Spinopsys

I hear you Phil:)
I’d like to know at what point in our history petrol became a “need” instead of a “want”. It seems to me that people are acting as though petrol is as essential to their existence as food, shelter (and the other of Maslow’s heirarchy of needs).

Hi there,

Thanks for commenting on my article. I did mention that we are one of the countries paying the lowest Fuel Excise tax! I am also well aware that the money goes to good use.
I wouldn’t want my/your general tax to rise for ‘lost revenue’ but I would like the government to stop Taxing a Tax! They first give you the 38cent fuel excise, then they tax GST on that too!

Thanks for commenting here Alborz, glad you don’t take it personally. I am now an eager reader of your blog.

However, the tax on tax furphy is an irrevelancy, the main game is conservation of a finite resource, oil, and the attendant issue of how car culture affects cities and environments.

It would be interesting to see you address that issue in a future post.

I am all for hybrid cars and different ways of getting around. But it is hard to imagine an alternative fuel resource that will fuel the performance cars of the future. Sure Toyota has made a fully electrically powered car that is one of the fastest cars in the world, and Lexus is releasing a V8 hybrid very soon which uses around 6L/100km, but these technologies are expensive and they are built deliberately to still use Fuel as a resource. Just look at the Toyota Prius, it is built so that you can’t simply plug it in at night to charge up for the morning. It HAS to charge up using petrol! Not good! Many people have added their own modifications for this functionality, so it shows that it can be done

There has been so many good ideas and innovations in the last 5 years for alternative fuel, but all have been put aside or bought out by car/oil companies to keep the car industry addicted to fossil fuel. I can’t see this problem going away till we literally run out of fuel.

I think there is a bit of denial going on with many consumers Alborz, and this tendency to blame the energy/automotive industries for our personal failing to make wise choices is unhelpful and a conspiracy theorists delight.

It pushes me to ask why you have a blog extolling the virtues/products of an industry that you paint in a monopolistic and sociopathic light.

Different questions have to be asked, what defines performance? I think it’s energy efficiency, not grunt.

Where is the proof that the energy industry kills innovations when in so many other dominant industries we’ve see so much advancement occur despite similar monopolistic or cartel like behaviour by a few big (Microsoft) players?

The way I see it is that the problem is a regularatory one, if Govt’s insist on demanding performance standards, industry will respond. It’s occured in the past. In the past there was no incentive, now with Peak all but here, and climate change our most pressing problem there is one. However we always miss the most simple approach…..conservation. High prices have shown to produce this result, so the evidence from that proves that high prices are good for the conservation of a finite resource and also reduces the effects of climate change.

I won’t get into the technical issues re the Prius but suffice to say, all electric tech is a difficult proposition at the best of times especially where building a car with the requisite grunt consumers demand is concerned. The vehicle has always been defined as a hybrid of technologies, and at this moment there is no machine out there as efficient as the ICE. So on that basis the Prius makes complete sense.

As always, the problem is us, not “them”.

I have this blog because, one I am a car nut and two because there is not one single commercial free website in Australia giving a personal opinion about cars. All the car reviews you read in the papers / magazines and such, all the publications are owned by major publishing firms and they usually have vested interests.

My point with performance wasn’t energy efficiency, but grunt. I am not much of an environmentalist, but I am not much of a capitalist either. I, like lots of people like me, see cars as the only solution in getting around, and until “they” provide us with a valid solution that will save on fossil fuel and decrease pollution, “we” have no choice!

The problem with “high prices” for fuel will surely lead people to use more public transport or personal transport (e.g. bicycle) but most people would simply just cough up the extra and pay for it. Not to mention that as petrol costs increase, the price of everything else will increase as well.

I think you are looking at the problem from a different perspective. High Prices wont do good for society. Conservation is a hard lesson to learn, and one that no one wants to learn anytime soon. You shouldn’t expect people to put nature or the environment above their personal needs. Since it will never happen. People want a V8, 4WDs, Turbo charged car that will dump its fumes into the air from the turbo not because they want to pollute, but because they love those sorts of cars, and that love for driving over powers the morals of saving the planet.

And yet petrol prices are effecting car sales,
“Fewer 4WDs were sold in NSW last month than in any month for three years, while car sales continued a slide that began early last year.” (Sydney Morning Herald, May 23, 2006).
People are not going to “cough up the extra and pay for it” as you so eloquently put it. They will look for alternative modes of transport, whether it be public transport or private, and in New South Wales they are already doign just that.

Thats with 4WDs/V6 family cars.. That is IT! This year, the car industry is most probably going to reach 1,000,000 cars sold. They have already sold more cars this year then they have ever sold in the previous years (up to this time of the year). Car sales in total, NEVER decrease, look at the last 20 years, it has ALWAYS gone up, never down. People simply buy smaller cars perhaps. But look at the enormous success of the Ford Falcon XR6 Turbo cars, even in this high Fuel cost world, these cars are selling well… why? Because people love them!

Yep, small car sales have increased, yet as Pedaller notes, 4WD sales have decreased this suggests that priced do modify behaviour.

You’re right Alborz people do love their cars, and that’s where folks like myself get frustrated because there are alternatives available right now, and we see a personal and policy failure to make and outline these choices.

I think you are looking at the problem from a different perspective. High Prices wont do good for society. Conservation is a hard lesson to learn, and one that no one wants to learn anytime soon. You shouldn’t expect people to put nature or the environment above their personal needs. Since it will never happen. People want a V8, 4WDs, Turbo charged car that will dump its fumes into the air from the turbo not because they want to pollute, but because they love those sorts of cars, and that love for driving over powers the morals of saving the planet.

But this quote is a fine summary of the problem, I for one could not imagine a more amoral position to take on this issue.

At what point are motorists going to accept their responsibility and culpability on this?

This earlier post comments on the phenomenon.

http://www.spinopsys.com/archives/411