” said Mark LaNeve, vice president of sales, service and marketing at GM. He added that prices won’t be announced until closer to the on-sale date next year.


The Tahoe’s Vortec V8, with automatic cylinder shutdown, will be mated to an electric motor to produce a 25 percent fuel economy improvement, officials said.


After the hybrid press conference, GM invited media to an event at the Cadillac display, where the 2007 Escalade was unveiled amid a party during which Travis Barker, drummer for the band Blink 182, entertained. Barker, who stars on the MTV show Meet the Barkers is an Escalade fan. He owns three of the big SUVs and has Cadillac tattoo artwork on his body.