Oh, What A Feeling!
- Deron Lovaas
- Federal Transportation Policy Director, Washington, D.C.
- Blog | About
- Posted September 27, 2007 in Moving Beyond Oil
Thousands of you have already sent a message to Toyota regarding the company's hypocritical positioning on fuel economy. (If you're new to this thread, go HERE to read more about the disconnect between Toyota's green advertising and their anti-fuel economy lobbying.)
The price of oil has been hovering at or above $80 a barrel for more than a week now.
The economic impacts of high oil prices are obvious.
But, we can't gloss over the national security threat that America's dependence on oil represents.
Earlier this week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to the United States. By most accounts, Ahmadinejad is one of the world's most dangerous heads of state. A loose cannon.
Yet he wields a great deal of power in the global financial markets. Why?
Because Iran has a lot of oil.
Which is yet another reason why we need to do everything that we can to break America's dependence on oil. The fastest, cheapest way we can do that is to make cars go farther on a gallon of gasoline.
And as long as companies like Toyota don't support a strong fuel economy standard, we're going to continue to be stuck in neutral on ending our oil addiction.
(bookmark or email this entry)
Comments are closed for this post.
We close comments on a blog post when it's clear the conversation has moved on -- click on the tags (above) or on our homepage to see if we've got fresh news and views on this post's topic.
Comments
Colin Opseth — Oct 9 2007 12:03 PM
Why are you spending so much time worrying about what an import manufacturer is doing? Toyota's Prius is far from ecologically friendly. Do you consider it ecologically friendly because it gets 55 miles per gallon, a figure that is much lower now due to the way fuel mileage is calculated? Have you discounted the ecological disaster of the NiCad batteries? Why don't you consider GM's new Li-Ion batteries which are no more dangerous to the environment than lithium prescribed to a patient for bi-polar disorder?
You should be working with the domestic automakers to foster innovation. Lobby Congress to subsidize or incentivize GM's dual-mode hybrid systems. Find ways to increase GM's profitability in regards to the Chevrolet Volt, a TRUE hybrid. The Chevrolet Volt is the ONLY hybrid designed from the ground up to be electrically-powered with a motor used as a range extender.
Quit falling all over your self to blather about Toyota's innovation in green technology. If you do so you're just buying into their marketing machine. You 'are' smarter than that, right?
Deron Lovaas — Oct 9 2007 02:21 PM
Thanks for your comment.
First of all, on environmental performance grounds the Prius actually compares very favorably to a conventional vehicle. And this gap will increase as Toyota shifts from NiCad batteries to Li-Ion; GM isn't the only automaker looking at that technology.
And that last sentence points to a huge difference between Toyota and GM, and therefore a reason we're focussing on former as well as the latter (and to be clear, we are not ignoring GM): Priuses have been selling like hotcakes; Toyota is by far the industry leader in hybrid sales. Toyota took technology from the drawing board to the marketplace while GM is only now "looking at" that important move with the Volt design. Toyota is the leader, and they should lead the way on better policy too.
I look forward to competition from the Volt, but I wonder when it will actually hit showrooms. I hope it isn't merely what one reporter termed "vaporware."