Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Accord Hybrid one of LA's Ten Great Cars of Year
Los Angeles is possibly the world's most materialistic city, especially when it comes to automobiles. That's why when I saw the article, The Class of 2004 Ten of the great cars of the year and the types of L.A. owners they might attract, by Dan Neil, I certainly didn't expect to see a hybrid vehicle.
Yet, of the 10, one was the Honda Accord Hybrid and another was a Mini-Cooper, most of the rest were extreme gas-guzzlers.
Still, I was happy that a story about cars and Los Angeles, written by a Los Angeles Auto writer, would include a hybrid, but the article went further than that. Mr. Neil opens his article mentioning America's relationship to the internal combustion engine, and that this year provided evidence that something better than the internal combustion engine was clearly possible.
More important, he noted $3.00 gas in California and said, "American foreign policy is bloodily fixated on a region of the world whose single strategic value is oil."
It's not just because of the cost of gasoline that people purchase vehicles such as the Toyota Prius, or Ford Escape Hybrid, it's because of the costs of our dependency upon foreign oil, in addition to the environmental costs.
For decades Americans have died in the Middle East protecting foreign-oil dependency, like some maddened, craving drug addict.
But if California can say, No More, what an impact on the rest of the Nation.
Further, Neil brings up global warming, Bush's acknowledgement of global warming, as well as California's fight for clean air. "But automakers, suing to stop California's new carbon-emission standards, are in greenhouse denial." Then he asks, "Whose air is it, anyway?"
"The future belongs to automakers who embrace change. Toyota surpassed Ford as the world's No. 2 automaker in 2004 and will likely overtake GM in 2005, when it will sell more than 100,000 hybrid cars in the U.S.".
As in denial as America has been about oil, especially foreign oil and its costs, dramatic world events are forcing Americans to wake up to this issue.
American auto corporations better do the same.
Yet, of the 10, one was the Honda Accord Hybrid and another was a Mini-Cooper, most of the rest were extreme gas-guzzlers.
Still, I was happy that a story about cars and Los Angeles, written by a Los Angeles Auto writer, would include a hybrid, but the article went further than that. Mr. Neil opens his article mentioning America's relationship to the internal combustion engine, and that this year provided evidence that something better than the internal combustion engine was clearly possible.
More important, he noted $3.00 gas in California and said, "American foreign policy is bloodily fixated on a region of the world whose single strategic value is oil."
It's not just because of the cost of gasoline that people purchase vehicles such as the Toyota Prius, or Ford Escape Hybrid, it's because of the costs of our dependency upon foreign oil, in addition to the environmental costs.
For decades Americans have died in the Middle East protecting foreign-oil dependency, like some maddened, craving drug addict.
But if California can say, No More, what an impact on the rest of the Nation.
Further, Neil brings up global warming, Bush's acknowledgement of global warming, as well as California's fight for clean air. "But automakers, suing to stop California's new carbon-emission standards, are in greenhouse denial." Then he asks, "Whose air is it, anyway?"
"The future belongs to automakers who embrace change. Toyota surpassed Ford as the world's No. 2 automaker in 2004 and will likely overtake GM in 2005, when it will sell more than 100,000 hybrid cars in the U.S.".
As in denial as America has been about oil, especially foreign oil and its costs, dramatic world events are forcing Americans to wake up to this issue.
American auto corporations better do the same.
# posted by Dahcredyns @ 9:12 AM 
