U.S. gasoline boom could kill eco cars
When the Obama administration unveiled its new 4.3 kilometres per litre average fuel economy regulations back in August, its most effective argument for the hyperaggressive mandate was not that the United States would use two million fewer barrels of oil a day or even that emissions would be reduced by six billion tonnes by 2025, but rather that the average driver would save as much as $8,000 in fuel costs over the lifetime of his or her new vehicle.
Indeed, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proved most adept at promoting the new standards, claiming that switching to newly frugal sedans and trucks would be the equivalent of a dollar a gallon reduction in the price of gas, tapping into the widespread obsession with the price of fuel. Even the most dedicated enviroweenie realizes that, if the automotive revolution — EVs, hybrids and four-cylinder econoboxes — that they have been promising is really to occur, it will be promoted on pump prices, not saving the environment.
The problem is that, in the U.S. at least, the window of opportunity for convincing consumers that more economical transportation is a necessity may be closing. If reports of the U.S.’s increasing supply of homebrewed fossil fuels are to be believed, the country could soon become the largest oil- producing nation in the world and wean itself from much of its foreign oil imports by the middle of the next decade. While there are caveats to that prediction — shale oil deposits in the Bakken region of Montana and North Dakota (not to mention Saskatchewan) proving as large and easily accessible as expected, etc. — it is nonetheless a gamechanging prediction.
Our predilection with the price of gas is a recent one, dating specifically to 1973, when the first oil crisis hit the U.S. Before that fateful October, fossil fuels were something to be squandered freely in the biggest, least efficient land yacht one could afford. Economy cars were limited to the Volkswagen Beetle and the quaint little Toyotas that were just staring to appear on North American shores.
By June of the following year, when pump prices had spiked by 50 per cent and U.S. president Richard Nixon began talking gasoline rationing, the fear of oil shortages had permanently scarred America. Long lineups at filling stations became the norm, the U.S. got its first “energy czar” — William E. Simon, administrator of the Federal Energy Office — and the previously unheard of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries became as familiar to fretful Americans as the birthdays of their children. By the time the second oil crisis hit in 1979, the fear of oil shortages had been etched — permanently, we have long thought — into the collective consciousness.
As the fear of massive price fluctuations and Saudi blockades fade, it may become increasingly difficult to convince Americans to trade in their pickups for some electric weeniemobile. With the increasing public acceptance that another oil calamity is not right around the corner, so too will the popularity of draconian fuel economy regulations. I think the alternative vehicle lobby’s window of opportunity to solidify the electric automobiles into the consuming public’s consciousness is limited. Without the fear of price hikes and oil shortages to motivate people into smaller and more fuel-efficient cars, selling alternative vehicles on their environmental advantage alone could prove very difficult.