CAFE Standards: Central Planners Target Your Cars
Oh, the joys of being one of the elite. How satisfying it must be to have gone to the right schools, to belong to the right clubs, to shop in the right stores, and to enjoy the company of those just like you, of those who think just like you. What a warm feeling it must be to know that you are smarter, better dressed, better looking — in every way, better than those benighted souls who live in flyover country, bitter clingers to God and guns who could not begin to understand your moral superiority.
One of the great benefits of being among the elite is the power to determine what is good and right, and what ought to be, particularly for the lower classes who just aren’t moral or smart enough to know what’s good for them. It is sometimes a burden, laboring ceaselessly to build a society that is socially just and equal. But the elite gladly take on that burden, for the rewards are greater.
A primary tool of the elite progressive (or socialist) is central planning. Not only are the denizens of flyover country incapable of understanding the glory and rightness of socialism. They have the nasty, foolish tendency to ignore or even oppose what the elite know is good for them. They must be forced to be more diverse, equal, tolerant, and socially just. And if they resist, they must be punished, severely.
A perfect example of central planning is the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. A better example of the folly of central planning is hard to find. CAFE is rife with unintended consequences — and a complete lack of understanding of the science and engineering involved in the numbers picked, apparently out of a hat.
To be completely fair, virtually all governments, even those controlled by Republicans, fall prey, to lesser and greater degrees, to the temptation of socialistic central planning. A central planning scheme begun under a Democrat administration will tend to continue under all that follow it if for no reason beside the self-perpetuating inertia of all federal bureaucracies. The current administration, however, has taken central planning to previously unheard of heights — and therein lies the potential for previously unimagined damage.
CAFE represents governmental control over our lives in ways unimaginable to most Americans. All automakers selling vehicles in the United States must conform to their standard. It’s the average MPG for all vehicles sold by a given car company. If Smith Motor Company’s most popular vehicles are pickup trucks with certified MPG figures of 24 highway (that’s what those numbers on the window stickers of new vehicles mean), it can still meet the CAFE standard by selling its supereconobox sedans, which get 42 MPG — thereby reaching the appropriate average fuel economy for the entire fleet.
Among the first and most destructive edicts of President Barack Obama was the imposition of new CAFE standards. Mr. Obama was accompanied at a May 19, 2009, presser by several Democrat governors, plus Arnold Schwarzenegger and United Auto Workers head Ron Gettelfinger.
According to Autoblog, Mr. Obama announced that the CAFE standards would increase by five percent each year, beginning with 2011, until 2015 — when the CAFE standard would be 35.5 MPG. Mr. Obama made the announcement appear to be a bold move intended to consolidate government and prevent unnecessary duplication between the EPA, the DOT, and California bureaucrats, but his real goals were plainly visible. Mr. Obama said that the agreement was “an historic agreement to help American break its addiction to oil.”
“Obama,” Autoblog added, “said the new rule will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the next five years, and is the projected equivalent of taking 58 million vehicles off the road.”
Heck, why not just require 1000 mpg? Just think how much gas that would save!
Heck, why not scrap cars altogether and mandate the car companies invent a teleportation device? C’mon, really, you got a bunch of statisticians saying what technology is going to be available in 2025? Give me a break. Even Sci Fi writers in the 70′s missed out on cell phones and PCs.
Exactly as the poster above suggested. However, I’d like to take it a step further and suggest the Federal Department of Frozen I.Q.’s move right ahead and decree by, executive order if necessary, a new national minimum wage be increased to $30 dollars an hour instead of the smaller number it currently sits at. Just think about it, kids. At $30 dollars an hour (times) a sweat factory schedule of a 29 hour work week, many of highly trained counter assistance reps at McBurgers and Fries would be able to afford driving one of President Obama’s $40,000 Priuses. But for those who may end up being trimmed back to a hideous 28 hour work week, the federally compassionate in D.C. could issue a sub-section rule requiring those within the “may I take your order” grouping be qualified for a full,federal subsidy toward the purchase of a basic model … Volt (with battery.)
Understandably, being forced into a “Look Ma, No Stuff” Volt may offend the self esteem of those with a degree in “Fry Cook 1-A”, but illegal immigrants and the GED’s in America need SOME kind of a boost. Might as well be on the Federal Taxpayers dime. And after all, it’s not really THEIR dime, anyway. According to 3rd Chapter, Verse 9 in the Book of Obama: “And the rodent saith to me: The bread of the land beith mine to spread around in any manner the spirit of Saul may guide me. ‘Ya dig?”
Can I get an AMEN, brothers and sisters?
High-mpg vehicles have been done, and without the $10,000 batteries and dangerous plastic exteriors. My 1981 Toyota Tercel got 45 mpg and lasted nearly 20 years and over 250,000 miles before it finally gave out. I still miss that little car and would take one in a minute over a Prius.
The fact that it is possible with yesterday’s technology isn’t the point. The point is that I have a family and we will not all fit in a Toyota Tercel. The vehicle we chose is quite efficient and even environmentally friendly. However, it will never get 45 MPG.
I also have a need for a pickup truck. It serves several purposes. However, because of what it is, it will never get good fuel economy either. If I could afford to purchase and operate a small car for commuting purposes, I would buy one. But I can’t afford one, and fuel isn’t expensive enough to make one practical.
Thus, if CAFE standards take hold, it will have the perverse effect of assuring that a small car will remain financially out of reach for me. It will raise the cost of all vehicles.
I do consider fuel costs when I purchase a vehicle. If my own government doesn’t trust me to use my wallet wisely, then they deserve to be voted out of office.
I have a crown vic and tow a trailer when needed.
under “green” thinking I would really need 2 vehicles.
yeah, great savings there.
I understand what you’re saying. However, today we don’t have the option of going low-tech in a vehicle purchase to save money. My in-laws had an identical Tercel, which was their family vehicle. They and their two sons traveled everywhere in it, even on cross-country road trips. For years my father-in-law drove an old Toyota mini pickup (I think it was a Tacoma), which also got decent mileage. Bottom line, they saved money from lower gas bills, lower car payments, lower insurance costs, and keeping the cars for many years after payoff. The money they saved went into stock purchases…they are now comfortably retired, and today are vacationing in Alaska.
Today, if we want a 45 mpg vehicle, we have to shell out a fortune for a high-tech gizmo. When factoring in the high car payments, higher insurance, higher maintenance, the savings from lower gas costs aren’t terribly impressive.
you are so right, europe has tons of small simple diesel driven cars over there we cant get here because of pollution laws, yet you can get big diesel trucks here and blow soot everywhere as long as they are 3/4 ton and up. where is the logic in these stupid laws??
Diesel emissions is one problem but cost is another one. A Fiesta Diesel in Europe is $28,000. Not a price that Americans would be willing to pay for a small car.
At $9/gallon, a Fiesta Diesel suddenly makes sense but not below.
My old 1959 Mini returned 55 mpg on the cheapest fuel I could fine.. and maintained freeway speeds. OH, but we can’t have cars like that anymore. The Feds stopped their import in about 1968 because they were “too short”, and BMC refused to extend the bumper mounts to comply. Good on em. Canada continued to import them well into the 1970′s. I also had a whole series of Volvos, 544, 122, and 140 cars, that regularly returned 42 mpg cruising at 85 mph all day long. Don’t tell me fuel efficient cars can’t be had…. but, along come thousands of pages of federal requirements and, once implemented, the fuel economy goes through the floor. WHY am I forced to drive a car with airbags and all manner of other specified devices?
And what of some of the vehicles on offer in Europe… a Landrover with a 2.5 diesel engine that returns mid-30′s for economy? Mercedes and Volkswagen/Audi products, diesel powered, that bring 60-80 mpg, and are Autobahn capable? For town use, what of cars like the Morris, Fiats that provided 40+ mpg, and the very luxurious Citroën returning high thirties? And these were all cars of the 1960′s, technology has advanced incredibly since then.
Dissolve the EPA, DOT, FMVSA, NHTSA, and let the MANUFACTURERS come up with products the PEOPLE will WANT. There is NOTHING on the market today I’d pay the money to own/drive. And only a few manufactured in the past ten years I’d want to hold down the dirt in my car park. I’ve been an automotive and equipment mechanic alll my life, and I KNOW what is a good design. There are very few of them out there these days. Plastic intake manifolds guaranteed to leak. Fuel systems so complicated even the super computers can’t always figure them out, and VERY dear to repair when they do (which, sooner or later, all of them will) fail.
Get the government OUT of our driveways. By WHAT stretch of their perverted, power-mad imaginations do they find, hidden within the umbrae and penumbrae of our Constitution do the feds find ANY hint of authority to meddle with our means of transportation, let alone the private property we wish to purchase and use?
Oh, and cheers to the chap did his maths to come up with the TRUE cost per mile, overall, for cars like the mis-begotten Volt. EPA will NEVER take all those costs into account.
Agreed but when you quote the MPG of some European cars that is allegedly so impressive, don’t forget that those numbers are in Imperial MPG and not US MPG.
55 MPG (UK) is more like 45 MPG (US).
Even the Volt doesn’t really get high mileage, if you measure it correctly.
For a vehicle using something other than gasoline, one should calculate the MPG in gasoline gallon equivalents of energy. If one is entranced by the global warming/climate change mythology, one should use miles per CO2 ton. Otherwise, miles per total kilowatt-hour or megajoule or other energy measure is appropriate.
A Volt in the US is typically powered as follows:
1) A coal burning plant heats steam and generates electricity – in other words, it converts a fraction of the energy released by burning coal and turns it into electric energy.
2) That energy is transmitted over the power grid to the charger for the car. A bunch of the energy is lost in the process, and also energy is required to maintain that power grid.
3) The charge puts some of that energy into the battery, wasting the rest as heat.
4) The battery sends the energy to the motor (through an inverter), losing more energy.
Total energy per gallon is the only reasonable figure.
Do that on a Volt and you end up with about 35 mpg(equiv).
Furthermore, we should count the cost of all the people killed or injured by these less crashworthy “efficient cars.”
Or, we could just eliminate the EPA and get on with our lives.
Yeah, I like that.
Well, well, well… central planning. I have one question; if we have central planning from Washington and something gets broken does that mean the whole country runs in the ditch? The grand cogs of (so called) continuity jump the sprocket of progress. Hmmmmm!
Likewise, if we have regional planning (State, city, county, municipality etc.)and something fails will the rest of the country continue to operate without delay or hinderence? Hmmmmm! It seems like a
simple deduction to me.
I say reject the elites slick strategy of a new monarchy and lords vs. serfs (read slaves vs. slave owners)! Power to the people… oh yea, and power to the local mayor (that I can poke in the chest (figuratively) anytime I darn well please). I’m fed up with the feds!!!! Party with some black market tea!
I am ever more persuaded that the idea behind these ridiculous, physics-defying mandates is to compel the re-atomization of the United States: the strict division of the country into urban concentrations and rural areas, with only “appropriate” interaction between them (e.g., government food caravans).
City dwellers must surrender a great deal of their freedom simply because of their density. They’re easier to herd and micro-manage. Rural dwellers, if cut off from the dynamism and innovation of cities, are in an equally unenviable position: they can be deprived of technology, and of the knowledge of alternatives that might liberate them from toiling over the soil. And the State can maintain the fiction that “This is the way it must be, lest uncounted millions of your countrymen starve!”
Food for thought.
The hostility of environmentalists to suburban living is a matter of public record. Just visit the GreenPeace website.
I’m no fan of the CAFE standards, but couldn’t disagree more with your contention. Any correlation between density and independence is pretty much fanciful because what suburbia gives with one hand freedom-wise, it takes away with another … and vice versa for dense city living. Some people feel freer in their cars, others feel straitjacketed by needing one. Neither human type is wrong, and neither type’s choices should be proscribed on the one hand, or underwritten at the other’s expense on the other hand.
Unfortunately, modern transportation policies are a huge mass of punitive bureaucracy, lopsided funding distribution, and rule by unelected pork barons. More often than not, they’ve targeted city-dwellers on the behalf of suburbia, but there’s something for everybody to hate. The new CAFE standards are just the latest. If ever a slate needed wiping clean…
It is evidenet that all this government planning and Marxism comes from the halls of the Ivy League. The question is whether the elitists at the Harvards and Yales will be exempted from the cafe. Will their Volvos, BMWs , and Mercedes be granted special status by the government elite? It is already apparent that Ivy Leaguers like Al Gore, John Kerry, Barak Obama, Joe Kennedy et al feel free to drive their luxury cars and fly their luxury jets without any criticism while they berate the rest of us. I believe that in the future the Ivy Leaguers will present their diplomas at a government office and receive their exemption from all these regulations. Obama is rapidly building an aristocracy of corrupt and lying cretins who will live off the backs of American farmers and workers. I can hear the tumbrils rumbling in the distance.
The question is whether the elitists at the Harvards and Yales will be exempted from the cafe.
Goes without saying. It’s a precise parallel with Congress exempting itself from Obamacare. The central-planning insiders are already a semi-entrenched aristocracy with a staggering command of open and concealed grant funding to support their crusades, on top of their sinecures as public or NGO employees. Their status is hereditable – viz Chelsea Clinton, the Kennedy spawn, the Sulzberger clan, etc etc.
Land-use control by unelected planners has already made huge strides in corraling the lower orders in ‘densified’ urban rabbit-warrens, leaving themselves the option of leafy exurban estates made cheap by prohibitions against development outside the pale of settlement. Certainly they’ll need their Volvos, BMWs, and Mercedes to come and go at will on their important schedules, and they’ll have exemptions from CAFE just as Obama’s cronies have them from Obamacare.
The rural nobodies – the farmers who feed us – will be allowed one weekly trip to town on a sophisticated Chinese-made bus, after our environment-busting auto manufacturers have sensibly diverted their production to subsidized windmills.
And what about those of us who will not be able to afford to buy one of these wonder vehicles? What if we live in a large city (like Houston) that has many suburban communities but no extensive transit system? How will we get to work? Or will we be assigned a job in the area in which we live, whether we want to work there or not, and since salaries in the suburbs are lower, have to accept what we’re told to accept? Or will we be ORDERED to move into the city proper, with all its crime, crowding, higher living expenses, just to make some “central planner” happy? Someone thinks they were elected KING, but we plan to disabuse them of that belief in 2012.
“The ultimate issue is: where is the rational balance point between technology and policy? ”
Ask the Japanese.
AFAIK, neither Toyota nor Honda has ever had any trouble meeting American CAFE standards. Unlike the Detroit dinosaurs, neither company has ever protested that they couldn’t meet those standards. And neither company has expressed any worries about the new future standards.
Detroit isn’t suffering because of CAFE standards. They suffered (until recently) because foreign cars were more efficient and had higher quality and lasted longer on the road. Detroit got clobbered again and again by sticking with gas-guzzling clunkers with built-in metal fatigue, while consumers looked elsewhere.
Fortunately, Detroit is learning. Quality has improved dramatically, and technology is making it easier to improve fuel economy.
Did the US government tell the Japanese to make fuel efficient cars? Let the market decide not the central planners.
let me know how they tow 1500+ lbs (payload not total weight of trailer) when needed.
out in the woods here its either a larger car/trailer or 2 distinct vehicles.
“50 employees who have worked full-time on this issue for four years”
We would have been better served if all 50 of these people slit their wrists in the first day of the study and we only had to pay the life insurance pay out.
You bitter clingers…This is not about you or your life or your life’s work– it is about creating Eutopia on Earth. Your life’s work and the income you derive from it is being better used by the smartest people in the room to give us all the benefits of their advanced thinking.
For example, our distinguished Great Thinker, Transportation Secretary par excellence Ray LaHood is pushing his brain cells to the max, despite knowing that it will lead to his early demise, in order to save your bitter, clinging lives by disabling all cell phones you may attempt to use while in a vehicle. He knows you are not endowed with the brainpower to talk on a phone if you are the driver– or even as a passenger– of a moving vehicle. He toils for you, bitter clingers.
The Great Thinkers are sacrificing for you, and you mock them. Shame.
This is not about you or your life or your life’s work– it is about creating Eutopia on Earth.
I don’t know if you accidentally misspelled utopia (literally means “no place”) or were making a good sarcastic swipe at the European Union (EU) and our own “elites”, but EUtopia is what they’re trying to create. They want to make American into the EU where elections have no consequences and the self-proclaimed elite get to make all the decisions.
The purpose for the new CAFE standards is to get everyone into Chevy Volts–electric cars–by fiat; since Obama used an executive order, this is limited since Congress did not pass any bill. Congress needs to look into another Obama overreach.
Dream on… so far, just how many executive overreaches have Congress even looked into? Oh sure, there’s the Fast and Furious/Gunwalker scandal at ATF, now known to involve FBI and the WHite House. As far as I’ve seen, not one executive or agency policy has been reined in by the current congress. Do you REALLY THINK this one will?
There’ll be no reining in of the Executive branch until the Democrat majority evaporates from the Senate.
My husband uses a cane or a walker, eventually he will need a wheelchair. How do I fit that in a Smart Car or Volt. Can the ADA sue the government on discrimination.
This is yet another example of the duplicitous nature of Obama and his acolytes. The announced and ostensible purpose of anything they do is never the real motivation.
The real reason for creating exorbitant and ever-more-technically-impossible CAFE standards was summed up by Ray LaHood, Obama’s Secretary of Transportation, who stated that “My job is to coerce people out of their cars”- and onto mass transit.
Obama bragged about his “shovel-ready” highway projects- which turned out to be high-speed rail and bike paths, not highways or bridges. His dream world is one in which everyone rides a bike down to the station and catches the interurban- where they can be kept under constant “supervision”.
The CAFE standards only make sense if you understand that they will be used to ban vehicles from being sold, on grounds of not meeting the standards. Also consider that fuel-inefficient mass transit vehicles like buses either (1) will not be counted, or (2) will be used as a “fudge factor” to drive overall CAFE figures down, to force even higher MPG ratings on privately-owned vehicles. High enough that eventually, there will be no such thing as a non- mass transit vehicle, except for the favored few.
It is pointless to protest to The One that this will wreak havoc on our society, and economy. Because that’s the whole point. He doesn’t like either one, and sees CAFE as just one more club in his golf bag to beat us all over the head with.
In this case, he’s unlimbering his nine-iron.
clear ether
eon
CAFE standards do not apply to the fleet of actually sold cars. There is no CAFE compliance standard for cars actually in use. CAFE is a stick applied to manufacturers. To achieve CAFE compliance, car makers simply have to manufacture enough high-MPG cars to mathematically balance their low-MPG offerings. That’s why the UAW rep was at the CAFE announcement. Hundreds of small cars are built and never sold – they go straight to the crusher for recycling; but UAW employees were on the job to build them. BMW and Mercedes don’t even bother with CAFE. They write a check every year to cover the fine and accept that as a cost of doing business in the U.S. We buyers bear the cost of that, and with American car makers, the cost of building cars that are not needed for the market. Thanks again, Big Government.
Another problem with those hideous micro-econoboxes: They don’t fit tall people!
It’s just plain unsafe for a tall man to be driving a car with the seat slanted back to keep his head from bouncing on the headliner. And he can’t see the road properly because the windshield doesn’t go high enough. In order to get enough leg room, the driver’s seat has to be slid back so far that there’s no knee room in the rear seat at all.
My husband is tall. We have a full-size SUV. If those become illegal, we’ll emigrate, and that’s that.
I can’t envision the American public putting up with much more of this garbage.
They think only new technology can get good fuel mileage. I have a 1966 VW Beetle that with proper maintenance and driving habits gets MPGs in the mid 50s. Plus its has no electronics so if someone ever nukes us it will be one of the few things left running.
But your VW does not meet any safety and emission standards. It is just light.
Plus in the future, a car in the class of your VW will need to get 90MPG to compensate for bigger vehicles that get less than 54MPG.
Strange!! My 1964 Rambler American Station Wagon with a 196 ci engine and overdrive transmission clocked 35.3mpg on a trip from Redondo Beach California to Big Sur California in 1970 with wife and 5 preteen children and gasoline at 27 cents a gallon. What in the hell has happened to America. Oh I know, safety standards, smog standards (it passed all California smog tests at that time), other government bureaucratical interference to permit payoffs to their cronies in the industry.
To understand just how accurate this article is in its assessment of Obama’s intent, one simply needs to listen to Obama himself, especially his past statements as a Senator in the Illinois State Legislature, then as one of Illinois’ senators (for a mere two years), and most of all, presidential candidate Obama himself. Look up some of these statements on YouTube. Don’t believe conservative pundits. Believe your own ears when you hear the man himself state his intentions. Regarding CAFE standards, let’s place his unrealistic numbers — which WERE pretty much pulled out of a hat — in its proper context. He said…
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say that’s alright. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be okay. That’s not leadership.”
First of all, this says what anyone needs to know. Especially when juxtaposing this with his campaign tour around the world, which left many wondering if he was running for President of the United States or president of the world — he apologized for U.S. policies while visiting Afghanistan, then Germany, and then France saying “he’ll do better.” He made clear his opinion that we need to cut our energy usage for the sake of OTHER countries. Why? Because he believes what one of his mentors, Jeremiah Wright, had been preaching from his pulpit, that the USA is the root of all evil. That WE are somehow terrorists and need to change. Islamic fundamentalists don’t need to change. WE DO. Communists don’t need to change. WE DO.
And refering back to his statement on the campaign trail, we can see this remaking of our society is more than just reducing our use of energy — remember he’s admitted openly to wanting to shut down all use of coal as well. He goes off on a tangent criticizing us “eating all we want.” What is THAT all about? It’s simple. And it’s more than Michelle Obama’s program to fit obesity. It’s more than it’s context in energy usage — the more food we make, the more energy we use to produce it.
No, his actual intent — and one would understand this if they really paid attention to all his statements and actions — that we need to give away more food to the rest of the world. This is because of his world view, which is shared by most of his fellow Democrat Party Elites and a disturbing number of RINOs, such as Senator Richard Lugar. That is, we somehow OWE the rest of the world our wealth. And if he can’t force us to give it up, he’ll simply destroy it, and he’s well on his way to doing so with his overspending. It is designed to ensure we are no longer the leader of the world, but rather a simple cog in the wheel of a one world society.
That’s why he’s killed our space program. He’s slashed funding to NASA to nothing and has handed control of space to the Russians and the Chinese, who are getting ready to launch their first men into space. That’s why in his recent speech talking about cutting the budget he said, and I quote, “And we can begin by cutting hundreds of billions of dollars in defense spending.” Cutting the military is one thing, but he’s already doing what Clinton did in the 90s. He’s been hacking away at the intelligence budget.
Obama is simply Clinton on steriods and following the Democrat Party’s overall strategy, which is to neglect the federal government’s Constitutional responsibilities in nation defense and internation relations and commerce, and focusing on grabbing control over domestic society, controlling every aspect of our lives by micromanaging everything we can imagine.
THIS is the future of our nation if we don’t wake up and send these tyrannts packing in 2012.
This will hurt the poor and disabled. I am disabled BUT want nothing from this government.
But saying the mileage must go up means the cost of a vehicle also goes up. I have to drive an SUV not because I want to I have to due to my injury. I have a Toyota Highlander and I live in the mountains (it is cheaper here) I get 24-26 on the highway and most of my driving is highway. SO this a8ss is going to want me to buy a clown car that will make my life very difficult so he makes his tree huggers happy and has control of us.
While I agree and call him a marxist socialist communist the one thing I do not call him BUT will start is a FASCIST and he fits the word like a glove.
I hate and despise the small cars. Give me a Detroit Dinosaur any day of the week. I currently have a Dodge Durango, and plan to replace it with same. I have never felt safe in a small car. I have had 2 VW bugs (overseas) and I had a volvo “brick” here. Don’t trust them, don’t like them, don’t plan on ever having one unless it is given to me. Then I can sell it and get me a car that can actually pull a trailer.
If the EPA would lighten up on its restrictions and allow European Standard vehicles, especially Diesel, the goals may not be unattainable. But as it stands, Obama wants nothing but to ruin our country and the companies that have been American. EPA needs to be put out of business.
European Diesel econo-cars are significantly more expensive in Europe. Most of their mini cars cost in excess of $25,000.
A diesel engine is not cheap to produce.
This is all bullshit. The technology has been available for over 50 years to make cars more fuel efficient. There have been countless inventions from carburetors that will get upwards from 50 miles per gallon, to engines that run on water (hydrogen powered). It is the greed of the automakers and oil companies that continues this present course. The three key words in the above article are “MORE EXPENSIVE CARS”.
U. S. automakers already get what amounts to a small mortgage for their product, but, as with all people/stockholders, enough is never enough. They want more. The losers in this debacle, as with everything Washington does now, are the people of the United States. They are being lied to, and deceived in every aspect of life, but they are too stupid to see it. People will simply continue to play the new car game, and pay astronomical prices for their cars, trucks, and gas. Sad. I have not, in 20 years, bought a new vehicle, and I will never buy another one. The prices is simply too high.
Why should I pay 40,000 dollars for a vehicle, when a 4,000 dollar vehicle will suffice? No-brainer.