Putting my money
where my Liberal-Democrat mouth is

I kept my last car one year too long. Repairs were piling up and they were expensive: a complete set of brake rotors, pads, and calipers; new fuel tank; new radiator; remanufactured distributor... The passenger-side power window had been broken (closed) for a year. A rust spot was getting much worse. A leak somewhere caused rain water to pool in the ventilation system, and pour out one of the ducts on the passenger side. Drip.... drip... drip.... It was time to replace the aging car.

My last two cars were sporty, 5-speed, Japanese hatchbacks (“three doors”) with A/C, cruise control, and other amenities. Both were bought used within the factory-warranty period. I figured I would buy more or less the same when purchasing the next car.

Then I read in July 2003 that the back seats flip down in the 2004 Toyota Prius. While the Prius is a mid-sized 4-door with a hatch-like back, dropping the back seats would give the car the storage space and access of a full-fledge hatchback for those few times I buy an 8- or 10-foot board, a sheet of plywood, or throw my skis or bicycle in the car.

Better, the Prius is a hybrid. However, for the cachet of buying a hybrid and a new car, I’d be paying an extra $6,000 or so. Here’s why I decided the Prius hybrid was worth the extra bucks.

First, I happen to believe in energy conservation, in efficiency, in eliminating waste wherever it appears. That might be because I’ve been writing about just-in-time (JIT), lean manufacturing, statistical process control (SPC), and related production and business management philosophies for the past twenty years. Maybe it’s the latent (frustrated) engineer in me. In any case, it just makes sense to me to have things operate efficiently. Such as cars.

Ironically, the current manifestation of capitalism essentially profits from—one could say “capitalizes on”—the production of waste. I contend it’s wise to curb the grossest examples of waste. On a societal level, that waste sucks up money. On a personal level, I hate subsidizing waste. I hate paying for unnecessary things, including the latest consumer electronic geegaw, “revised” bloatware (a k a software updates), the extra channels on cable TV, the entire middle-management paper-pushing operations in medical insurance (namely, HMOs), etc. So, if my car gets higher gas mileage on the road, that means overall I’ll pay less for gas at the pump.

Third, I have enough gray hairs to remember back to December 1973, waiting in line in my father’s Ford station wagon to fill up the gas tank. This “great nation” shouldn’t have to go through that again. In fact, no nation should have to.

However, since that winter, the three domestic automakers have chosen to spend millions and millions of dollars lobbying against legislation to improve gas mileage—rather than putting that very same money toward research and development in creating a working, marketable, efficient car. Such as full gas-electric hybrid vehicles, which are here today. Note: Hybrid vehicles merely postpone the inevitable: replacing, or at least minimizing, the world’s reliance on internal combustion engines and fossil fuels.

(As of this writing, March 2004, cars based on hydrogen fuel cells are ten years out, at least. The jury is still out about whether there will be a net gain or loss in that technology’s production of pollution. It takes gobs of electricity to produce hydrogen, electricity from power plants. Switching from gas- to hydrogen-powered cars merely moves the pollution source. Plus there are the infrastructural/political issues: Converting existing gasoline stations to include hydrogen supplies isn’t as easy as converting gas stations a while back to provide both leaded and unleaded gas, now strictly unleaded. This parenthetical explanation is simplistic, but it’s not been fully explained to the voting public by the scientific-averse, mathematically challenged Shrub-Dicky administration. But I digress....)

Since 1972, Congress has done precious little to nothing at all to mandate, or otherwise convince, Americans and American industry that conservation is a good idea. Frankly, I find that attitude offensive to the point of being unpatriotic—regardless of whom we’re talking about: automakers, Congress, or the President and Vice President (current and past) of the United States. To not invest in the health and well-being of this nation’s environment—as well as its citizens and the world in general—and to not reduce all the inefficiencies in maintaining the literal pipeline from remote gas fields to individual cars is shameful.

(Along those lines, “in my humble opinion,” SUVs are not an incremental improvement in car technology. “Incremental improvement” is another one of those manufacturing-efficiency concepts/strategy.)

For those Republicans (and Democrats), Conservatives, Libertarians, et al, afraid of excessive government regulations and the suggestion that government might want to mandate goals for the automotive industry with respect to fuel economy, consider this: The government already mandates speed limits, expressed as miles per hour, for your safety, the safety of your children, and the safety of the people around you. Mandatory, improved fuel economy, expressed in miles per gallon, is merely an extension of that concept: It would help reduce pollution for your safety, the safety of your children, and the safety of the people around you. This would be for the safety of our—the global—environment. (Such nationwide/industry goals would also force efficiencies into a system that sucks/wastes gasoline, which has both individual and national economic consequences, mostly favorable. These efficiencies apply not only to personal vehicles, but also to the entire supply chain for delivering gas from oil fields to gas tank.)

So, needing a car to replace my aging car, wanting to satisfy my engineering curiosity, wishing to help the environment, being fed up with politics and capitalism gone awry, and while waiting for Detroit to come up with a hybrid, especially a gas-stingy hybrid, I decided to follow yesteryear’s patriotic “Buy American” bandwagon. I bought an American import: The 2004 Toyota Prius.

The Prius—hybrids in general—intrigue me: politically, financially, and, frankly, technologically. Yet, the only reason I’m willing to buy a hybrid now is because, finally, one is available that is large enough with back seats that fold down. It’s time for me to make quite visible “the invisible hand” of capitalism to better my world and the world around me. Namely, put my money where my mouth is.

For my overview about the car itself, click here.

For articles about the Prius (and the Honda Civic hybrid), click here.