Raise the Hammer

As driving gets more expensive it also gets less affordable, and that means an abundance of cheap used cars. Will new, greener cars be able to compete with these if they're more expensive than standard new cars now?

Most of the energy use and pollution produced by a car happens before you buy it. Extracting ores, smelting metals and running production lines emits more carbon than you're ever likely to manage with the tailpipe. Buying a new car, even if it's fuelled by happiness, cuddles and sunshine is not a "greener" option if there's any life left in your current vehicle.

This isn't to say we shouldn't work towards cleaner cars, but we need to put it in context. As important as new "greener" cars are, there's also the need to look at our existing vehicles. How do we use them more effectively? Car shares and carpooling networks are a good start, as well as maintaining and upgrading the cars we already have.

Buying a new car, even if it's fuelled by happiness, cuddles and sunshine...

LMAO

Beautiful! Thanks for that.

"Most of the energy use and pollution produced by a car happens before you buy it. Extracting ores, smelting metals and running production lines emits more carbon than you're ever likely to manage with the tailpipe"

not disagreeing with you, but I'm wondering if this is a researched fact. I often hear of the idea of 'embedded energy" but never see it quantified. In the case of a car, I'd be surprised that the unit energy cost of producing a car is greater than the energy savings over its lifetime if an alternative is twice as efficient.

^Quite. The U.S. has been the largest consumer of gasoline as a result of poor planning and an extreme aversion to conservation. However, Khazoom-Brookes posutlate tell us that as fuel efficiency improves, we paradoxically consume more fuel. The average U.S. driver once drove 9000 miles/annum, and after years of slow improvement to fuel efficiency, that number crept up to 12 000 miles/a.

What vehicles with twice the mileage are produced in China, Japan and Europe that are not available here? It is not a matter of the vehicles not being available but consumers not buying them. It may take legislation removing SUV's from the market to stop people from buying them.

I suspect in 15 years the electric car movement will be a much bigger market force.

To add to the above comments (which are very much appreciated), Canadians have steadily purchased more fuel over the last 5-years (with a small decline in 2008). Here are the numbers according to StatsCan: 2006: 38.65 billion litres 2007: 39.63 billion litres 2008: 39.15 billion litres 2009: 39.71 billion litres 2010: 40.56 billion litres

With the recent changes in legislation requiring all Provinces to have at least 5% of fuel sold contain renewable fuel content, the net result means that Canadians will have to visit the gas station more often. While the addition of renewable fuels to gas reduces greenhouse gas emissions, the fuel economy deteriorates resulting in more fill-ups. Using data like the above may not necessarily mean that we are driving more, but rather just consuming more...

While I don't necessarily disagree with Ryan's "simply to drive less" approach, I think the better phrase would be to "drive more responsibly". As a person who's business demands require me to drive almost daily, I would rather have a vehicle which attains double my mileage and reduces its impact on the environment. Based on the current pushback from the automobile manufacturers, I'll likely be in my retirement years before I'll be able to get behind the wheel of one of those vehicles (affordably)!

The only way that the car buying public as a whole is going to switch to smaller vehicles is if the price of gas goes up significantly.

Unfortunately, no politician is willing to sacrifice their career by doing so.

Until then manufacturers can modify pricing to encourage people to buy the smaller vehicles but there isn't a lot else that they can do.

That being said, fuel economy isn't really a concern for me when I buy my vehicle. I'm looking for practicality and fun factor, not necessarily in that order.

I think many people end up buying larger vehicles because they need them on occasion and the fixed costs of ownership (licensing, insurance, road taxes, etc.) don't change regardless of how much, or how little, one's wheels are actually used. For instance, I would love to have a Smart car for running urban errands and a minivan for camping trips or taking kids to soccer games. Unfortunately, this would mean my insurance rates would double, even if only one vehicle were ever used at a time (there are two registered drivers in our family and, apparently, this makes a difference). Allow people to pay, across the board, for the amount of use a vehicle gets, rather than rates that don't change regardless of the kilometres driven, and I think you'd see a change in buying patterns and driving habits pretty quick. If there's one tool in the toolbox, it'll be a hammer, not a set of screwdrivers suited to their tasks.