The general American driving consumer is stupid with a weak stomach for high gas prices, seeking fuel efficient alternatives like lemmings seek a cliff the moment prices hit record highs. Those pains are quickly forgotten the instant gas prices drop to levels more tolerant to their cow-like sensibilities. What? Do they think lower gas prices are a permanent condition?

As enthusiasts, we know better. We seek to find a fuel efficient offering with the highest possible performance, own two cars — a daily driver and something more fun — or we suck it up and realize we have to pay more for what we want. Want a Corvette ZR1? A Nissan GT-R? We know there's a tax involved with driving real cars and we'll be paying it every time we head to the pump for the privilege of driving something with higher horsepower.

What the general consumer needs to remember is they don't need SUVs the size of mobile homes or pickup trucks able to haul 10,000 pounds to get to work each day (unless of course they work on a construction site).

Appliances are what's needed for most Americans. Simple, fuel-efficient appliances that allow them to get from A to B with ease and without disrupting them from their super-sized McDonald's latte. However, as long as gas prices stay below $3.00 a gallon, hybrids and other more fuel-efficient driving alternatives will continue to be pushed to the wayside for bigger, thirstier options.

We've seen exactly that happen during this economic slump. There's been a 30% increase in gas prices, but it's still relatively cheap in comparison to the highs of last summer. So what's happened to hybrid sales? Well, news today is Honda's Insight hybrid may fall 33% short of U.S. sales goals (50-60,000 units versus 90,000 originally projected). This after Toyota reported U.S. sales of the Prius are down a whopping 45% in 2009. What should automakers expect? Combine lower gas prices with a heavily-saturated marketplace — including Toyota's current Prius, next-generation Prius and the Fusion hybrid — and we're talking about a continued drop in demand for fuel efficient vehicles. And what are the #1 and #2 highest-selling vehicles in the U.S. last month? The Ford F-150 and Chevy Silverado. Trust us, these aren't being used on job sites.

These cars are already available or soon to be available, but at gas prices at levels not seen during peak driving season in three years, they're not what Americans are buying. So back to the Insight. For the moment it means lower sales. However, the moment gas prices spike again — whether through a recovering economy or a supply disruption — expect consumers to make a beeline to the Insight as though it were some kind of hybrid honey.

In the long term, if we want to get off this merry-go-round of lemming-like behavior, we need to recognize as a society that gas prices are the greatest single influence on American driving habits. But no politician has the political will to do the right thing to really change consumer driving habits — implementing a progressively and artificially increase to the price of gas. Instead we'll continue our fun game of mandating automakers kill off "fun cars" for us enthusiasts out of a desire to increase fuel economy — a feature American appliance-driving consumers apparently don't desire.

University of Iowa Public Policy Center’s Road User Study
Background Information

History

• The Highway Trust Fund supports transportation infrastructure and receives a majority of its money from the motor fuel tax, which is imposed on every gallon of gasoline purchased nationwide.

• Over the past ten years, the motor fuel tax has increasingly failed to generate sufficient funds to repair damaged roads and bridges, fill potholes, and maintain the safe and efficient operation of our highway system. Improved fuel efficiency of the nation’s vehicle fleet is the main reason.

• The University of Iowa Public Policy Center has been awarded a $16-million federal grant to study a new approach to financing the nation’s roadways. The system, which uses on-board computers, may one day replace the gas tax.

About the Study

• Over the next two years, the Public Policy Center will conduct a national field test of the system in six cities across the U.S., including San Diego, CA; Austin, TX; Baltimore, MD; the Research Triangle in North Carolina; Boise, ID; and Eastern Iowa. Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, the Quad Cities, and many small towns in eastern Iowa will be among the sites included in this groundbreaking national test.

• The Iowa study tests an approach that will allow drivers to pay only for the actual number of miles they travel. A small computer will be installed in participants’ vehicles to store a record of these miles. The total amount owed will then be uploaded to a central database, much like what is used by credit card companies, which will then distribute funds to the states, counties or cities in which the travel took place.

• The privacy of motorists’ participating in the study will be strictly protected by providing an identification number to each participant, rather than using personal information and at the end of the study all documents containing personal information of the participant will be destroyed.

• It is likely that acceptability of the new approach will depend to a large extent on perceptions regarding privacy. In the maximum-privacy configuration, it is significant that the only figure that can be tied to a particular vehicle is a single dollar amount for total user charges that are due. When data are transferred from the vehicle to the network operating center, these data are encrypted to assure anonymity. It is not necessary to know which vehicle generated a particular sum of user charge for each jurisdiction; all that is required is the amount to be apportioned to each of the jurisdictions. This approach maximizes user privacy and ensures a fair distribution of revenue.

• There remains an issue of audit-ability, however. The OBC can be configured to provide the user with a detailed record of charges. While this record would enable the vehicle’s owner to understand the exact basis for the user charges in billing statements, it is possible that the detailed record could be subpoenaed in criminal or civil cases involving the owner of a vehicle. The OBC can be configured to allow the owner to choose between privacy maximization versus having substantiation of user charges. Because the trade-off between privacy protection and audit-ability is one of the key issues we are addressing in this national evaluation study, we will enable participants to experience each method during the course of the field-testing.

• Prescreened and selected participants of the study will have the on-board computer temporarily installed in their vehicles. This installation will not in any way damage the vehicle. The computer will store a record of charges accrued from road use.

Research Goals

1. Appropriateness of the technology. Test the reliability, security, flexibility, user-friendliness and cost-effectiveness of on-board computers (GPS and GIS);
2. User acceptability. Evaluate driver acceptance of such a system; and
3. Find out why vehicle operators accept or reject the system, what they like and what they don’t.

(Hat tip to Drew!) [Source: University of Iowa Public Policy Center]

Jalopnik Snap Judgment: It's football season! Election-year football season, that is, and Team Red and Team Blue are each trying to score voter points by blaming the highway fund shortfall on the others' policy decisions. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oil) claims the shortfall is somehow the fault of democrats not letting him drill in Alaska. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-Spending) says the deficit can be blamed on republicans blocking efforts to increase funding for highway projects. Here's a little friendly advice: It's too late for blame. Shut up and fix it before states have to lay off highway workers and leave half-finished bridge projects abandoned. And, particularly from those of us north of, say, Tennessee: Do it soon, because it's a bitch to get concrete to set when it's 15 degrees and snowing. [New Hampshire Register]

A little history first. Back in '78, when the guzzler tax came into existence, it penalized vehicles that got fewer than a combined 22.5 MPG; however, trucks, vans and SUVs weren't included because they made up such as small percentage of personal vehicles. Fast forward 30 years, there's a Grand Cherokee in every garage and some folks say it's high time to revisit the gas-guzzler tax...and perhaps the hybrid tax credit. Let's just say we can see both sides of the argument.

It's probably evidence of how far we haven't come that 22.5 combined MPG doesn't seem all that low to us. Regardless, if we're going to have a tax, then a true gas-guzzler tax should apply to gas guzzlers — vehicles that can't top 18 MPG combined — and be made an across-the-board rule, regardless of vehicle type. Yeah, there'd have to be an out for contractors, and yeah, some folks would cheat. What's new?

What about the hybrid tax credit? The intention was to help folks afford hybrids until the costs have been amortized enough for automakers to lower the price. But guess what? Prices ain't coming down. Instead, it's nothing more than a cheap gimmick. A better alternative would be to apply a "gas-sipper credit," a sort of reverse gas-guzzler tax that would credit buyers of the most fuel-efficient vehicles.

In the end, Americans are going to buy what they want, burn what they want, and drive as fast as they like. It's what we do here, and that's all good by us. But a little cash under the table to "do the right thing" is apparently part of the American way too — especially when it's complete hypocrisy. [blogs.nytimes.com]

Of course then the tax holiday would end and the 18.4 cents on the gallon tax would be added right on top. Clinton even went on to advocate for paying off the hole in the budget which would be left by levying a windfall tax on the huge profits of the oil companies. Now, we're not really whooping and hollering at the idea of high gas prices, but discouraging the profit motive of corporate energy producers in favor of short term political gains seems like a recipe for disaster. Who knew you could mix two different disaster recipes from the same list of ingredients? Oh, and let's not forget the additional consumption would mean additional profits for big oil, something that would just rub salt in the wounds of the fuel-buying public — especially given the record profits released today by the two biggest oil-producing companies. [Reuters via Yahoo News]
photo from redstatearizona