Machines with Motors

Free puppies

There are no free puppies. And gasoline at a buck a gallon wasn't a very good deal either.

With gasoline hovering around three dollars a gallon and crude oil near $75 a barrel, the moaners are blaming the Bush administration for their own bad planning. Ignoring for a moment that gasoline is cheaper in the US than in any country whose economy isn't based on importing petrodollars, no US citizen has any reason to complain. Since the oil shortages of the 1970s, automobiles capable of 50 mpg have been available from GM, Ford, Honda, Toyota and others -- cheap too because few people bought them. And people have had over 30 years to arrange their lives around short commutes to work, schools, shopping and entertainment. Combining 35 mpg and 100 miles per week works out to annual gasoline consumption of about 150 gallons. At three bucks a gallon, that's roughly $8.60 a a week. A whopping $450 per year -- up $300 from the time when gas was a buck a gallon. What's your Starbucks tab this month?

Anyone crying about spending $30, $60 or $100 a week on gas is a victim of their own bad planning. Its time to feed the puppy, give him his pill and take him for a walk.

Juxtaposition

I opened the New York Times online and found the headline Switch to Ethanol Based Fuel Causing Outages. And just below is a GM livegreen, goyellow "we love ethanol" ad. Oops.

Pedigree

Can a car still have a pedigree? Ferrari may be owned by Fiat but they're still made in Maranello, the good ones are all red and they make beautiful noises. But according to the New York Times, Saabs are no longer "Made by Trolls in Trollhatten" nor by Swedes in Sweden.

"Now, the trolls in Trollhattan also make Cadillacs — the BLS model sold in Europe — and Saab puts its own badges on a Subaru Impreza from Indiana (the 9-2X) and a reworked Chevy TrailBlazer from Ohio (the 9-7X)."

So what's a Saab? Just a name for another set of dealers that sell GM cars? The General wants us to believe they're all descended from jet fighters but does that include the Chevy Saab and the Subaru Saab? Is the Saab Cadillac just two wings short of supersonic?

Across town, no one is going to confuse a Jaguar, Volvo or Rover with a blue oval badged beauty from the Ford store. Each division has a pedigree and a personality. Something missing from GM.

Global something

On Thursday, April 20, 2006 at 20:00, BBC Radio 4 is presenting a 30 minute program titled Overselling Climate Change.

"Simon Cox reports on how scientists are becoming worried by the quality of research used to back up the most extreme climate predictions."

Time listed is five hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Savings Time in the US. You can listen to the program using the link above. BBC broadcasts are frequently available on the internet for some time after original broadcast.

Thanks to ClimateAudit for the information.

Caveat emptor

Today's Wall Street Journal has a slightly superficial piece on the future of automobiles titled One Billion Cars.

"One billion. By 2020 or sooner, that's how many cars and light trucks there will be on the road around the world. That's one for every 6 1/2 people on the planet -- and over 25% more vehicles than we have today."

The numbers are interesting, big and provide some valuable perspective to those concerned about how we're all (and all is a lot of people) going to get around in the decades to come. But hidden in small type under the graphs is the disclaimer:

"Note: Among key assumptions underlying these projections are that present trends continue, that no new policies be implemented, that consumer behaviors do not change significantly, and that alternative fuels and radical technological innovation do not significantly penetrate the market. Limits in oil availability are also not considered in the projections."

Imagine what an equivalent projection about horse and steam locomotive utilization would have been in 1850. Before the internal combustion engine, the automobile, the airplane and petroleum. We'd be mired in manure.