And In This Corner...
Recently I did a rant about the American automobile business which gives me the right to take a look at the other side. I get very tired of hearing someone get all carried away about automobile manufacturers and saying, "I've had it with the car manufacturers in Detroit, why can't they get their act together and build a car that will get fifty miles to the gallon? I mean if we can put a man on the moon why can't those stupid engineers build a fifty mile to a gallon car?"
My immediate reaction is to say, "They don't do it just to piss you off." Not a great answer but it makes me feel good.
What I really want to say is, "If you're so convinced that NASA can get you fifty miles to a gallon I will talk to some of my friends at the Cape and arrange for you and your car to be launched into space strapped to the outside of the next shuttle, I guarantee that you will get more than fifty miles to a gallon before you ever achieve orbit. The answer to your question is capitalism! It may come as a shock to you to find out that the purpose of automobile manufacturers is to make money by selling automobiles. If any of the manufacturers had the secret to a fifty mile per gallon automobile it would have been rolling off the production lines years ago. They would have put the competition out of business in a heartbeat. The mandate of the American consumer is for manufacturers to produce an automobile that delivers four hundred horsepower, goes two hundred miles an hour, holds two adults, four kids, two weeks worth of groceries, gets fifty miles to the gallon, and cost less than five thousand dollars. That's no hill for a climber, is it?"
The current answer from Washington is for our esteemed representatives to call the auto manufacturers up to the Hill and give them hell for flying in on personal jets and then pass a bill mandating that they immediately produce the "Wondercar". After our esteemed representatives finish standing around congratulating themselves on another successful sound bite they all step into their chauffeur driven limousines and start their re-election campaigns. But then we did elect them, didn't we?
The end result of the idiotic questions asking why and the posturing of our politicians while they pass laws mandating results is that we still don't have the fifty mile to a gallon automobile. Oh, there's an outfit that is building a little two seater that has a fabulous 0 to 60 figure, and will go a couple of hundred miles before recharging but it sells for somewhere around $150,000. And there are two or three little electric boxes running around that will top out at around forty miles an hour and cover a hundred miles before recharging. I see no long lines of potential buyers lurking around their garages waving hundred dollar bills in the air.
Why are there no fifty mile to the gallon cars? I can think of a couple of reasons, the laws of physics have something to do with it, something about mass and energy. Very complicated. And then there's stuff like hanging safety equipment all over the car, impact bumpers and stuff. Of course, there is always the possibility of hydrogen powered cars. We just have to find a way to produce hydrogen cheaper than gasoline. Yes, I know that H20 is water and the H is hydrogen and all we have to do is separate the hydrogen from oxygen and we scoop up the hydrogen and dump it in the tank. So simple, why didn't I think of that? Of course there is always the big spring in the backseat and all we have to do is wind it up and release it. Great idea and you're capable of achieving Mach Two in twenty five yards, but that's just a small mechanical problem.
But the fifty mile per gallon car is possible; after all we did put a man on the moon.