What is the "legitimate" market space for large vehicles?  10% of what the market actually has been?

And, then, as well, one has to wonder whether there will be real gains in the fuel efficiency at the 'large' end.

For example, I have viewed the "minivan" as a space truly open for PHEV.  Why?  Relatively large vehicles, able to 'sacrifice' some space for early generation batteries/such.  In a market space which cares about gasoline prices &, to a certain extent, environmental image.  And, generally, sold to people with some legitimate claim for 'size'/seats. (The neighbors with five kids (included the adopted) & such ...)  Sigh ... the Chevy Volt is a two seater.

Blogging regularly at Get Energy Smart. NOW!!!

This is the same issue that comes up when we talk about insulating homes or replacing inefficient heating systems or the like. Bleeding money slowly is the only choice for people with no access to adequate capital.

People always say "where will we get the money?". Obama just put out some plan or other and he is going to get the revenue from tweaking some tax or other. What's never discussed is getting the money by not building more military hardware or not funding some ongoing aspect of the imperial empire like foreign bases.

I guess the choices in Europe and Japan are a bit harder since there is no comparable military elephant sitting there unexamined.

I mentioned $100 billion for fusion R&D yesterday = eight months in Iraq. It's all about priorities.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

The change in the kinds of vehicles sold this year has, so far, been remarkable, with a massive boom for smaller cars (especially those with the best engines, emissions-wise), large drops for bigger cars and more polluting engines, and a massive effort by manufacturers to provide models that fall jsut below the threshholds.

When half-year statistics come out next month, I'll try to do a post.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

The bigger the engine, the higher your yearly car tax, and the higher your twice yearly car-inspection fee.  These are not trivial taxes.  I pay 35000 yen a year or so in car taxes for my small 4-cylinder engine, around 1300 cc or so.  Above 1450 cc you end up in a different tax bracket, and have to pay somewhere around 100000 yen a year in car taxes.  And there are even higher brackets as well.

On the other hand, if you're willing to put up with a truly tiny car and an engine no larger than 500 cc, there's a special Keizai-kuruma bracket, with negligable car taxes.

Sadly, those k-cars are increasingly replacing bicycle use, as the younger generations are too lazy to ride anywhere, and as the suburban and rural infrastructure has been optimized for car usage along American lines.

China to raise car tax to spur fuel efficiency
(Bloomberg)
Updated: 2006-03-22 17:31

China will adjust its tax rates on automobiles, motorcycles and rubber tires. China's government said it will adjust its tax rates on automobiles, motorcycles and rubber tires to encourage the use of vehicles with smaller engines that burn less fuel.

Beginning on April 1, the top tax rate for automobiles will be raised to 20 percent from 8 percent for vehicles with engine displacements larger than 2 liters, according to a statement posted on the Ministry of Finance's Web site.

The government of the world's third-largest vehicle market is trying to encourage consumers to choose cars with smaller engines to cut fuel consumption as rising incomes and falling car prices make cars affordable to more people. Individual vehicle ownership more than doubled to 13.65 million units in 2004 from 6.25 million in 2000, according to the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

One is to reduce demand relatively quickly to bring down the price (assuming that's what is keeping oil high). It is hard to quantify how much making oil cheaper in Africa is "worth" under these circumstances.

Another is to give a boost to auto production which is (still) a big factor in the US economy when there is a downturn. This would also provide an incentive to automakers to switch to more efficient production sooner than the new standards mandate. This is also hard to quantify.

California had a program to buy back old junkers that were on the road a few years ago to help lower pollution. I think this was regarded as a "good thing" without a rigorous cost/benefit analysis.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

An essential point is to separate the issue of having a low income from the issue of using excess oil. It is true (and will become especially apparent this winter in the American Northeast when the high cost of heating oil causes people to literally freeze to death) that low income people suffer first. That's one of the problems of being poor.

Society has support programs for poor people, inadequate as they may be. But it's a two-way street, so to speak. If one chooses to live in a rural area, and the cost of transportation becomes unaffordable, then the obvious answer is to travel less. That's how it was in the bad old days, and that's how it will be in the future (until our long-promised flying cars arrive).

If you read about people who lived in Kansas, say, even as recently as the 1930s, one thing that stands out is that they Just Didn't Go Anywhere. For example, read "Letters from the Dust Bowl" by Caroline Henderson. They went for weeks without visiting their "nearby" town, and years without leaving the state.

Even in the 1950s it was a big deal to go from, say, Denver to Steamboat (Rabbit Ears Pass was paved in 1950), and my well-off grandfather went to Europe exactly two times in his life: Once as a soldier in the first world war, and once as a tourist.

Basic solution to expensive transportation: Don't transport stuff.