Giddiness about today’s cheap price of gasoline aside, it seems inevitable that fundamental change is coming to the automotive industry.
Many signs suggest that automakers soon will shift gears toward gas-electric hybrids, all-out electrics and cars and trucks powered on other alternative fuels. As for the tried-and-true gasoline-based model that has served us so well for so long, the shift will be toward cars and trucks that run on much higher miles-per-gallon ratios.
It’s a future whose time should have come by now, and we look forward to watching it reach cruising speed.
An angry resentment — and real trepidation — sank into the national consciousness when gas topped $4 a gallon. Despite the deep drop in prices that has followed, most American drivers don’t trust that inexpensive gas will last much longer.
President-elect Barack Obama made developing a strong green-energy economy within 10 years a central part of his campaign. While stumping in Detroit, he refused to pull his punches and rightly chastised Big Three executives’ reluctance to innovate and increase fuel efficiency.
Obama said he didn’t want “to destroy the industry, but to help bring it into the 21st century.”
As significant as Obama’s mindset on the issue is the fact that congressional Democrats recently surprised us by breaking with the so-called dean of the House of Representatives, John Dingell of Detroit.
Though not a thoroughly uncritical advocate for the Big Three, Dingell nevertheless helped prevent congressional passage of higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks for years while Democrats controlled the House and Dingell chaired the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Though Dingell returned to chair the committee after Democrats retook the majority in 2006, his colleagues voted him out this month in favor of the more liberal and greener Rep. Henry Waxman of Hollywood.
Meanwhile, even the Big Three are singing the environmentalist tune. As U.S. auto executives defend their request for $25 billion in loans to stave off bankruptcy or dissolution, they argue that cars like the all-electric Chevy Volt, out in 2010, will help save the struggling companies.
And the U.S. automakers, who are to submit more detailed plans for their loan request this week, already are the recipients of $25 billion in taxpayer assistance focused on helping them retool cars and trucks for greater efficiency and green technologies.
While Detroit retools, entrepreneurs are popping up. Tesla Motors, a California company, now offers a high-performance, all-electric sportscar that can zip from zero to 60 in just under 4 seconds. Though the Tesla Roadster remains a novelty that costs more than $100,000, its makers hope to use what they’ve learned to market affordable sedans.
No doubt, the Japanese will continue to forge ahead with the successes their hybrids and innovations have gained for them.
Yes, similar innovations faltered in other days, when energy prices remained low and Detroit relished the easier profits of trucks and SUVs and used its muscle to quash alternatives.
But it’s clearly a new day in 21st century America, and clearly a time that’s come.
