Obama: It's a gas, gas, gas

Jan. 1, 2020
Some of your shop customers are in a bit of a panic over their future. They see the vehicles they work on becoming increasingly more complex, which means they need to know more and to spend more on tools and equipment.

Some of your shop customers are in a bit of a panic over their future. They see the vehicles they work on becoming increasingly more complex, which means they need to know more and to spend more on tools and equipment.

An even greater concern may be the multitude of vehicles that carmakers are introducing. You know the drill - hybrids, biofuel vehicles, clean burning diesels and electric vehicles (EVs). Every carmaker either is launching one or more alternative vehicles, or has them in the works for future launches.

But your shop customers can take a deep breath. As much ballyhoo that’s being made about Jetson-like technologies, the combustion engine model is going to continue to rule the market for some time to come. What about hydrogen-powered vehicles, you ask? It’s another technology that we will continue to read about in Popular Mechanics at the barbershop rather than see in any dealer’s new car showroom.

If you need “evidence” about this, look no further than the actions of President Obama. His proposal to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling pretty much negates the stricter fuel efficiency standards he previously introduced. I believe the president had some sort of epiphany beyond just trying to play the “Middle Ground” game with his Republican rivals. Say what you will, but I believe it goes deeper than that. In retrospect, I think he realizes the process of getting consumers out of their gasoline-powered vehicles isn’t going to be easy and that he better make sure that there is enough fuel to keep America’s vehicles running at relatively cheap prices. With all of the other economic woes he is faced with, the one thing he doesn’t need is even the hint of long gasoline lines. Just ask one-termer Jimmy Carter.

Even though technology is squeezing every ounce of fuel efficiency out of the combustion engine, the only way for car manufacturers to meet the harsher fuel efficiency standards will be to sell a significant amount of alternative fuel vehicles that can be averaged into their fleets. And that’s just not going to happen to any great extent. As good of an idea it is, consumers are less likely today than they were just a year ago to choose some of the alternative vehicles.

There is one simple reason for this: For the most part, consumers are looking to pay less, not more for a vehicle. A hybrid or EV may save them money over the long term, but when dollars are tight – and they’re going to remain tight for some time – they can’t justify buying an alternative vehicle and certainly not for the sake of being “green.”

When it comes to EVs, there’s even less consumer interest because hey will cost significantly more than gasoline-powered vehicles. For example, the Chevy Volt will cost about $40,000 and even with some bold incentives from GM and the government, it still will cost too much. And if the cost doesn’t squash interest, the amount of time to recharge these vehicles, as well as the lack of infrastructure to fuel these vehicles will. It wouldn’t be fair to regard the Volt and others to come as “experimental,” but it will be many years before we can utter the name Volt and mainstream in the same sentence.

Basically, all of the talk about new vehicle technologies will turn out to be just talk. The people who have the money and are motivated to buy green vehicles will remain low for the next ten years. As they gain in popularity, their prices will slowly come down but ever so slowly. Most people will probably have a 3-D TV before they buy a green car.

Other than California, there may not be enough green vehicles on the road to warrant shops specializing in their repairs. For the most part, shops across the America will be set if they just stay current on gasoline-powered engine technologies. You can thank the president for that, whether or not you think that was his intention. Who would have thought that Mr. Obama would have turned out to be an aftermarket guy after all?

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