Sales of new SUVs and pickup trucks have fallen about as far as the cost of a barrel of oil has soared. SUV sales were down by almost a third in April from a year earlier, and light truck sales at General Motors were off 32% over the same period. Chrysler’s dropped 31%, Ford’s 25%.
Many who already own one or more are putting them on the sale block — with less-than-spectacular success. It’s clear that Americans want cars with better fuel efficiency.
Nothing gets worse fuel mileage than an old clunker that runs poorly. As we’ve noted before, since 10% of the country’s almost 140 million privately owned cars and light-duty trucks emit more than half the auto-based pollution, it’s safe to say that that same 10% also account for most of the gas-guzzling. If only we could get them off the road.
It seems to us that those who drive those gasoline-thirsty wrecks would be as eager to sell or trade their cars as those who’ve grown frustrated filling up their relatively new SUVs and light trucks. And wouldn’t removing them drive oil demand downward, with a fall in price to follow?
We’ve suggested that Washington fund a buyback program — by shifting funds from one or more expenditures, not through new spending — to get the old cars off the road.
One of the better options would be for Washington to use the taxpayers’ money it wastes on food-shortage-creating biofuel subsidies, alternative energy research and other wasteful energy programs. Congress has the means and the grounds to provide automakers with an incentive to either buy back wasteful cars and junk them, or to do it directly.
Few cars built before 1978, the first year of the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, should be found on our roads. Classic cars and collectibles are, of course, an exception. But any smoke-belching, wheezing bomb of a car should be removed.
Washington could get 14 million autos — that culpable one-tenth — off the streets by moving $21 billion from other programs and into a vehicle buyback plan. Owners would be given $1,500 that could be used for a down payment for a high-mileage car in return for their old car.
Even better: Environmental groups that rant about the ill effects of the internal combustion engine could pool their sizable resources and retire more than a few poor-mileage cars, paying their owners to send them directly to the crusher for recycling.
We are not alone in thinking that Americans should be gently coaxed into high-mileage vehicles. Fred Alger Management has proposed that any car or SUV that does not get 35 miles per gallon by 2010 should be taxed $1,000 a year. Each year the vehicle is still in use, the tax is raised by $500.
That sounds like a strong incentive to move into high-mileage cars, but it won’t do much for getting drivers out of their current low-mileage vehicles. It won’t be easy to sell a car that comes with a $1,000 annual tax that goes up $500 each year. And selling them doesn’t get them off the road anyway; it just means someone else is burning the gasoline.
But at least others are trying to come up with creative ways to cut a U.S. oil demand that, at roughly 20% of global demand, is the highest of any country. Fielding a national fleet of fuel-efficient vehicles would do just that. The first step is to get the guzzlers off the road.
