100 mpg

By the way, I filled up the scooter yesterday and determined it's efficiency- looks like we've been getting a cool 100 mpg.

The end of an era- let's hope

This in the news today-

WILMINGTON, Del. - General Motors is closing four truck and SUV plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, affecting 10,000 workers, as surging fuel prices hasten a dramatic shift to smaller vehicles.
CEO Rick Wagoner said Tuesday before the automaker’s annual meeting in Delaware the plants to be idled are in Oshawa, Ontario; Moraine, Ohio; Janesville, Wis.; and Toluca, Mexico. He also said the iconic Hummer brand will be reviewed and potentially sold or revamped. -AP

Looks like the demise of the SUV is well on its way. And with any luck the Hummer will go the way of the dinosaurs.

I saw gas at $3.99 today. I guess I was a bit conservative a few weeks back when I guessed that gas would hit $4 before the year was out... how about the month?

I'm loving the scooter. I took the wheel off today to get a new tire put on it so it'll pass safety. $20 for a tire is something I can live with, and there are only two of them!

$4.00 fill up

We picked up our little red scooter today and drove it home. It's so much more fun than a car; even at 45 I felt as though I was flying down the road. We went to the honda dealership and bought some nice helmets and goggles- safety first! It might be an added $130 expense, but it's better than hitting your head on some nice soft pavement. The scooter was low on gas, so we took it to the gas station, and topped her off with only $4.00 of gas. It keeps up with city traffic great, even with the two of us. One day is all it took- I'm a scooterist.

the elite form of travel

Newsweek has an article on what would happen if oil hit $200/barrel. Things sure would change, but we're ready- we just bought our insurance for the unsure energy future. It's a red 2006 Honda Elite 80. 90 mpg and way more fun than a car. Now we can zip around town using less than a third of the gas that my car uses. If only more people would do the same. Most of the cars on the road are only carrying one person and little or no cargo. Scooters are the way to go. How is it that Europe and Asia have been doing this for years, but in the US we insist on having three cars (or SUVs) in every driveway? And theres no excuse for city dwellers, where most places are only a few miles away. It feels good to escape from a bulky, inefficient automobile and it's expensive fuel.

my dream

With gas just under $4 per gallon in Utah, and higher than $4 in other places like California, some people are finally giving up their SUVs. CNN has some videos on line that show people trying to unload their luxury barges. Funny thing is, though, they're becoming hard to get rid of. Some dealers won't buy SUVs for any price because they know it will be hard to sell them. Owners are taking big losses, as it's not a seller's market anymore. After all, do you really want a vehicle that costs $100 to fill up? My dream is that one day dealerships will be full of brand new, and used, SUVs that just sit there, rusting. Customers now walk right past the rows and rows of primitive 10 mpg trucks and SUVs and go straight to the sleek, efficient Civics, Fits, Yaris, and Focus. The unsellable SUVs end up being stripped down to be delivery trucks or are sold for scrap. This, of course, is not far fetched at all. All it would take is $10 per gallon gas, and people would simply stop driving vehicles that cost $300 to fill up. The europeans have had expensive gas for years, which explains the VW beetles, mini coopers, fiats, and renaults.

I remember filling up my 95 escort for $12. That was eight years ago, back when I could find gas for 99 cents per gallon. How times have changed! I told my wife that I bet gas here in Utah will hit $4.00 before the years is out, and I wouldn't be suprised if it hit that before summer is over. And what are the chances of prices going down significantly? As long as OPEC keeps a strangle hold on petroleum, there's not much of an incentive to bring prices down. I laughed out loud when Hillary Clinton promised to get tough on OPEC, saying she would use anti-trust laws to bring the cartel to justice. Excuse me? This is probably the dumbest idea I've heard during this whole campaign! Do enormously wealthy oil shieks care one bit about our anti-trust laws? What are we going to do, slap them with a hefty fine? Please, Hillary, no one is buying your false populist rhetoric. Anyways, I digress.
I mentioned my old 95 escort because as my first car, it taught me a lot about my place in America's car culture. I could wring 40 miles to the gallon from that little car, and it reliably took me from place to place. That's what a vehicle is for, after all. It taught me that utility is more valuable than fashion, and economy is better than style. I guess that's not saying much, since the escort was in no way fashionable or stylish, but my point is that I learned at a young age what role the automobile should play in one's life. Though I have learned this, it appears that much of the US hasn't, judging from the legions of extravagant SUVs and trucks that clog our roads. Excursions and F-350s belch out thick, oily smoke as they shuttle their lone driver to and from the grocery store. Hummers and Suburbans soak up gallons of gasoline in an expensive display of conspicuous consumption. SUVs and trucks are the bane of our transportation system. Inefficient, oversized, and in many cases, outright dangerous, these behemoths represent several huge steps backward in transportation technology.