In the research for my previous post comparing cars to computers, I tried to find a good reason for cars becoming so complex. Supposedly, today’s vehicles are so much better than they used to be and that may be true depending on your perspective. Paint colors, less rust, nicer interiors, better sound, etc. etc. - lots of cosmetic stuff seem better to me. You might have guessed that I am not a car fanatic. For me, vehicles are about transportation: 4 wheels and a motor that move people and things from place to place with safety (including pollution control), reliability, and utility. Except for rare cases like antiques or exotics, vehicles are terrible assets to own. I understand that many people love cars for emotional reasons and I support their right to do that but that’s not for me.

Outside of the esoterics of style - why don’t we evaluate the factors that should have been improved from making cars more complex - like fuel economy? Isn’t that what everyone bitches about when gas heads to $3.00 per gallon? For some reason, I don’t hear how “fun” and “cool” cars are when that happens! Just take a look at this chart from the US EPA report entitled Light-Duty Automotive Technology and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 Through 2006 and you’ll see that while improved dramatically from 1975 to 1987, not much good has happened for the past 20 years.

If you really want to dig deeper and find out what we did right from 1975-to-1987 and what we did not do right from 1987-2006, just look at the data in the EPA report that shows the changes in mpg, weight, horsepower, 0-60mph time, % trucks, % 4-wheel drive, and % manual transmission. It’s clear that weight is the biggest contributor to improvements in fuel economy. Advances in aluminum, other lightweight alloys, plastics, and composites have done a lot and sadly, not much has been accomplished with all the computerization of the vehicle. Sure - we can go from 0-60 a few seconds faster than we did in 1987 and the vehicles have more horsepower to push around all the weight that has been added. But I don’t call that much progress for 20 years - do you? In fact, I find it pathetic that automotive manufacturers have done almost nothing to compensate us for cars that are much more expensive to buy, maintain and repair.

This country is full of people who love to complain about big oil making “excessive” profits and supposedly ripping them off - but that is a farce. When gas prices rise, consumer behavior and gasoline demand do not respond. Instead, all we seem to hear are complaints about how bad capitalism is and how we need to tax big oil to change their behavior. So as we head towards $3, $4 or $5 per gallon this summer, let’s look in the mirror at our behavior. Manufacturers are making cars that have done little to improve fuel economy so shame on them. However, shame on the consumer who buys them. Obviously, American consumers prefer big, heavy cars and SUV’s that go real fast with lots of horsepower.

I am confident my opinion is not as easy to accept as blaming big oil, but we need to do better than pointing fingers and whining. We need to change our consumption behavior and our purchasing behavior. Until we do that, automotive manufacturers are unlikely to invest in technology that gives us better fuel economy. It hasn’t happened for the past 30 years despite the lessons from the 70’s oil crisis. I doubt it will happen now.