Hybrid-Electric Cars in Austin

Austin-American Statesman: City rallies around futuristic car

By Stephen Scheibal

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

It is something like a capitalist's dream: Citizens petitioning to buy a product, governments setting aside money to help them pay for it, business leaders talking about the economic benefits, environmentalists proclaiming the earth's gratitude for every purchase.

Well, it may be more accurate to say Mr. Scheibal is ignorant of capitalism, but the editors did approve of the story...

I'm at odds with a great deal of this article.

This lede is only correct if you assume a capitalist is someone who wants to take money stolen from other people to finance the capitalist's operations. Granted, today there are far too many businessmen like that, but that does not excuse this mischaracterization.

There was, perhaps, only one problem with the mass shopping spree that Austin officials imagined with great fanfare at City Hall on Monday: The product doesn't, per se, exist.

City Hall is one of those places where imagination is supposed to replace reality, buddy. Existence is one of those damn things laws, regulation, and mandates are designed to overturn.

The invention is known as a plug-in hybrid vehicle. It is a car that runs largely off a battery, switching to gasoline as electricity runs low. DaimlerChrysler AG expects to deliver the first such vehicles to Austin and other cities next year.

The vehicles partially replace gas pumps with electrical sockets. Owners plug their cars into a wall outlet, recharging the battery with the energy that fuels their refrigerators and air conditioners. According to the city, 70 to 80 cents on a power bill would provide as much energy as a $2.50 gallon of gas.

Plug-in hybrids could go 35 miles or more without burning gasoline and potentially cut the nation's gasoline use by 70 percent, city officials said.

Hey, neat idea. I've got no beef with a diversification of propulsion systems for transportation. I'm skeptical of those last figures, but they are estimates and actual customers would weight the costs and benefits of this new mode of mobility for themselves, deciding independently whether it's worth the change.

The city wants to promote both the supply and demand of plug-in hybrids. Mayor Will Wynn and other officials launched the campaign before more than 100 people Monday.

Wynn declared that Austin Energy, the city-owned electric utility, eventually plans to provide $1 million to help people and entities buy the vehicles. He also said Austin and other local governments will commit to adding plug-in hybrids to various auto fleets.

And area officials and community leaders contributed the first signatures to a petition encouraging automakers to produce more plug-in hybrids.

Oh. So Austinites won't be weighting the actual costs and benefits of the new vehicles. The system will be riddled with subsidies, government-created incentives, and other market manipulation. Remove them, and the artificial demand and supply falter or collapse.

Wynn said the drive will only begin in Austin, saying he expects other cities to sign on as well. He said the technology promises to lessen the nation's dependence on foreign oil, cut down on gasoline bills and improve air quality.

"The benefits are across the board," Wynn said. "What we need are a lot of partners."

You are not the proper authority to determine what benefits me, Mr. Wynn. I didn't vote for you and you do not represent me or my interests.

Furthermore, do you know what a "partner" is? A partner is someone who willingly associates with you to collaboratively work towards some goal. It is hypocritical to preen on camera for partners and then go back to the office to push the rest of the city around.

The announcement came 10 days before Central Texas gets its most direct lesson ever about the importance of clean-burning vehicles. Beginning Sept. 1, cars and trucks in Travis and Williamson counties will have to pass an emissions test to earn inspection stickers, a change the region has accepted as part of a federally approved plan to improve air quality.

I'm part of "the region" under discussion here. I didn't accept shit.

And I'll tell you what this "direct lesson" means: it means one more layer of control and threat over individuals and their property. It means getting bothered by the cops at their leisure to get inspected. It means dealing with the court system for a non-crime. It means potentially losing your vehicle, facing paycheck-crushing fines, and jail time. Ultimately, it means being ordered by the police at gunpoint to obey.

This is a "direct lesson" in nothing but the extent of authoritarianism in this country. Do you think this additional inspection hurdle will go away if the air clears? I have my doubts.

Environmentalists such as Brandi Clark, co-chairwoman of the Austin Sustainable Business Council, said the plug-in hybrids initiative could be a watershed effort to clean up Central Texas' air and a boon to consumers plagued by high gas prices.

One of the greatest contributors to crappy air quality are internal combustion engines sitting or crawling in traffic. What causes traffic? Accidents and lane closures, to be sure, but primarily too many cars on a stretch of road at a given time. The capacity of the roadways is strictly limited...but the desire to use them is not nearly so. Why is this? Because "roads are free!" is the dominant mentality of so many people.

You want to cut down on pollution created by cars dicking around at idle? Privatize the road system (PDF) and open it up to the pressures and incentives of a free market. Once individuals are exposed to the market costs of driving on roadways, they'll adjust their schedules and habits to make the best use of their resources. This is not the same as public roads paid for with a mixture of taxes and toll roads!

And regarding high gas prices, you want instant relief?

Lop off those fucking gasoline taxes! The American Petroleum Institute says in STATE MOTOR FUEL EXCISE TAX RATES (PDF) that Texans are forced to pay 20 cents in taxes for gasoline and diesel taxes. They've been that high since at least 2002. According to Wikipedia research, the federal gas tax is more than 18 cents. That's $0.38 per gallon of price relief right there if they were eliminated. As of 10:15am today, that means a price drop from $2.59 - $2.37 per gallon down to $2.21 - $1.99 per gallon. The average price of a gallon in Austin is $2.494 and without those taxes it would drop to $2.114, bringing average prices back to where they were a month ago.

No, this wouldn't address the underlying forces screwing with oil, gasoline, and diesel prices. But it reveals the lie in all this "we can't do much about prices" bullshit.

Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce Chairman Kirk Watson said the launch was a "historic moment," reinforcing Austin's position as a center of environmentally friendly technology while allowing taxpayers and rate-payers — not overseas oil interests — to benefit from the area's transportation spending.

The former Austin mayor heads an organization, that, if it lived up to the meaning in it's name, would stand unequivocally against any government initiative to tamper with free markets. Instead, it endorses them. You'd at least hope a chamber of "commerce" would realize the danger in the idea that the people involved in economic transactions should not be the ones to benefit from those exchanges. Because once you've made that sanction, you lose a great deal of intellectual credit when someone steps up to demand it happen when "excess profits" are made in other markets.

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, said the vehicles could help the nation avoid oil-driven entanglements overseas.

"It's a national security issue," Doggett said of the initiative. "The only way that we will get change is by things like we're doing this morning."

Copyright 2001-2005 Cox Texas Newspapers, L.P. All rights reserved.

Lloyd Doggett: a man unafraid to proudly use a false dichotomy to call for greater coerced socialization of individuals and their property.

The City of Austin's press release has more.

The appeal of plug-in vehicles is underscored by the fact that 78 percent of Americans live within 20 miles of their jobs. A battery pack sufficient to power a vehicle a distance of 35 miles on a charge would mean a majority of Americans would likely need to fill up with gasoline only once or twice a month.

Sure, yeah, define it down to that level. It's all about what we "need" to live! All this irrational over consumption and overcapacity has just got to stop.

In addition, an “electric” gallon of gas would cost 70 to 80 cents at prevailing electric rates. A plug-in hybrid that gets 30 miles on a gallon of $2.55-national-average gasoline could travel more than 100 miles on $2.55 worth of “electric” gallons of energy.

Nowhere in either this press release or the AAS article above does anyone raise a salient point: what happens when the demand for electricity goes up after people switch to these cars? What happens when power generating entities want to generate more electricity to meet the demand, either by running plants longer or building new facilities? What about the pollution problems created by this extra capacity coming on-line? What about the inevitable Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) bitching when more and bigger electric lines need to be installed? What about the heavier strain on the grid that would occur during summer as Americans blast the A/C and charge their cars?

Zero. Move along. Puff-pieces and propaganda like this are not the place for criticism! This is the time for a positive vision of community involvement and accomplishment! This is the place for moving forward into the future! Your selfishness obscures our plans! It's for the gawddamn children, man!

*sigh*

You know what sucks about all this? I'd like to try a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) and give one a spin. I'd like to drive something that costs less to operate. I'd like a car that drives quieter and (probably) weighs less. I think it'd be awesome to see hundreds of little recharge stations pop up everywhere so individuals could offer their own electricity to others for a price. I don't like pollution. Despite my male hormones, I don't like burning hot and greasy maintenance jobs. I want the theocratic tyrants in the Middle East to stop profiting from our transportation habits. I don't endorse the current way things are done.

But as long as politicians, corrupted businessmen, and environmentalist nanny-staters keep pushing for the improper means to good ends, I'll take what we have now.

Posted by Drizzten at August 23, 2005 10:55 AM