Trump and Smog

At one time, the Los Angeles, California, area was plagued with smog (the word was formed by combining smoke and fog). It made visibility very poor at times. Worse, it caused breathing and respiratory problems for people who lived there and breathed the smoggy air.

Once science figured out that smog was caused by the interaction of various chemicals in automobile exhaust with sunlight, the remedy was to impose governmental regulations on the types and amounts of substances that cars would be allowed to pour into the air. The result? Los Angeles' air has been cleaned up in a dramatic way.

We have national regulations on so-called tailpipe emissions from cars, and California has its own, stricter emission laws. But now Donald Trump wants to take away California's right to impose tighter restrictions on tailpipe emissions than the national standards. California needs these tighter controls because the unique topography (and plentiful sunshine) of the Los Angeles area was causing smog to not only form there but settle and remain.

It seems that any liberal, progressive policy--all right, regulation--that benefits 99% of the populace at the expense of the remaining 1% (which is going to be big business and/or the very wealthy individuals) simply rankles with Trump, and he can't wait for his chance to get rid of it by executive order.

Is Less Government Better?

When Ronald Reagan was running for President of the United States, in 1980, he argued that government was too big—and even was evil. (Logically, one might have wondered why he wanted to be the head of something which he believed was bad. Presumably to cut it and gut it, and he did, cutting and rendering ineffective many government regulatory agencies.)

Someone said that "Reagan won that debate." Maybe he did insofar as many people today believe that less government is better. Economic conservatives and libertarians believe that the economy would be better, and everything would be rosy, "if we could get  government off our backs." Something—presumably the workings of the marketplace—would ensure that businesses did not screw their customers, the public, and their employees.

I have said much of this before but I want to remind us of some of the things government does for us.

Government builds and repairs roads. It puts up stop lights, stop signs, and road signs.

It provides us with police and fire protection.

It ensures the safety of our food and our medications. Someone said that public health is the big success of government. Government finds the causes and sources of food-borne illnesses. It ensures that there is vaccine to protect us against flu and epidemic diseases. These are only a few of thousands of possible examples.

But I really want to look at one story, auto safety, because I was recently reminded of this by an article I read.

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader published a book called Unsafe at Any Speed. As a result of the changes in US cars to make them safer that were the ultimate result of Nader's crusading efforts and his book, US deaths from auto crashes dropped by 32%.

You just have to contrast the situation in the US with that of Brazil. In Brazil, safety standards for cars are very lax or nonexistent. The Brazilian government is just getting around to requiring air bags and anti-lock brakes in cars made and sold in Brazil. Worse, there are no government crash standards for cars in Brazil. If and when cars are crash-tested, the testing is neither carried out nor validated by the government.

Therefore, cars made in Brazil (by Volkswagen, Fiat, GM, and Ford) are often made without many of the spot welds to the body structure that the very same models would have if built in Europe. As someone put it, where the welds should be, "there's just a gap." With Brazilian car manufacture virtually unregulated, cars in that country are not safe and the rate of serious injuries and deaths in car accidents is much higher than in the US.

The US auto industry did not improve auto safety out of concern for the public's safety, and they did not improve auto safety until they were forced to—by the government and ultimately because of the activism of Ralph Nader. That has not happened yet in Brazil and will not happen until the Brazilian government enforces crash-safety rules similar to those of the US.

The case of the respective US and Brazilian auto industries speaks for itself, but I feel compelled to add: So much for government keeping hands off, just letting business alone and trusting that they will do the right thing.

Update July 8, 2013
The recent collapse of a clothing factory in Bangladesh is another example of what can happen in an environment of lax or even totally lacking government regulation and oversight. I believe about 100 workers were killed. Bangladesh has poor, if any, oversight of building construction and nothing like our OSHA which exists to ensure the safety of workers.

Update August 18, 2013
I learned something interesting not long ago. Maybe Ronald Reagan does not get all the credit (or blame, depending on your politics) for the "government is evil" idea. It seems that in the 1960s, when Governor George Wallace of Alabama was trying to preserve segregation and keep black students from entering schools in his state, he faced the prospect of federal intervention and began to rail about the goverment in Washington being too powerful and evil-ly trying to dictate to the sovereign state of Alabama and tell them what to do and make them change their long-cherished ways. That should make people look at motivations of those who complain about "interference" from the federal government.

Copyright © 2013

More, or Fewer, Choices of Cars in the US?

When I was younger—and up until, I think, the late 1960s—there were no Japanese cars being sold in America (and no Korean cars, either; they came into the US even later).

On the other hand, there were many car makes that have since disappeared, both American and imported.

Besides recently-disappeared US car makes—nameplates from the "Big Three" such as Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Plymouth, and Mercury--there were many others. In the 1950s the Studebaker and Packard car brands sadly disappeared. At around the same time, Nash and Hudson merged to form American Motors, and their cars were around for a few years before disappearing also. Chrysler Corp. had DeSoto, and Ford Motor Company brought out the Edsel, to much fanfare. (It flopped, and has become a business-school textbook case of failed marketing.) And for a few years around 1950 there were cars made by Kaiser Motors, and also Willys (originally the maker of the Jeep).

(On a side note, at one time nearly all the taxicabs in America were purpose-built vehicles, Checker taxis made by Checker Motors. They had enormous room in the back seat. Checker has been gone for quite a while now.

Of course anybody who is a car buff knows that in what we might consider the "early days" of cars in the US, there were many makes that ceased production long ago.)

On the other hand, in the 1950s very many foreign-made cars were being brought into the US. There were the English sports cars, which were quite popular: MG, Triumph, Austin-Healy, and Jaguar. Of these, only Jaguar is still available in the US.

There were many other English makes being sold in the US at that time: Austin, Morris, Vauxhall, English Ford, Hillman, Sunbeam, Humber, Rover, and Mini (originally the Morris Mini Minor); and a few rather rare ones such as Daimler, Armstrong-Siddeley, Alvis, AC-Bristol, Jensen-Healy. Many of those were very nice cars. (Besides Jaguar, and Mini, there are three other British makes being sold in the US: Lotus, Rolls-Royce, and Bentley. Rolls, Bentley, Mini, and Jaguar are no longer British-owned but the manufacturing of their cars is still, I believe, done in England.)

And we had French cars: Renault, Peugeot, Citroën, Dyna-Panhard, Facel-Vega (a luxury car with a big Chrysler engine).

There were many German cars not seen in a long time: Goggomobil, Opel, Messerschmidt (a mini-car designed by the famous maker of World War II planes), NSU, Taunus (German Ford), Borgward, Wartburg, Goliath, Lloyd. Many of those makes ceased production. We've got five German makes still being sold here: Mercedes-Benz, BMW, VW, Porsche, and Audi (made by the company that sold cars here in the 1950s under the names Auto Union and DKW).

And Italian cars: Fiat (just recently returned to the US market; they made tiny cars, somewhat larger sedans, and a series of nice sports cars), Maserati—also recently returned to the US--Lancia, Alfa-Romeo. Ferrari and Lamborghini are still sold here. There were other, very nice and rare Italian makes such as Iso. I actually once drove a car called Moretti, which no one ever heard of.

We even had available here a Czech-made car, Skoda. Evidently with the fall of Communism the state-owned factory was privatized and sold to Volkswagen, and Skoda now is quite a popular car in Europe.

So many of these makes disappeared because they achieved a poor reputation for reliability. In some cases their tiny, high-revving engines simply wore out quickly, or they were not suited to American driving conditions (and perhaps not least, they required more routine maintenance than Americans typically give their cars).

The first Japanese cars in America were Datsun (later known here as Nissan) and Toyota. According to my recollection they came in at or near the end of the 1960s. Honda came in in the 70s, first with the Civic, which was at that time a very tiny car. In the 1970s we saw the first Honda Accord, which was a two-door car at first.

To some extent the appearance of Japanese and Korean models has offset the loss of a number of American makes; but the disappearance of so many European cars from the US market has surely resulted in a net loss of choice to American car buyers.

Bibliographical note: To refresh my memory about some of the long-gone foreign nameplates I have relied on a book called Cars of the World, in Color, by J.D. Scheel, publ. 1963.

Updated April 18 and April 19, 2013.

Copyright © 2013 by Richard Stein

Too Many Choices?

Once upon a time--yeah, the "good old days" that we old people are always remembering--a car had two names. Ford Fairlane. Buick Roadmaster. Plymouth Belvidere.

Now they have maybe four: Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo 4x4, Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara.

Of course it's not only Jeep, and it's not only automobiles. Everything now comes in multiple colors, flavors, scents, etc. While it may seem like a good thing to offer more choices to the consumer, I sympathize with the retailer--for example the supermarket--who has to find the shelf space for five versions of Golgate Total toothpaste of six or seven versions of Tide laundry detergent or Cheerios cereal.

I wonder about the motives of the manufacturers. It has to cost them more to do this. Maybe they have multiple production lines running in parallel. If not, they have to stop the line and make some adjustments to start producing a different product. They must feel that if they offer more varieties of a product, that may attract more customers and give them an advantage over their competitors.

And I haven't even mentioned what all this does for people who have a problem making decisions and choices!

Copyright (c) 2013 by Richard Stein

Used (and New) Car Buying 102

If you are buying a used car, you should first read my June 4, 2012 posting, Used-Car Buying 101. The information here applies to buying either a new or used car—specifically the negotiation part--and has been said elsewhere.

First, do not allow a car salesman to begin the dialog by asking, "How much are you prepared to pay per month?" If you answer that, you will not get a good deal, and you very likely will end up paying more than the figure you named.

Second, have an idea of what your credit score is. Then go to a credit union and see what interest rate you'd be able to get from them. Go into the car dealer armed with that offer of a finance rate and see whether the dealer is able to beat it. He has his sources of financing, and a car buyer with an excellent credit score is in a good position to bargain for the finance rate.

But that is the last step. First you and the dealer (or salesman) must agree on the price. Remember that they do this all the time, and in fact for a living, and they have a bag of tricks up their sleeve. Be armed with figures for what you should be paying for the car, and be prepared to spend several hours with back-and-forth offers and counter-offers. The salesman will keep disappearing after you name a figure, telling you he has to get approval from his sales manager. This may be more tactic than fact. But stick to your guns as to what you think you should pay, and be prepared to walk out if they're not willing to bargain. Anyone who lives in an urban area with multiple dealers for that make can threaten to go elsewhere. Also—did you know you can even do some of your car shopping by phone? You can call around and ask for quotes—though some dealers will refuse to name any numbers over the phone.

You can also solicit price offers on a car via the Internet. I think the site in question is carbuyer.com.

Copyright © 2013 by Richard Stein

Why You May Not Need an SUV

Many people are switching to more economical vehicles, giving up their SUV for a car, or perhaps a large car for a smaller car.

Besides high gasoline prices prompting some buyers to think about the fuel economy of the vehicle they're going to buy, two things are going on here.

First, people who feel they need a four-wheel drive vehicle--probably for driving in snow and ice more than through mud or other off-the-road conditions, since studies have shown that few SUV buyers actually ever take their vehicles off-road--realize that they have options other than an SUV, such as four-wheel drive car models from Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volvo, BMW, VW, Porsche, Acura, Infiniti, Lexus, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Toyota, Honda, Ford, Cadillac, Lincoln, and Subaru (these are not all expensive makes/models!).

Second, small cars have become more appealing. At one time small cars were cheap and were perceived as cheap. Now, small cars can be had with nice appointments like comfortable seats and attractive styling in and out, and as great a choice of options as more expensive makes and models. And, after many unfortunate attempts by the American car manufacturers to produce small cars—"unfortunate" for a variety of reasons, including not taking small cars seriously or the mistaken idea that they could take a larger car and just shrink it--small cars from American manufacturers have gotten much better, and are now decent or even quite good in many of the real "car" qualities like ride, performance, and handling (steering, braking, cornering).

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Used-Car Buying 101

A friend needs a new(er) car and I've been trying to persuade him that buying a used car is much better for his financial health. In fact, Money magazine recently said that, if you're over 50 years old, you should buy a used car every five years (and I'm not sure what age car they're recommending but I think it's also five years). And financial advice in other places as well has cautioned against sinking a lot of money into a depreciating asset--a new car.

Also, if you want to have a nice car but don't have the price of admission, consider buying used. Maybe you can have a used Audi for the cost of a Ford Focus. A lot of people have known of this strategy for a long time.

My father always used to say that if you buy a used car, you're buying someone else's troubles. And the friend I mentioned is very apprehensive about buying used.

The fact is, cars these days are more reliable, and last longer, than they used to. A couple of the Japanese makes such as Honda and Toyota are legendary for their reliability and will last much longer than 100,000 miles—and can even still be virtually trouble-free at that mileage. So you can buy a used car without much anxiety, at least if you choose the make and model wisely. (There are some turkeys and even lemons out there!)

I myself have not bought a new car since 1989. My last three cars—a Toyota, an Acura, and another Toyota—were bought used, with low mileage and in very nice shape, and have been very reliable.

I'd say I have a definite (used)-car buying strategy, and I feel it's been successful in that the cars I've bought have been virtually trouble-free. With three cars, in 14 years and I don't know how many miles, I've had--except for expenses like replacing tires and batteries, which might be considered more maintenance than repairs--only one major repair I can think of, and that was for a water pump.

First, before deciding which make/model you're interested in, check Consumer Reports. They have an annual report on used cars with reliability ratings, by model. Remember, it's the model that's important, not the make. And go by Consumer Reports rather than what your brother-in-law or your neighbor says about his experience with the make (or model): The experience of many owners, collectively, as in the Consumer Reports ratings, is better than what just one person says.

Moreover, I try to follow a number of do's and don'ts when buying a car. I shared all of this advice with my friend and felt I should also share it with my readers.

It's in Q & A format:

Q: Where did you buy it? Dealer?

A: I'll only buy a car from a new car dealer--on the presumption that they have some concern for their reputation--and even then, only a dealer that I've checked out with the Better Business Bureau beforehand. Before I settled on the present car (Toyota Solara) I in fact found an Acura similar to the car I'd had previously, and at a dealer fairly close by--but they had a bad rating with the BBB so I wouldn't even consider dealing with them.

New car dealers offer for sale cars they took in as trade-ins or which they leased. Cars they take in but which are not top-notch they may sell via auto auctions. But used-car dealers always acquire their cars at auction, and even they may not be certain of what they're getting.

Q: Did it have a guarantee of any kind?

A: With the Acura I had, since it was a certified car, I got the balance of the original warranty plus 1 year. A very good deal, I feel.

With the (present) Toyota I paid about $400 extra for the car being "certified"--which was probably stupid of me since the work of "certifying" the car had already been done--whether I paid for it or not after the fact.

Other than buying a certified car, or paying for a (not worth it!) aftermarket warranty, you don't get a warranty with used cars anymore. However, getting a certified car is a very good idea. You pay, I figure, about $1000 more.

When buying from one of those used-car supermarkets, like CarMax, you also pay about $1000 more than you might at some other places. But their cars have been checked over, so presumably that is roughly as good as buying a certified car (I have no personal experience with them).

Q: What percentage of the car's original price did you pay?

A: The used cars I've bought were typically around 3 – 4 years old when I bought them, and a car that age—depending on make—might retain 50% or more of its original value. Of course used-car prices depend heavily on the mileage, and I paid a bit more for low-mileage cars. I'm not interested in buying a car with 100,000 or even 60,000 miles on its odometer. I'm looking for maybe 40,000 or so miles on a three-year old car--which would be a bit less than average annual mileage. (Average is supposed to be 15,000.)

When I bought one car, the dealer had quite a few examples of the model to choose from, probably all having recently come off lease. Start out your shopping on the Internet and you'll see what dealer has what, and what the range of prices is. I use autotrader.com, but there are other, similar sites. You can start your in-person shopping with the car that looks like the best deal for the price (best ratio of mileage to price)--after, of course, you've checked out the dealer with the Better Business Bureau.

Q: Did you have it checked by a mechanic before you bought it?

A: No. Though everyone says it's a good idea to do so. Whether you do or don't do this, always insist that the dealer show you the Carfax report on the particular vehicle. That can rule out many of the cars you were initially considering if you reject a car for anything on the report that's not ideal (e.g., too many owners, having been in an accident, a suspicious drop in the odometer reading which could mean that the dealer rolled back the odometer).

For readers in countries outside the US: I apologize for my US units (miles). To convert, 1 km is about 0.6 mile. Also, some businesses like CarMax and Carfax may not be present outside the US and Canada.

Update, June 17, 2012.
For a guide to what prices on a used car ought to be, you can look at Edmunds.com or Kelly Blue Book (link: http://www.kbb.com/used-cars/). However, if you are looking at the listings of what's for sale in your area on cars.com, that site has the helpful feature of displaying the highest, lowest, and average asking prices of the cars of the make/model you have displayed. And you know these are at least actual asking prices for your area.
Update, January 19, 2013
I failed to mention one possibility for the used-car shopper: the car sales units of the major car-rental companies.
First, I'd say that if you want to buy one of these cars (and the rental companies sell off their cars when they're still pretty new), be aware that they are likely to have a rather basic trim level; that is, the smaller or smallest of available engine options, and only basic levels of interior appointments and options.
Second, in my (limited) experience of shopping at these places, my feeling was that you don't get that good a deal.
Third, my uncle always used to say that it's hard on a car to have a lot of drivers. I don't know if that's true. But, while the rental companies probably maintained the car pretty religiously, on the other hand you don't know how hard some of the renters might have driven it.

Update, January 20, 2013
For more car-buying tips--which apply to buying both a new or a used car--see my January 20, 2013 posting, "Used (and New) Car Buying 102."
And I'd like to elaborate on the reasons for my suggestion to check the dealer's ratings with the Better Business Bureau before going there in person. First, if they have a bad rating, my feeling is that you might have a greater chance of being sold a car that is not a good one--a lemon. Even more likely is that if you do have any problem, you'll have less chance of getting a resolution to the problem that is to your satisfaction. But they all have their means--subtle or not--of trying to get the better of you; so, with car shopping as nowhere else, you just can't be too alert and on the lookout for whatever a fast-talking salesman might try to put over on you.
Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Should You "Buy American"?

The television network ABC has been carrying on a year-long "Made in America" campaign, to point out to its viewers what products are made in America, with the idea that, if consumers are aware of what brand names are of American manufacture, they will (hopefully) prefer to buy those products.

In Seattle, a local organization tried to get a buy-American advertising campaign onto the sides of public buses; but the Seattle transit authority declined the ads, saying that they were espousing a politically and economically controversial position.

There was considerable outcry over this, and the transit authority reversed its position. In this instance I think I agree with the "buy American" organization and not the transit authority: I don't see anything particularly controversial about the advertising or its aims.

Nowadays, practically everything one buys in the US seems to be made in China; and to some degree—probably a considerable degree—that represents manufacturing jobs lost to American workers. And we currently have a rate of unemployment in the US that is unacceptably high.

Entire industries in the US have been pretty much destroyed—for example clothing manufacturing (as of quite a while ago) and more recently, shoe manufacturing.

Who is to blame? I want to look at several parties and maybe assign some blame to each.

First, China does not play fair. They keep the exchange rate for their currency relative to the dollar very low. Thus Chinese-made merchandise can be sold ridiculously cheaply—even after the wholesalers and retailers involved add on shipping and import duties to the items' cost. (It might surprise you that the shipping and duty really don't come to that much.) So American producers simply can't compete.

Second, look at merchandisers like Walmart. It's in the nature of capitalism that a retailer which can sell something more cheaply than its competitors has a competitive advantage. Chances are, the customer does not look to see where the item was made (which of course is what the campaigns are all about) but simply goes with the low price. And the cheaper item these days, is usually Chinese made.

So now, third, the consumer: A lot of consumers not only like to save money, they need to save money. This is the situation of some families, particularly lower income families with several children: if they can get their purchases more cheaply, that may mean that they can buy shoes or winter jackets for all of their children, instead of for only one or two. Even if they don't pay attention to where those items are made, and maybe don't care, I think they deserve some sympathy.

I think yet another party should get some of the blame. I'm pretty sure that a $60 or more Tommy Hilfiger or Polo Ralph Lauren shirt, which is made in a third-world country, does not have to be made in that third-world country to be profitable for Hilfiger or Polo--or for the retailer. When the item is on sale and its price is reduced to half, I promise you the store is still making a profit.

Now one exception to all this is cars. I had a neighbor who, when I was extolling the reliability of the Honda I owned at the time, said, "I think that if you're American, you should buy an American car." Well, nowadays, in this age of the global economy, it's not so simple. Did you realize that the price stickers on cars in the showroom are required to show the percentage of "domestic [parts] content"? I saw a Ford Taurus where the domestic content was only 65%. It's not too uncommon for an "American" car to have its major parts, like transmissions, made in Canada or Mexico or an Asian country.

And look at the cars with Japanese brands which are assembled in US plants. Assembly in the US means US workers have employment when you buy that vehicle. And the domestic content might actually be higher than that Ford Taurus: a lot of parts like windshields, headlights, batteries, tires, and power-window controllers probably come from domestic suppliers, and major components may be made at the assembly plant.

The same ABC network did a little study in which they tried to determine which car purchases would produce the most jobs for American workers; and they found that buying a Toyota Camry would actually produce more jobs than a certain car with an "American" nameplate.

So, if you want to "buy American" when you are car shopping, don't pay the main attention to the name: you can look at where the vehicle was assembled—that's on the sticker, too—or, more importantly, look at that "domestic content" number.

Update, July 4, 2012.
Here is an article on this subject from AOL Autos:
http://autos.aol.com/gallery/the-most-american-cars/?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl7|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D175630

Update, June 8, 2013
An interesting little sidebar in the July, 2013 issue of Car and Driver:

Globalization means that even domestic automakers are importers, bringing Buicks from South Korea, Fords from Turkey, and all manner of Chrysler models from both north and south of the border. In fact, only one volume brand is solely American-made: Jeep. All Jeep vehicles are assembled in either Detroit; Toledo, Ohio; or Belvidere, Illinois.

Two comments on this: First, it is to be hoped that this news about Jeep does not impel lots of people to go buy Jeeps because recent news has it that Jeep has a serious design defect which makes the gas tank likely to explode in rear-end collisions, and the NHTSB has been pressuring Chrysler to recall Jeeps to fix the problem
Second, as I have often said, the people who are trying to "buy American" and go buy Fords, Chevrolets, and Buicks are misguided.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

American Engineering (May Still Be) Number One

Regular readers of this blog know that I have pointed out the many respects in which America is not, or is no longer, Number 1 in the world.

The world's tallest building does not have a nice American-sounding name like Sears Tower or Empire State Building. It's the Burj Khalifa, and if that does not sound very American, it's because it's not. The building is in the Middle East.

It's been a while since the tallest building was in America, although three of the 10 tallest are in the US and, in fact, are all here in Chicago.

However, the Burj Khalifa was designed by the American architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Consider that the design of very tall buildings is as much, or more, a matter of engineering than architecture; and America quite possibly still has the best engineers in the world.

Even during the period when American cars seemed to be sadly suffering in the quality area, I had no doubt that General Motors (or, to those partisan to other US car manufacturers, insert that name here if you like) employed some of the best engineers in the world. On the other hand, it must be admitted that many of the engineering features found very widely in modern cars were not American inventions or developments: things like the Macpherson suspension (now pretty much universal and invented by a Scotsman), fuel injection, disc brakes, and overhead camshaft engines.

I think one reason why these were mostly developed in Europe is one simple word: racing. Most of those engineering features in the list above were developed by car makers who had a racing program, and they first appeared in race cars. By contrast, with the exception of Ford, which has raced on and off, American car makers have not built cars for racing in modern times.

There is no doubt (at least in this mind) that many countries such as China and India have given the world many great scientists and musicians, not to mention the European countries which led the world for so long. Japan has been a leader in electronics. On the other hand, there has been concern that America's educational system has its failings, especially when it comes to science and mathematics. But I think that America still knows how to produce good engineers, or else why would an achievement like the world's tallest building ultimately come out of America?

Some people, I'm sure, have come to feel that I like to engage in America-bashing. I like to think I'm very fair-minded and dole out both praise and criticism where it is due.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

The New Fuel Economy Standards for Cars

An article on new federal fuel-economy standards for cars to take effect in 2025 appeared online, and it was interesting to read the comments.

Of course we have those who are decrying it as unneeded government intervention in our lives, and blasting Obama--conveniently forgetting that fuel economy standards were enacted by Congress in 1975, so I don't see that they come from Obama.

One argument against greater fuel economy is that the standards will cause cars to become smaller, and smaller cars are less safe. Yet light trucks are the vehicle class with the poorest safety,* and the US, with the biggest cars in the world, has the worst traffic fatality rate of any first-world nation.* Also, the standard, as applied starting in 2011, actually gives a break to larger vehicles.* There is a so-called "footprint" standard for calculating vehicle mileage, and it encourages production of larger vehicles.

Proponents of higher CAFE standards argue that it is the "Footprint" model of CAFE for trucks that encourages production of larger trucks with concomitant increases in vehicle weight disparities, and point out that some small cars such as the Mini Cooper and Toyota Matrix are four times safer than SUVs like the Chevy Blazer.[54] They argue that the quality of the engineering design is the prime determinant of vehicular safety, not the vehicle's mass. In a 1999 article based on a 1995 IIHS report, USA Today said that 56% of all deaths occurring in small cars were due to either single vehicle crashes or small cars impacting each other. The percentage of deaths attributed to those in small cars being hit by larger cars was one percent.[55] [Wikipedia, s.v. Corporate Average Fuel Economy]

So, once again, what we might call "popular opinion" is based on a lot of wrong ideas. Too often, opinion precedes being informed, rather than the other way around. Since the objecting ideas are clearly what we might consider conservative, I'd like to blame conservatives, but I have to concede that the Right has no monopoly on ill-informed opinions.
__________
* All these facts are from the Wikipedia article, "Corporate Average Fuel Economy."

Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein

The ABC's of Street Names and Car Names

There are a number of famous streets with names beginning with "B": Bourbon Street and Basin Street in New Orleans; Beale Street in Memphis (famous for bluegrass music, I believe); Broadway in New York City. And probably a few I can't think of at the moment.

When it comes to cars, Chevrolet has favored names beginning with "C": Corvette, Camaro, Corvair, Chevette, Cavalier, Cobalt, Caprice, Chevy II (several of those are forgotten models and probably justly so).

Ford Motor Company favors "E" for its SUVs: Explorer, Expedition, Escape, Edge. There was another one; was it Endeavor?

And many of Ford's sedan model names have begun with "F": Focus, Fiesta, Fusion. And long ago there were the Falcon and the Fairlane. Maybe Ford likes F-names because of the alliteration with "Ford." (Ford's Mercury division has built the Mercury Marquis, Mercury Mariner, Mystique, and Marauder--again, all alliterative names.)

And Ford's pickup trucks are F-150 and F-250, but maybe the "F" is just supposed to suggest "Ford." Since the initial is pronounced "eff" and therefore, when spoken, begins with a vowel, I can't say that that's alliteration.

On the other hand, there's a phenomenon recognized by scientists called "phonetic symbolism." This means that some words convey or connote something just by their sound. I can't say what words starting with "C" or "F" might connote, but it's easy to believe that the manufacturer wants names with certain sounds to be associated with the brand identity that they try so hard to build.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Is This Progress?

This is about three instances of "progress" recently made in our rapidly evolving world—that don't look like progress to me at all.

Writing was invented a hundred years or so before 3000 BC. It took another thousand or two thousand years before someone had the clever idea to somehow mark where one word ended and another began, and/or where one sentence ended and another began. Before that, everything was run together. With the new invention of the separations, writing became easier to read.

Now, interestingly, in this age of the Internet we are back to where we were three or four thousand years ago. Web site addresses (URLs), email addresses, and screen names often run words together. This occasionally makes for interesting possibilities to misread, but it almost always means we're having to learn to read writing that once again doesn't use spaces—thus going back thousands of years in the history of writing.

I remember when I was very young. During World War II no cars were being manufactured, so shortly after the war my family still owned a pre-war car, a LaSalle. To start that car, you pressed a button. Then at some point, a car's starter was activated by turning the key. That seemed like a good advance. Now, however, cars once again are "featuring" a button to start them. I don't see that this is an advance and can't see a reason for this—other than to imitate the hybrid cars which have a start button.

Another interesting trend is that now a lot of men's underwear is made without flies.
Frankly, I think flies are a good thing. Maybe I need not, or should not, go into detail on this one. I'll just call it another instance of very dubious "progress."

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Some Points about Cars--Particularly, Are American Cars (Finally) Good Enough?

First, latest vehicle crash test results from the IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an insurance-industry body) show that many small car models fare very well in crash tests. This means that people who have been choosing enormous vehicles like SUVs because these large vehicles are perceived as safer in a crash, can start to consider smaller and more economical vehicles.

Second, a new government window sticker on new cars will begin appearing on 2012 models (and on all cars starting with the 2013 model year). It not only shows city, highway, and combined fuel economy ratings for that vehicle; but will also show (1) expected fuel costs over 5 years; (2) a numerical ranking which indicates how that car compares to other vehicles; and (3) another ranking that gives an indication of that vehicle's environmental impact.

I am particularly happy to see number 3 above, because I don't think that very many car buyers give much thought to the environmental impact that the vehicle they're buying is going to have. But even without the new ranking, there's one very simple fact they might consider: greenhouse gas emissions from a vehicle are proportional to the fuel consumed. Simply put, lower gas mileage (more gas used) means more greenhouse emissions.

Third, domestic cars seem to be getting better—and they had a long way to go, in terms of assembly quality and performance characteristics.

Let's look back quite a ways: There was a popularity for foreign, and particularly British sports cars, starting perhaps around the late 1950s and continuing for maybe two decades. This is supposedly due to American servicemen discovering some of these cars when they were overseas, around the end of WWII, and maybe even bringing them home. These cars offered better performance than American cars and were just more fun to drive.

Now, an important fact to keep in mind: When I talk about performance I'm not just talking about a car having zippy acceleration or higher top speed. Many foreign models also showed better handling characteristics: better cornering, better braking, more responsive steering.

For decades American cars lagged in these qualities (and American car buyers often did not pay attention to them, either). American cars had soft suspensions (springing) that made for a soft but wallowy ride—these cars' noses would dive under braking and they would roll during cornering—which implies poor handling during an abrupt maneuver such as in an emergency. American car makers believed that was what American car buyers wanted--a soft ride even if achieved at the expense of handling characteristics. Intrinsically, the two—ride and handling--are mutually exclusive, although more sophisticated, and inevitably more expensive, suspension designs permit good handling characteristics with less compromise of ride comfort.

Over the years American cars have come to incorporate some more sophisticated mechanical designs, both in their engines and in their chassis. But even when a U.S. car model was based on a European model—and I could give a number of examples of this, from the last 10 or 15 years—that European chassis, with its better handling characteristics, would be "dumbed down" for the American market—that is, ride characteristics would be made softer, sacrificing the car's handling qualities.

Now we're starting to get U.S. cars with decent handling, whether based on European chassis or not. People who value good handling qualities can be glad that now we can get Detroit cars that are more equivalent to European cars.

Let's look at some models that Chevrolet has offered. Their small model at one point was the Cavalier, which was regarded as not a very good car by the automobile press.

That model was followed by the Cobalt. Evidently the Cobalt was better than the Cavalier, but maybe still not good enough, because now we hear that the Cobalt's successor, the Cruze, is better than the Cobalt was.

And Chrysler, until this year, had been offering a model called the Sebring, which was almost universally said to be not a very good car, in many ways. Now the Sebring has been replaced by the 200—which evidently is substantially better than the Sebring but maybe still not good enough.

So I wonder why, in so many cases and for so many years, Detroit—which must know how to make a good car, and undoubtedly employs an awful lot of very competent engineering talent--has been content to make "better but still not good enough" cars. GM (maker of Chevrolet) might just be wising up; and Ford, too, has been bringing out good cars. Chrysler is lagging behind the other two.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

What to Do about High Gas Prices

Probably everybody is aware of the rising gas prices. My area, Chicago, has recently had some of the highest gas prices in the US. I recently drove through the vicinity of Chicago Midway Airport (where probably one should expect prices to be high), and saw several gas stations with $4.59 and one with $4.60.

I have a car with a six-cylinder engine. It's nowhere as thirsty a car as big vehicles like pickups or SUVs, or super-power cars. Still, it's not as economical as I'd like. And supposedly vehicles in general have gotten more fuel-efficient. So I've half-heartedly been exploring swapping my old steed.

There are hybrids, of course, which are not only economical but are more environmentally friendly. But, through working with engineers, I've learned to see with their perspective, to a degree; so I view hybrids as not an "elegant" solution. That is, they have a lot of mechanical and electronic complexity.

So another thing to look at are diesel-engine cars. Diesels are not like they used to be: rough, noisy, dirty, hard-to-start. They're very popular in Europe, but Americans still have memories of a couple of bad American diesel models of some years ago.

Also, there are "turbos," or cars with a turbocharged engine. A turbocharger is pretty much a way of getting free power, so an engine can be smaller in displacement for the same power output. Smaller means more economical.

Another thing I almost forgot about myself is manual transmissions. I think that 97% of vehicles currently sold in America have automatic transmissions and undoubtedly many drivers don't know how to drive a "stick shift." But, if you are willing and able to drive one, that's a way to get another one or two miles per gallon.

Meanwhile, short of investing in a new car, there's one simple and easy thing we can all be doing to get better mileage, and that's to modify our driving habits. See my October 20, 2010 posting on this blog, "Driving More Safely and More Economically."

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Have Cars Changed?

Anybody who repairs cars would tell you that cars have changed a great deal. And if you look under your hood yourself, you'll notice that the engine compartment has gotten more crowded. Today's cars have many more features, systems, and devices for safety, emissions, and more. Cars have sophisticated electronic controls (basically computers), and can even diagnose themselves.

One could argue whether cars of today look very different from the cars of a few decades ago. They still have four wheels, headlights, and taillights (although even the lights are changing, with LED taillights becoming common).

We may be starting to witness a major change in our cars. Toyota has sold over a million of its hybrid Prius model. And the first electric cars are appearing. Are hybrids and electrics the wave of the future?

If you took all the Priuses and all the exemplars of a few other hybrid models, they'd all add up to a small percentage of the cars on the road. The overwhelming percentage of cars we're driving use gasoline internal combustion engines that may have changed in detail but still use the same fundamental principle as cars of 100 years ago.

One would be foolish to say that cars are not going to evolve, and even evolve in some fundamental ways. I personally think that the hybrid automobile is an interim solution. Having in essence two drive systems is complicated and expensive; in engineering terms, the hybrid is not an "elegant" solution. We need some simple system of storing a fuel or energy source, and a simple, compact, efficient motor for converting that fuel to motion.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

My Car Isn't Big Enough

I used to wonder why people drive SUVs. At one point I thought it was to be macho—but a lot of women drive them. (I think the macho factor might hold true for guys who opt for big pickups, muscle cars, etc.) With women, at least, I think the answer is that they feel safer in very large vehicles that put a lot of steel around them.

Admittedly it's true that, in a collision between a small vehicle and a larger one, the small one is likely to get the worst of it. That's simple physics. So the people who are driving monster vehicles are likely to inflict more harm—harm to the vehicle and maybe bodily harm to the driver—when they hit a smaller vehicle.

But they would say, I'm sure, Well, let them drive a big vehicle, like I do. I'd call that a kind of arms race. I'm glad not everyone thinks that way, or we'd all be in vehicles the size of a stretch limo or a tank—or one of those huge Hummers—that would hardly be able to make it around the corner in urban driving.

Well, the price of gas is rising again. It must cost $70—maybe even a lot more (I don't know how big their tanks are)--to fill some of those big vehicles. Let no owner of an SUV, large pickup (when it's not needed for business purposes or work), or van complain to me about the price at the pump, 'cause you know I'm the last one to sympathize with them.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Driving More Safely and More Economically

Some more observations on how people drive, at least here in the big city and its environs.

There's no doubt that big-city drivers drive very aggressively. This may consist of various unsafe behaviors such as aggressively changing lanes and weaving in and out in an attempt to pass everybody out (this counts as road rage and could get you a ticket). Another such behavior is what is known as "late merging."

I think there are at least two things behind this aggressive behavior behind the wheel. One is a sort of competitiveness. I'm not sure if these guys and gals are trying to prove their driving skill or to show that they and their vehicles can get to some point down the road more quickly than the rest of us—which might be the same thing.

Another is just being in a hurry. I already wrote about how nowadays everybody seems to be in a rush--at least in the city; if one goes to some other areas, as I found for example in driving through Michigan's Upper Peninsula one time, there definitely is a slower pace to things. But in urban areas such as mine, everyone seems to live by the axiom that "time is money."

Besides being in the main unsafe, a lot of these behaviors also waste fuel. Saving gas, on the other hand, not only benefits your pocketbook, it benefits the environment. One way that I try to drive more economically: I try to look ahead and when I see a red light, even a block down the road, I slow down—unlike many drivers who seem to me to be foolishly racing to get to that red light. Remember that your brakes are basically turning your gasoline into heat energy that goes into the atmosphere; in other words, it's wasted energy.

Of course we have to brake sometimes. Maybe often. But intelligent driving can lessen how much fuel you are wasting at your brake rotors. I try to avoid braking from 30 or even 20 mph, so I try to coast to a stop whenever I can.

Do you brake very often? Maybe you're not aware of how much you brake, but someone driving behind you can see how often your brake lights come on—more often than mine do. If you brake an awful lot, chances are that you're following too closely. By keeping a greater distance between myself and the car ahead of me, I'm able to brake much less than some other cars I see on the road.

And another peril of following too closely: There wouldn't--logically there couldn't--be 30-car or even 100-car pileups if drivers gave themselves enough distance to stop in, rather than following too closely for conditions.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

Tying Two Subjects Together

I've blogged about the modifications that car makers need to make to a European car model before that car can be introduced to the American market (usually because of U.S. regulations). And I've blogged, more than once, about Americans' obesity.

Here is a bit of news that ties those two themes together: Since the Italian automaker FIAT now controls Chrysler, they plan to sell the tiny Fiat 500 in the U.S. One of the modifications being made to the 500 for the U.S. is wider seats. Gee, I wonder why that's necessary.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Richard Stein

Arms Race on Four Wheels

An article I read recently blames our federal government for the high price of oil (and thus gasoline). The argument does like this—and it's an indirect chain of causation.

The so-called CAFE—Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards—have not been raised by the government in 20 years. This has enabled Americans to buy large and thirsty SUVs.

So maybe we should blame the owners of SUVs—who are likely to complain the loudest about gas prices. They're certainly not aware that they have themselves to blame.

Readers of this blog know that I hate SUVs. I used to think that owning and driving them was a macho thing. But it's incontrovertible that an awful lot of women drive them—especially great big ones, with only themselves in them (so don't tell me that people buy them for the capacity). I know that they often say that they like the high driving position and the good view of the road that that provides. I think also they own them because they perceive them to be safer.

Well, it is true that, in a crash between a large and small vehicle, the driver of the larger one will fare better. So the SUV driver looks out for his/her own safety and does not care that, in a crash, he or she may inflict fatal damage to the other car. So it's selfish. But hey, let's acknowledge that we're not all Mother Teresa. And the the SUV owner/driver would say, Well, let that other guy drive a big vehicle instead of the small car that he's got. Thus a kind of vehicular arms race.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

There Are No Cheap Cars (Thanks to U.S. Government)

Fifty years ago it was fairly simple for a foreign car manufacturer to sell his cars in the U.S. Any car sold in the U.S. had to meet U.S. federal government standards, but they were fairly simple (I've tried, as best as I'm able, to list these in approximately the order in which the standards went into effect):

• Sealed-beam headlights
• Safety glass

and maybe one or two more.

Then more requirements were added:

• Seat belts
• Exhaust emission standards
• Bumper crash resistance

and then:

• Air bags
• Engine computers with diagnostic readouts

and fairly recently:

• Tire pressure monitoring system

and, soon to come:

• Vehicle stability control

And I'm pretty sure there are a lot I have left out.

A lot of the required systems are electrical. Thus the following became necessary, even though not required by law:

• Larger battery
• Larger alternator
• Larger engine, to provide the power to drive the alternator, etc.

Add to all this the fact that there are a great many amenities that American drivers expect and even demand:

• Automatic transmission
• Air conditioning
• Innumerable power assists, electrical gadgets, "convenience features," etc.
  

The result is that there are no cheap cars. You take even a tiny and cheap (to begin with) car, and by the time it's been "Americanized" (actually, the term "federalized" is used), it has to sell for $20,000 in the U.S. A modern car has to have more "systems" than a house, so it's not surprising that a car costs a significant fraction of the cost of a house.

I am (as my faithful readers know) generally very liberal in my views; and I certainly don't want to start sounding conservative. Many, even most, of the above car features are very worthwhile, and they protect us and the environment. But I do have to say, I do wish that maybe some of these could be matters of the buyer's choice. I for one don't really like having to have the tire pressure monitoring system. Yes, it keeps us from driving on under-inflated tires, and that has safety implications. A great majority of drivers don't monitor their cars' tire pressure systematically. But I find any and all little amber warning lights on my dash to be a pain in the keister.

As to the bumper standard: Once upon a time, cars had these great, heavy, chrome-plated steel bumpers. They could contact another car and not be affected at all.

The new bumpers absorb shock and prevent damage to the rest of the car in low-speed collisions. However, the bumpers themselves, in minor encounters with another car, are too easily damaged. They are essentially plastic (with energy-absorbing blocks or a honeycomb structure behind them), and they dent, cave in, gouge, and scratch quite easily. Of course the "bumper covers" (as the body shop will call them) could be made of black rubber. Some cars have had that, and it's practical. But those big, black rubber bumpers are ugly and car buyers don't want them.

Still, makes me yearn for the old chromed steel bumpers.