Oldsmobile Ohm

I enjoy criticizing both political parties in this hallowed nation. I criticize...and vote third party. Always. This way, I can never be held accountable for voting in some Republican or cretinous Democrat; I vote third party to never have to worry about what my actions might have done to wreck the nation. It's the equivalent of having not voted at all, and I sleep quite well at night.

Which supports my positions regarding the two major parties quite aptly. I am a personal fiscal conservative, yes, but I cannot support a Republican party hijacked by moronic Christian religionists. I am a dyed in the wool liberal with respect to social policies, but cannot support unfettered "tax the rich" and massive government programs that perpetuate an entitlement state.

I vote third party, along the platforms that most represent the bulk of my interests, and while these represent unelectable candidates at the moment, perhaps they might someday. I'm not holding my breath.

I mention this, because recently we've been subjected to a new 54.5 MPG standard for automobiling by 2025. Not immediately, no, but over time. In fact, over fourteen years -- by the time I'm a decade from retirement fourteen years from now, the standard will require hybridization and all electric fleets to meet the standard. It's not as if we will build a better ICE engine; no, that will slightly improve, yes, but the CAFE standards will be met by allowing a sixth generation 18MPG Yukon to be offset by an all electric Oldsmobile Ohm, or a Chrysler Couloumb, or a Mercury Mho, or a Suzuki Siemen, or a Hyundai Hertz, or a Jianghuai Joule, or an AvtoVAX Ampere, or a Mitsubishi Maxwell, or a Geeley Gauss, or a GMC Weber, or a Volkswagen Watt, or some other predictable, greenish, electric-ish name.

In the same way that the carbureted engine simply couldn't match the performance characteristics of fuel injection, ICE engines will concede to electrics...in my little opinion. I just hope, really, that we don't have to suffer through shitty worksmanship and piss-poor production, that we'll have the ability to buy a car that will last twenty years of mild use and get better mileage.


The thing to remember is that increased efficiencies will not, I repeat will not, lead to less foreign energy consumption. It will only result in more energy use. Only more. If American families will save $8,200 on fuel as touted by the Obama press release, please note that each family will simply go out and buy another fucking vehicle with that savings, so Billy and Martha, both teenagers in the same middle-class suburban familial unit, won't have to share one vehicle but will instead have one each. This is what efficiency gains give us -- more energy use and a "better" standard of living, per the metrics used to gauge such things in this consumeristic nation of ours. Take note -- increased efficiencies have only ever, ever!, led to more energy use...never less.

Because Billy and Martha have never lived in a community where the family vehicular unit(s) weren't requred for every facet of living, from mailing a letter to a treat at Baskin Robbins, they will never be able to live without one or two or three of their own, and yet we tout "MPG efficiencies" as somehow decreasing our reliance on foreign energy.

This is among the biggest lies of them all...but one that's been told by every president since Nixon, but it's no longer a lie if even the constituents believe it, is it? Our dependence on foreign oil has only increased every year since. Our dependence on foreign manufacturing has only increased every year, too. Our dependence on foreign nations purchasing our debts has only increased every year as well.

The Oldsmobile Ohm won't, I repeat, won't reduce our dependence on oil.