Bye bye roadhog

I’m not sorry to see the Hummer H1 go the way of the dinosaurs, not because it will really make any difference in how much gasoline America burns, but because someday I may be able to negotiate one more corner; one more off-ramp without some lumbering behemoth hogging the road at Conestoga wagon speeds.  Perhaps one day there will be fewer of these death-on-wheels monstrosities riding my bumper at 95 on the turnpike; massive bumper at just the right height to decapitate me if I nudge my 6 piston ventilated Brembo discs a bit too hard.  There are not many more than 10,000 of them on the road and 10MPG notwithstanding, they just don’t matter in the big picture.  Besides, there are still plenty of Escalades, Expeditions and Navigators roaring down the highway and creeping through the corners. The open road is as dead as Kerouac.

At the other end of the spectrum of ridiculousness, I read that some “inventor” in England has built himself a vehicle – I won’t call it a car – that will get over 8000 miles per gallon. Even though the British Gallon is a bit larger than the American unit, that’s astonishing, but of course the vehicle is essentially useless for any purpose beyond winning that contest.  Since the competition that spawns engineering oddities like this doesn’t really explore new technology, but simply puts a chain saw sized engine (35cc) in a vehicle that is as light as a bicycle and not quite as fast, it won’t develop anything like the multi-purpose passenger vehicle that we will eventually need to replace the vehicles we need to support the life style we’re forced to live by decisions made in the 1950’s.

Somewhere between absurd extremes is a vehicle that can carry several people and a bunch of stuff at reasonable speeds to which it can accelerate at reasonable rates and that can be used on long trips but with minimal emissions.  The technology isn’t here yet and playing with existing technology, which includes piston engine hybrids, can’t make enough difference.

Who knows how long we will have to wait for hydrogen cars – fuel cell hybrids or fast charge, ultra light batteries or even capacitors?

Sad to say, a good interim solution exists, but we can no longer afford it nor do we want, it seems, to live that way.  We tore out the rail lines 50 years ago, got rid of the electric street cars, scrapped the electric interurban railway system and moved out to the suburbs where you not only have to commute 20, 30, 40 miles to work, but need to spend all your spare time driving from one mall to another in the suburban archipelago.  There may be no way to cut back without big changes in the way we live and without a bailout from technology that may or may not emerge.  Simply put, our lives and dreams and livings have been engineered by 50 years of cheap gas.

Paybacks are a bitch, as the saying goes and there is nothing we can do about it without pain.  That’s a general lesson the Republicans don’t care to learn.  We no longer make anything and we spend our lives borrowing from foreigners so we can buy their products by driving around in foreign cars using foreign oil.  Sooner or later, a bill will come due and my bet is on sooner.