If I hear another auto writer complain how he just saw someone driving a big SUV with no passengers and what a waste of space and fuel a vehicle like that is, I'm going to start tearing heads off. When did it become all right to criticize personal choices based on a set of communistic assumptions. I'm all for doing as much study as possible on any given issue so we can be armed with all the best and latest info in order to make a decision. But I'm not ready for someone to tell me I can't make a choice about what food I buy, where I live, or with whom I associate.
It's so easy for those who want to legislate or dictate from on high what everyone else should be doing, choosing, or deciding, while at the same time not doing exactly what they're wanting others to do. Most recently, all the hubbub about Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize, at the same time his private jet and main residence have huge carbon footprints. If you're going to be a spokesman, you better be prepared to walk the walk. Dan Neil, a Pulitzer Prize winning auto writer for the Los Angeles Times, constantly complains about how irresponsible large SUVs and pickup trucks are for people who don't spend the majority of their time people-carrying or hauling cords of wood for a living. However, at the same time, he'll laud praises all over a super-luxury super-sports car that might cost ten times the price and "really only comes alive" when clicking the speedometer around 155 mph. Hmm. Don't know many roads around where I live where that's legal. In fact, even the racetracks in the big cities won't allow just anyone to get up to that speed—even if you rent the whole thing for yourself.
On a different scale, I'm even a little nervous about having congress play with the CAFE numbers, basically pulling numbers out of their hat (or any other 3 letter word you can imagine), effectively mandating what types of cars and trucks we buy for the next 10 to 12 years. Of course we have to do something about our dependence on oil, but to legislatively dictate what types of cars and trucks we'll be able to buy, smacks of a little thing called communism. And let's be clear. I know I wrote "cars and trucks," but the reality is that we're talking about the only way for these auto makers to meet these numbers in this timeframe means they'll have to eliminate the bigger SUVs and work trucks that many families and businesses really like. Again, the folks who don't like or understand these vehicles are perfectly fine eliminating these "dinosaurs," as they drive their little passionless appliances through commuter traffic in the big cities.
The prejudice is astounding, and seems to require an equal dose of narcissism and extreme selfishness. You never hear them criticizing sports cars for their unidimentionality or the fact they can't carry anything or many people or their design envelopes are rarely, if ever, achieved by the owner. But I don't hear anyone suggesting we get rid of sports cars. All this at a time when some still think people should be choosing a 4WD or AWD vehicle if they don't use the system but 10 percent of the time over the life of the vehicle. To a certain point, I say sooo the frickkk what! If I want to be prepared with a technology or capability that I possibly will use, like 4WD, then I want the choice. And I would say if I use that system only once in the lifetime of the vehicle, that $2000 option (in most cases) just paid for itself. How much money do you think you're paying for all the rollover, airbag, and front-crash technology that's in every new vehicle on the road now? I'll bet it's way more than $2000 in most cases, and that's technology we all hope we never have to ever use.
At least with a 4WD system or extra seating capacity I can use it for recreation if I want, but at least it's there if I or my neighbor need it. I've said this before -- restricting big SUVs and pickup truck sales is to restrict buying decisions that are in large part designed to help others (family members, neighbors, new friends, a stranger in need) while the cars left that will allow manufacturers to meet and exceed the regulated 35-mpg target, be it sports car or sedan, will be small, carry fewer people, and not capable of helping others as much as before. I suppose this new 35-mpg target can be looked at like any other safety technology the government has required automakers to include in their vehicles, but with all that, the technology existed. There might be one or two OEs that can meet this goal in the next few years, but none with any choices of SUVs, crossovers, or pickup trucks. Companies like Ford, GM, and Chrysler, look as if they'll have to get rid of some, if not all, of their full-size SUVs and/or pickup trucks to meet the target number, at least for a few years, if some other kind of solution isn't found. That ought to teach us. About what exactly, I'm not sure.