March 31, 2006--Friday Fanaticisms XXVIII--Zero to Sixty
Fanaticism takes many forms from religious excess to an obsession with the soccer team Manchester United. And, it appears, it can also express itself in a devotion to fast cars. So much so that American automakers, in spite of oil-man George Bush's warning that we are "addicted to oil," are leaving the fuel-efficient car niche to the Japanese while rampaging ahead to develop and produce even more powerful gas-guzzlers for those of us who, in the words of the NY Times, "like the extra zoom" (see full article below).
It's all about going from zero to sixty in less than ten seconds. (Though where one might do that I do not know as our roads become more and more gridlocked.
Gasoline hovers near $2.50 per gallon, there is incontrovertible evidence that burning fossil fuel is a major contributor to global warming, the number of cars world wide has doubled since 1985 and is expected to double again during the next 15 years as India’s and China’s economies expand, the Japanese auto manufactures are building and selling so many high quality and hybrid cars and partly as a result GM is on the brink of bankruptcy (offering every single one of their hourly workers early-retirement buyouts), and what do the American manufacturers do in response to all of this—they ignore building fuel-efficient cars because they feel Americans are still power and acceleration crazed.
And they have some evidence that this approach to the market is working—Cadillac, which languished for years with its stuffy image that it was a car for old fogies, resurrected itself by producing hot models such as the STS-V which go from zero to sixty in less than five seconds. It is now so popular that at the recent Grammy Awards show, half the Rappers showed up in them.
But overall, Ford, and Chrysler as well as GM have continued to lose market share to Toyota and Honda, to the point where the Big Three are beginning to resemble the Three Dwarfs Sleepy, Dopey, and Grumpy.
So dopey that when asked by the Times about why they have foregone efficiency for size and speed they say that scientists must find ways to deal with the environment by coming up with “fundamental changes . . . to replace oil and gas.”
Well yes. But in the meantime, while they work on solving that problem, since Americans want their muscle cars and do not want to sacrifice anything, gas her up and put the pedal to the metal.
It's all about going from zero to sixty in less than ten seconds. (Though where one might do that I do not know as our roads become more and more gridlocked.
Gasoline hovers near $2.50 per gallon, there is incontrovertible evidence that burning fossil fuel is a major contributor to global warming, the number of cars world wide has doubled since 1985 and is expected to double again during the next 15 years as India’s and China’s economies expand, the Japanese auto manufactures are building and selling so many high quality and hybrid cars and partly as a result GM is on the brink of bankruptcy (offering every single one of their hourly workers early-retirement buyouts), and what do the American manufacturers do in response to all of this—they ignore building fuel-efficient cars because they feel Americans are still power and acceleration crazed.
And they have some evidence that this approach to the market is working—Cadillac, which languished for years with its stuffy image that it was a car for old fogies, resurrected itself by producing hot models such as the STS-V which go from zero to sixty in less than five seconds. It is now so popular that at the recent Grammy Awards show, half the Rappers showed up in them.
But overall, Ford, and Chrysler as well as GM have continued to lose market share to Toyota and Honda, to the point where the Big Three are beginning to resemble the Three Dwarfs Sleepy, Dopey, and Grumpy.
So dopey that when asked by the Times about why they have foregone efficiency for size and speed they say that scientists must find ways to deal with the environment by coming up with “fundamental changes . . . to replace oil and gas.”
Well yes. But in the meantime, while they work on solving that problem, since Americans want their muscle cars and do not want to sacrifice anything, gas her up and put the pedal to the metal.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
3:44 PM
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