Rethinking the Role of the Automobile

[palsan]

Originally Posted by churp

Does anyone honestly feel that an EV/hybrid/hydrogen or much of anything will be produced anytime in the near future, that will be more cost efficient than our Yaris? So far most of the hybrids initial price pretty much cancels energy savings, and money in my pocket is what I'm comparing here.

no, no, no, and yes.

We live in a consumer society - bigger/more/fancier/faster is better!!! Larger vehicles are simply a sign of our collective affluence - period. On the one hand it would be nice to see more small vehicles on the road, but its only going to happen if our standard of living drops to the point where we cannot afford them.

Lets be honest, most of us here (Bailout excluded ) bought a Yaris for financial reasons. If we had more disposable income (or the willingness to go deeper into debt) I bet most would be driving something else .... and certainly fuel efficiency would be near the bottom of the list of features. For me it would be a Mini Cooper S Convertible for the commute, a Mercedes 280SL for summer and of course a bigger garage.

Small, fuel efficient, cars will only sell in North America in signigicant numbers when the price of gasoline more than doubles from current levels. But be careful what you wish for - if gasoline were to jump to those levels the economy would tank into a recesion the likes of which we have not seen in a loooooong time. If that were to happen a lot of us would be spending our time on workopolis instead of yaris world