Steve Levin
Master of Disaster
Since we're FG, I was going to keep this primarily focused on cars, but I think any good ideas would be interesting to talk about.
For cars, I have two thoughts on ways to change things. I believe that CAFE is the "bass-ackwards" way of influencing things because it fundamentally tries to make manufacturers build cars people don't actually want. And while "people" might want much more fuel efficient vehicles, most individuals end up not caring as much when it's simply a cost being passed on a few hundred dollars of purchase price that typically gets financed into the purchase of the car and means just 4 or 5 dollars a month in higher payments. You go in an say "hey, for five bucks a month, I'd rather have the bigger engine!"
In my opinion, effective change will come when the costs are continuous, and will have implications at the time of resale. In other words, how do we make that bigger engine that you pay more for potentially worth LESS when it's time to sell the car? (and maybe not at the first sale, but the second or third, to help get older, less efficient cars off the road as well).
The simplest way, I think, would be to pass a 10 cent/gallon gas tax that increases another 10 cents every year. So in 5 years it would be 50 cents and in ten years $1/gallon. The biggest issue I see with this is that it's going to be hard to pick a number that is enough to start moving the needle to change buying patterns without having a real impact on those folks that can only afford to buy older cars.
So my second thought was a bit more complicated (in some ways). It would be a car registration fee, based on the fuel economy of the car. Cars that reach the given "mark" would have no fee. And the amount of the fee, once assigned to a car when new, would not change for the life of that car.
So to start, let's say the "mark" was put at 40mpg, and the fee was set to $10/mpg you miss the target by. So a car that get 30mpg would pay $100/year for the rest of its "life."
Then the "mark" could be raised, say 1mpg each year, and the fee raised $2/mpg each year. So in year 5, new cars would be faced with a mark of 45mpg, and an annual fee of $20/mpg they miss the target by. In year 10 the mark would be 50mpg and the annual fee $30/mpg.
Or perhaps we raise target mark slower, but raise the fees faster, if we think it'll be tough to hit the higher marks, but want to get more of the near-mark cars sold.
Regardless, I think such a scheme impacts the buyers of older cars much less, and makes the buyers of newer cars really think about that bigger engine choice, since they know that when they go to sell the car, that next buyer is going to be saying "how much will it cost me every year to register this thing?"
The bottom line is that I do think we need to push more on burning less fuel, and for every enthusiast that buys a car with the sportier engine, there are 20 people that don't know a tire from a wheel that ended up buying it because it came with the car and the manufacturers haven't had much pressure to build nicer trim levels with the smaller engines.
Steve
For cars, I have two thoughts on ways to change things. I believe that CAFE is the "bass-ackwards" way of influencing things because it fundamentally tries to make manufacturers build cars people don't actually want. And while "people" might want much more fuel efficient vehicles, most individuals end up not caring as much when it's simply a cost being passed on a few hundred dollars of purchase price that typically gets financed into the purchase of the car and means just 4 or 5 dollars a month in higher payments. You go in an say "hey, for five bucks a month, I'd rather have the bigger engine!"
In my opinion, effective change will come when the costs are continuous, and will have implications at the time of resale. In other words, how do we make that bigger engine that you pay more for potentially worth LESS when it's time to sell the car? (and maybe not at the first sale, but the second or third, to help get older, less efficient cars off the road as well).
The simplest way, I think, would be to pass a 10 cent/gallon gas tax that increases another 10 cents every year. So in 5 years it would be 50 cents and in ten years $1/gallon. The biggest issue I see with this is that it's going to be hard to pick a number that is enough to start moving the needle to change buying patterns without having a real impact on those folks that can only afford to buy older cars.
So my second thought was a bit more complicated (in some ways). It would be a car registration fee, based on the fuel economy of the car. Cars that reach the given "mark" would have no fee. And the amount of the fee, once assigned to a car when new, would not change for the life of that car.
So to start, let's say the "mark" was put at 40mpg, and the fee was set to $10/mpg you miss the target by. So a car that get 30mpg would pay $100/year for the rest of its "life."
Then the "mark" could be raised, say 1mpg each year, and the fee raised $2/mpg each year. So in year 5, new cars would be faced with a mark of 45mpg, and an annual fee of $20/mpg they miss the target by. In year 10 the mark would be 50mpg and the annual fee $30/mpg.
Or perhaps we raise target mark slower, but raise the fees faster, if we think it'll be tough to hit the higher marks, but want to get more of the near-mark cars sold.
Regardless, I think such a scheme impacts the buyers of older cars much less, and makes the buyers of newer cars really think about that bigger engine choice, since they know that when they go to sell the car, that next buyer is going to be saying "how much will it cost me every year to register this thing?"
The bottom line is that I do think we need to push more on burning less fuel, and for every enthusiast that buys a car with the sportier engine, there are 20 people that don't know a tire from a wheel that ended up buying it because it came with the car and the manufacturers haven't had much pressure to build nicer trim levels with the smaller engines.
Steve
