PeakOil is You
What will become of the auto industry?
by JohnDenver » Thu 07 Jul 2005, 05:10:48
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('fred2', 'P')ersonal transportation is an essential part of life in developed countries.
No it's not. It's a pseudo-essential part of life, much like cigarettes are an essential part of life for smokers. I live in a developed country, and I don't have a car, and the vast majority of people I know don't have a car. Cars are only necessary because the infrastructure was designed to make them necessary. So let's not kid ourselves about the "need" for cars.
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by dub_scratch » Sat 09 Jul 2005, 12:45:17
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('fred2', 'L')eaving aside issued with specific companieis, I don’t think the car industry as a whole is doomed as such. Massive change, yes. Personal transportation is an essential part of life in developed countries. The looming oil crisis will force a sea change in direction for the car industry but it wont kill it. The recent trend towards the larger SUV type vehicles will of course collapse. Fuel economy will become the name of the game, and there will be a huge demand for fuel efficient cars, hybrids etc. And because effective personal transportation is an essential component of normal life in the developed world, you will see government intervention to ensure it happens e.g. tax policy to encourage (greatly) fuel efficient vehicles.
I think you are correct about government subsidies to the car industry in effort toward correcting the fuel inefficiency problem, but that very stream of subsidy should worry people. When government subsidizes any kind of activity, it distorts the market and creates, what are called by economist, economic inefficiencies. And that translates directly to energy inefficiencies. Tax incentives to hybrids will insure that people drive MORE that they would otherwise. It encourages consumption.
I reduced my yearly driving from 14k miles to less than 1K without any compromise to the economic system (other than the auto related industries). This ends up saving the government because it relieves road capacity and all of the associated costs that goes with it. Reducing driving is so energy efficient that it is impossible to build a car that could do the same. I currently burn 0 gallons of gas going to work. I calculate that a hybrid would burn 250 a year with my old commute. And that does not include the energy used to build the car and the infrastructure. But by the government giving tax breaks to hybrid buyers instead of non-drivers, what they are really saying is that they would rather have me buy a hybrid and keep my long commutes rather than eliminating my driving. That's stupid beyond belief.
The dirty secrete is that America's auto use is NOT the product of the free market, which is a widely held belief. It is the product of the largest socialist system in history other than the former Soviet Union. The same government socialist practaces that creates bread lines is the same type of practaces that creates traffic jams. So the government subsidizing high MPG cars would be part of the same thread that resulted in the worlds highest oil consumption on the planet. Americans burn more oil because we drive more, and we drive more because our government subsidizes it so much.
The worst part about the coming welfare war for cars is that is would direct resources away from other uses. Every hybrid car built is a wind turbine NOT built. Every parking garage built is a micro hydro electrical generator NOT built. Every dollar spent on fueling a high MPG car is a dollar NOT spent on home insulation. This is what is known as opportunity costs and the coming massive welfare for cars will insure that the remaining oil wealth gets squandered as it has in the past-- on needless miserable boxes stuck in traffic jams.
If we mount the welfare war for cars that you think will save the auto industry then this civilization will end like a giant Easter Island, with cars instead of giant statues. And when civilization ends the auto industry ends with it.
Who here agrees that we should skip that step?
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The auto industry is dead
by Novus » Sat 09 Jul 2005, 14:37:31
The truth is the auto industry is already dead. GM is offering everyone the employee discount in a last ditch effort to save to company thinking things will get better in the future. Oil prices are never going down. The auto industry is losing money with $60 oil and we are less then six months away from $100 oil. The auto industry just can't survive. Even with a government bailout that would only buy them months not years.
The government is going to have its' hands full trying to bail out every industry. The airlines are bankrupt. When the housing bubble pops Fannie-May and Freddy-Mac are going to need to be bailed out. Consumer credit is going to impode because the consumer will no longer be able to use their homes as cash machines. Nobody is going to be able to aford anything. This what it really means WTSHTF. One by one huge important industries are going to roll over and fold up. The government is not going to be able to save any of them. The government will need to save itself as it is also threatened by peak oil. There will be a a constant battle to prevent the break down in law and order as the recession and depression gets deeper meanwhile we still fighting an endless war to secure what oil is left.
The government is going to have its' hands full trying to bail out every industry. The airlines are bankrupt. When the housing bubble pops Fannie-May and Freddy-Mac are going to need to be bailed out. Consumer credit is going to impode because the consumer will no longer be able to use their homes as cash machines. Nobody is going to be able to aford anything. This what it really means WTSHTF. One by one huge important industries are going to roll over and fold up. The government is not going to be able to save any of them. The government will need to save itself as it is also threatened by peak oil. There will be a a constant battle to prevent the break down in law and order as the recession and depression gets deeper meanwhile we still fighting an endless war to secure what oil is left.
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by dub_scratch » Sun 10 Jul 2005, 20:41:19
Since cars are a huge drain on resources, especially energy, the end of the automobile industries would be the best thing to happen for us after peak oil. Unfortunately, there are vested interest who do not want that to happen.
Cars are a cancer.
Cars are a cancer.
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by I_Like_Plants » Sun 10 Jul 2005, 21:03:18
dub_scratch I bow before you
There was a weird show, at least partially animated, on the Disney Show or the revamped Mickey Mouse Show, in the 1970s, where it showed the dominent life form on the earth (by which they meant the USA), the car. It actually portrayed the car as the life form running the planet (the USA) and said in so many words that humans were parasites on the car, living inside them etc.
Maybe someone can find that footage, it's amazing!
There was a weird show, at least partially animated, on the Disney Show or the revamped Mickey Mouse Show, in the 1970s, where it showed the dominent life form on the earth (by which they meant the USA), the car. It actually portrayed the car as the life form running the planet (the USA) and said in so many words that humans were parasites on the car, living inside them etc.
Maybe someone can find that footage, it's amazing!
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by fred2 » Mon 11 Jul 2005, 05:55:40
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dub_scratch', 'S')ince cars are a huge drain on resources, especially energy, the end of the automobile industries would be the best thing to happen for us after peak oil. Unfortunately, there are vested interest who do not want that to happen.
The vested interests probably include the majority of people in 'developed' countries who aren't exactly likely to agree that we should get rid of cars.
The best that can realistically be hoped for as far as personal transportation is concerned in the 'developed' world, in the likely PO scenario of gradually developing gap between supply and demand, is that people are 'forced' to switch to personal transport that is less resource hungry. And there is a great deal that can be done to effect that. E.g
1. use punitive taxation to greatly discourage the purchase of new energy-inefficient vehicles - SUVs etc - and to encourage purchase of energy efficient vehicles
2. increase tax on petrol, considerably.
3. use funds generated by 1+2 to invest in mass transit systems to reduce car usage where that is feasible. E.g. in the UK there are very large numbers who commute locally, even within towns, only because there is no decent public transport system.
I dont have any doubt that we will see 1+2, and it will have a significant effect. Demand for large, heavy vehicles will plummit. Demand for smaller vehicles, hybrids etc will soar. Car makers will respond to market forces (and, yes, if necessary governments will need to help out with subsidies). Demand for motorbikes will soar. And people WILL reduce on some of their unnecessary travel because of the cost of fuel.
I seem to remember in the report commisioned by the US govt earlier this year thats been widely discussed on this site, that 60% of car use in the US is discretionary.
The reality is that there is huge scope for large reductions in oil consumption without utterly destroying the 'way of life'. True it will be a 'shock' for many people when they wake up to find they're living in a permanent high-energy-cost era and have to make adjustments they would rather not, but it doesnt mean the end of life as we know it. There exist a variety of relatively minor changes to our way of life that will result in large energy savings. Personal transportation being perhaps the most obvious.
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by Peepers » Mon 11 Jul 2005, 08:58:17
To the guy who tried to take Amtrak to Alexandria, Virginia, where were you coming from? And, if you follow the IRS tax deductibility for driving for business trips, the actual cost is 40 cents per mile (which includes most of the costs of driving your car). The AAA contends that the actual costs are even higher, particularly for larger and/or more luxurious vehicles, upwards of 50 cents per mile.
Regarding gas prices, U.S. goverment subsidies and what the real price would be if the marketplace determined it, please read the following, excellent report.....
http://www.icta.org/doc/RPG%20security%20update.pdf
That was a 2005 update of their original, 1998 report, found at.....
http://209.200.74.155/doc/Real%20Price% ... soline.pdf
The ICTA does very good research, including some recent reports on global warming, which can be viewed at their website.
KJP
Regarding gas prices, U.S. goverment subsidies and what the real price would be if the marketplace determined it, please read the following, excellent report.....
http://www.icta.org/doc/RPG%20security%20update.pdf
That was a 2005 update of their original, 1998 report, found at.....
http://209.200.74.155/doc/Real%20Price% ... soline.pdf
The ICTA does very good research, including some recent reports on global warming, which can be viewed at their website.
KJP
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by dub_scratch » Mon 11 Jul 2005, 17:55:41
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('fred2', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dub_scratch', 'S')ince cars are a huge drain on resources, especially energy, the end of the automobile industries would be the best thing to happen for us after peak oil. Unfortunately, there are vested interest who do not want that to happen.
The vested interests probably include the majority of people in 'developed' countries who aren't exactly likely to agree that we should get rid of cars.
Kinda like the Norse of Greenland not giving up grazing red meat and instead eating fish or the Easter Islanders giving up cutting down every last tree to put up those miserable Maoi statues.
The massive welfare program for cars is coming. American government is going to keep doing what it has always done. That is they will keep subsidizing the car to the hilt until the lights go out and we starve to death. Americans can't go without their fucking car crashes, and traffic jams and dog-shit car sprawl.
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