Back to Basics

The automobile industry and the labor unions have caused the problems they face today.  They have been on a free ride for years, taking advantage of the American consumers, and it finally backfired on them.  Mismanagement, gasoline prices, government regulations, labor costs and an apathetic attitude have all contributed to their failures.  The taxpayers should never have been held responsible for their actions.  This is unconstitutional, but no one in our federal government seems to be awake.  Is anybody home?

Gasoline prices are one of the problems.  Guess what, this is nothing new!  Back in the 1970’s gas prices started rising to a whopping 50 cents a gallon.  People were outraged.  Speculation was that if gas went over $1 a gallon people just wouldn’t be able to afford to drive any more.  My husband owned a foreign car at that time that got 45 mpg.  It was nothing special, just your basic automobile.  You can’t find cars today that can produce that kind of mileage.  We also purchased a new car – a 1975 Pontiac Trans Am equipped with the V8 400 engine.  One of the less efficient cars of the time, it only got 20 mpg.  Wow, a muscle car that actually beats many of the vehicles today in gas mileage standards.  So, back in the 70’s with the impending doom of higher gas prices, nothing was done to combat the issue.

In the 1980’s gas prices again became an issue.  American cars just weren’t providing the gas mileage consumers wanted so they turned to foreign imports.  Foreign cars were not something I had ever imagined owning, I always stuck with American products.  But in trying to find a car that would get better gas mileage the foreign cars provided something American cars could not.  We found a Datsun that could get 35-40 mpg, and as a second car found a Mazda that got 30 mpg.  Gas prices during this era would rise and fall even dipping below the $1/gallon mark.  It was still a concern of the American public, but nothing was being done by the automobile industry to address the issue.

Back in the 1990’s my daughter joined the electric car club in high school.  These high school students created alternative fuel vehicles and had yearly competitions between schools to see whose car was the best.  These students were able to design and build cars that ran off alternative fuels.  With limited resources they were able to succeed.  But their efforts didn’t impact the auto industry and gas prices continued to rise.

Occasionally you would hear of alternative fuel vehicles on the market.  Most were very restricted in marketing and often only available to government agencies or only on lease agreements.  They were never made readily available to the public.  One big problem with these alternative fuel vehicles is that they took the gasoline version and then converted it to an alternative fuel.  This made the car cost prohibited, because you not only were paying for the original car but all the additions to convert it.  Other manufacturing changes came along, like going from carbureted engines to fuel injection.  Emissions played a factor in the changes, and not always on the positive side of the mileage factor.  Yet no real alternatives had been produced.