http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7210
Fool Cells - How Detroit Plays Americans For A Bunch Of Suckers Jack Doyle, a Washington-based consultant and writer, is author of Taken For A Ride: Detroit's Big Three & The Politics of Pollution. His articles have appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Newsday, The Washington Post and other publications. On February 6, President Bush presented the details on his new "Freedom Car" proposal. The "freedom" Bush is hawking in his new gift to Detroit comes from hydrogen fuel-cell technology, which could legitimately revolutionize transportation in this country and around the world. Freedom Car also helps Bush's image, since it creates the impression the United States will be "free" from its dependency on foreign oil. Unfortunately, the hydrogen car George Bush first gushed about in his state of the union -- and the $1.2 billion program offered to help create it -- are simply more of Detroit's fantasyland politics, designed to keep Congress from enacting tough fuel economy standards. Every time Congress and the public get close to thinking that real fuel economy is a good idea, Detroit rolls out some whiz-bang autorama to provide the illusion of progress. Bush's proposal to provide for clean cars -- which is laudable on its face -- is but the latest in a long line of Detroit-White House "partnerships" dating to the Nixon-era that only provide diversion and political cover, not actual clean cars. "Bush's proposal... is but the latest in a long line of Detroit-White House "partnerships" dating to the Nixon-era that only provide diversion and political cover." During the annual parade of auto shows in 2002, General Motors, a company which has lost 25 points of market share since the '50s, rolled out a futuristic-looking automotive underbody "skateboard" called Autonomy. Someday -- GM didn't say exactly when -- Autonomy would be crammed full of hydrogen-powered fuel cells and computers, and smog would end. A few days after GM's show, U.S. Energy Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham, and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), were on hand with GM and DaimlerChrysler to announce the death of one federal "supercar" program and the creation of another. Being terminated was a Clinton-era program -- a 10-year joint venture with Detroit known as the "Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles" (PNGV) that was supposed to produce an 80 mpg family car. In its place, the Bush administration substituted a program focused not on fuel-efficiency but on hydrogen fuel-cell technology, "Freedom Car." However, most of these ventures go nowhere, as Clinton's "supercar" program shows. At its September 1993 White House unveiling, Bill Clinton compared the PNGV to the Apollo project that put a man on the moon. GM's CEO at the time, Jack Smith, said the efficiency gains to come from the new venture would amount to "nothing less than a major, even radical, breakthrough." A whole new class of car would follow, he assured his listeners. Sold to Congress as way to make the Big Three competitive with the Japanese, PNGV became the perfect political tool to keep Congress from moving to improve fuel economy, to tout as the industry's global warming fighter, and to help undermine California's electric vehicle program. Meanwhile, as Detroit and Washington became comfortable in their new, 10-year research venture, the Japanese were making real improvements. At the Tokyo Auto Show in October 1997, where the Big Three were pushing a distinctly American lineup of big luxury cars, pick-up trucks, and high-powered muscle cars, Toyota's new car, the Prius, was at center stage. The Prius was unlike any car on the road in America or anywhere else, and the Big Three didn't have one. Known in the business as a "hybrid," the Prius was the first in a distinctly new wave of vehicle: a half-gasoline, half-electric-powered automobile that was far more fuel efficient and far less polluting than any vehicle of its time. Rated at 66 mpg for fuel economy and producing half the carbon dioxide of a conventional car, the Prius offered Toyota a competitive advantage in a warming world. Privately, Big Three executives were stunned by the Prius. Ironically, Toyota's Prius was instigated at least in part by PNGV, which the Japanese -- having redoubled their R&D effort to compete -- mistook for a serious American effort to improve fuel economy. "While we were talking about hybrids," later mused auto industry consultant Victor Wouk, "the Japanese were building one." Nor did PNGV apply to light trucks or SUVs. "While PNGV was going on," observed former Chrysler official Tom Gage in April 1999, "light trucks captured 50 percent of the market, with their fuel economy in the 13- to 17-mpg range...." The fact is, for much of the last 30 years or more, Detroit has not been making the technological innovations in cars or trucks that really matter -- those under the hood, in engines, transmissions, and alternative propulsion. (SUVs, after all, are not an innovation; they required no new technical breakthrough or significant engineering advances.) Instead, Detroit has remained steadfastly tied to the internal combustion engine, ratcheting up its power and acceleration, but not its efficiency. As a consequence, America is paying big time for Detroit's technological negligence. Privately, Big Three executives were stunned by the Prius. Since 1973, oil imports have doubled, rising from six million barrels per day (BPD) to nearly 12 million BPD -- climbing to nearly 60 percent of supply. Cars and trucks alone account for the lion's share of this dependency, about 8 million BPD. Last year the nation paid $106 billion for imported oil -- that works out to about $200,000 leaving the country every minute. Since the '70s, America has sent more than one trillion dollars to oil exporting countries -- money that might have gone to new American businesses and new jobs. Inefficient cars and trucks not only waste energy, they burn up dollars and economic opportunity. CEOs in the Fortune 500 and elsewhere ought to take note of this Detroit-based hemorrhaging of capital, as it is a drag on productivity and also cuts the availability of start-up capital. American consumers also spend about $190 billion annually on gasoline, an amount if cut by even 10 percent through improved fuel economy, could free up a tidy sum of dollars for spending or investing elsewhere. Why should autos and oil tie up so much money? Next come the public health and environmental costs. According to the American Council for Energy Efficient Economy, the 450,000 Explorers sold last year, will generate more than $75 million in annual health costs. Over 10 years, these same 450,000 Explorers will generate "lifetime" health costs exceeding $750 million more than 60 million tons of global warming gasses. The taller, heavier and high center-of-gravity SUVs and pickups have also resulted in an escalation of average vehicle weight on the highways, making for more horrific accidents, raising property damage and personal injury costs and creating line-of-sight hazards for other drivers. Meanwhile, American farmers and construction workers, plunking down their hard-earned dollars for 14 to 16 mpg Ford F-Series pickups, Dodge Rams and Chevy Silverados are being taken for a ride, buying 20-year-old technology while rewarding Detroit for its lack of ingenuity. Rather than being the mythic engine of America's economy and its technical beacon, Detroit instead is turning out product that drags down national economic performance one mile at a time. The historical record, in fact, is full of Big Three technological neglect and foot-dragging -- from turning up its nose at more efficient European front-wheel drive and fuel-injection technologies in the '50s and '60s, to watching the Japanese take market share though the '80s with overhead cams and multivalve engines. Now Detroit lags behind once again as the Japanese have a five-year lead with hybrid cars. What is worrisome, however, is that the Japanese, and now the Koreans, seeing that Congress and successive administrations have done little of consequence on fuel economy, have followed Detroit into SUV/light-truck land. As a result, America, and much of the world, will be in a deep energy and global warming hole for many years to come. Congress would do well not to be fooled by George Bush's hydrogen car pie-in-the-sky rhetoric. Raising national fuel economy standards to the 40- to 50-mpg level for all cars, SUVs, and light trucks ought be the goal -- in five years, not 10 -- especially with hybrid technologies here now. Tough fuel economy standards ought to be the floor from which all new automotive technology builds -- whether hybrid, fuel cell, or conventional vehicle. The only language Detroit understands is the force of law. Anything less will cost the nation dearly in continued capital outflow, lost technological leadership, further pollution and damaged stature abroad. 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