Crumbling Infrastructure Porn: Drivers Pay "Secret" Road Tax In $15 Billion For Car Repair

The days of Happy Motoring, as Jim Kunstler is fond of calling it, may be drawing to a close. Here is Bloomberg with the details:

Gil Giro doesn’t need a license plate to tell where a car is from -- he just looks underneath the chassis.

“Every time we see a car that comes in from the district, you can see that its suspension is torn up,” said Giro, the owner of Gili’s Automotive in Rockville, Maryland, outside Washington. “It’s almost like the vehicle has been driven off- road.”

The nation’s capital isn’t alone in offering motorists teeth-rattling rides as U.S. lawmakers tussle over how to pay the bill for mending battered roads. Mechanics such as Giro say they see the hidden tax car owners pay every day in torn tires, misaligned front ends and bent axles.

Drivers won’t get relief anytime soon.

The U.S. Highway Trust Fund, which helps pay for road and transit projects in Washington and all 50 states, has been bailed out by Congress three times since 2008 for a total of $34.5 billion. The gasoline tax that supports the fund hasn’t been raised in 19 years, and with the cost of materials such as steel and asphalt on the rise, the fund is expected to have a deficit of about $10 billion this year.

Car owners already are shelling out far more than that to repair damage done to their vehicles by America’s ruined streets and highways, industry and academic researchers say.

Motorists pay $67 billion annually for increased fuel consumption, body dents, worn tires and premature wear wrought by pitted roads, according to The Road Information Program, a Washington-based research group. The group’s board includes representatives from construction-equipment makers Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) and Deere & Co. (DE), as well as Vulcan Materials Co. (VMC), a Birmingham, Alabama-based asphalt and concrete producer.

That works out to $324 per licensed driver, says Frank Moretti, TRIP’s director of policy and research. The figure is an average of all vehicles and can vary widely between cars and large commercial trucks, which are prone to costlier damage, he says.

Karim Chatti, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan State University in East Lansing, estimates that damage linked to poor roads probably runs between $15 to $25 billion annually for car owners, not including tire damage and fuel-efficiency costs.

As a denizen of the DC-area, I can attest to how crappy the roads are around here. And this is happening in a part of the country where local tax revenues are still fairly robust because of federal government spending. I can't imagine what it must be like in some of the less well off locales. It's now a race to see what will destroy our automobile-centric economy first, high oil and gasoline prices, or our crumbling highways.


Bonus: Some Drivin'n'Cryin' seemed appropriate here

Automaker Bailout Porn: Eight of Ten "Worst Built" Cars Are From GM And Chrysler

Another facepalm moment. However many jobs the automobile manufacturer bailouts may have (temporarily) saved, using taxpayer money to salvage dinosaur companies GM and Chrysler, those titans of the now ending cheap oil era, was extremely short sighted public policy. Anyone who understands the implications of peak oil and resource depletion knows that the automakers' business model is doomed. It's just a matter of how many times our insolvent federal government will be willing to keep bailing them out before finally conceding to reality.

Of course, GM and Chrysler don't do themselves any favors by continuing to build crappy cars, but according to Consumer Reports, that's what they are still doing. Here is Forbes with the story of the CR's 10 Worst Built Cars of 2012:

...we poured over the latest data from Consumer Reports’ 2012 Annual Auto Issue to identify which models, based on a convergence of objective test results, could be considered the 10 Worst Built Cars for 2012. (See the accompanying slide show for the complete rogues’ gallery and selection criteria.)

We started by examining CR’s road test ratings and isolated the models that were ranked at or near the bottom, as noted by an aggregate score under 50. Overall ratings are based on more than 50 individual tests and evaluations, and are presented on a 100-point scale. We then identified those models that received the lowest marks for reliability, based on Consumer Reports subscriber surveys, and were cited for at least two other “worsts,” including bottom-of-the-pack value ratings, highest five-year operating costs, lowest owner satisfaction, poorest fuel economy in a given class and/or worst performance in accident-avoidance tests.

Of the 10 models that comprise our final list of 10 Worst-Built Cars for 2012, all but two of them, the Smart ForTwo and Toyota FJ Cruiser, come from domestic-brand automakers, specifically Chrysler LLC and General Motors. While those automakers have been making great strides in recent years with new and recently redesigned models, they’re still recovering from their near-death experiences in 2008-2009 and the laggards in their respective lines awaiting major makeovers or replacements continue to haunt them.

“GM and Chrysler are building nicer cars with each redesign. Still, their scores are dragged down by several older designs that score low in Consumer Reports testing or have reliability issues,” says David Champion, senior director, Consumer Reports Automotive Test Center, “As more new products are introduced, their fortunes could change if they can improve their overall reliability.”

The grim details for each model are at the link, but here is the list of the worst ten cars for 2012:

Cadilac Escalade

Chevrolet Colorado/GMC Canyon

Chevrolet Tahoe/GMC Yukon

Dodge Avenger

Dodge Ram 2500 Diesel

Jeep Compass

Jeep Liberty

Jeep Wrangler Unlimited

Smart Car ForTwo

Toyota FJ Cruiser

Notice how many models on the list are of the gas hog variety? There's a lesson to be learned there somewhere. Too bad the American auto industry is in general too dumb to learn it.


Bonus: "She don't love me, she loves my automobile"

GM Stops Building Chevy Volts For 5 Weeks--Lays Off 1,300

Lessee, according to Gas Buddy.com, the price of a gallon of the sweet stuff just topped $3.70 again, higher than it has ever been this early in the year. Gas prices have once again become a hot topic evidenced, as I pointed out the other day, by the number of mainstream news stories breathlessly warning of the impending possibility of $5.00-a-gallon gasoline by this summer.

Given all of that, you would think that newfangled electric cars like the Chevy Volt would be selling like hotcakes right now...and you would be precisely wrong. Not only are the cars not selling, GM is temporarily laying off the workers who build them. Here is USA Today with the details:

General Motors is stopping production of the Chevy Volt and European sibling Opel Ampera for five weeks due to slow sales.

"Even with sales up in February over January, we are still seeking to align our production with demand," said GM spokesman Chris Lee.

GM told the 1,300 employees building Volts at its Detroit Hamtramck plant that they will be laid off from March 19 to April 23.

Chevrolet sold 1,023 Volts in the U.S. in February and 1,626 so far this year. In 2011, it sold 7,671 -- short of its initial goal of 10,000. And GM had planned to expand production of the plug-in, extended-range electric car to 60,000 this year, with 45,000 for sale in the U.S.

So what exactly is the problem with this wonder vehicle that is supposed to solve all of our transportation-related energy problems?

The Volt is a technological "halo" car for GM, but also has been a political target. Critics have pointed to its $40,000 price tag and the federal subsidy of $7,500 plus state subsidies for people to buy one. They charge that the average buyer has a $170,000 household income and doesn't need to have a new-car purchase subsidized.

Sales also took a hit last fall when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a probe into why two Volts burst into flames days or weeks after severe NHTSA crash testing. NHTSA later deemed the Volt safe, meanwhile GM on Jan. 5 said it would improve the battery structure and coolant system.

I realize that the conservatives have been dumping on the Volt in order to try and score political points with their troglodyte base, and I have no desire to help them in that cause. But liberal and progressives also need to stop drinking the hopium surrounding the Volt and electric cars in general. They are NOT "green," because they for the most part run on the coal that fuels many of our electrical power plants. And they won't save us from Peak Oil because there is no way we could possibly generate enough electricity to power 250,000,000 of them. The truth of the matter is that the age of the passenger automobile, which is an historical aberration that has lasted only a little over a century now, has at most another decade or two to run before being consigned to the dustbin of history.

But hey, at least they build the damn things in America. That's something, right?


Bonus: Ballsy southern rockers Drivin'n'Cryin' rock Detroit

Average Vehicle Age in U.S. Reaches a New Record of 10.8 Years

When people can't afford to buy new cars, they drive the ones they have for longer than they might have otherwise. As a result, the average age of the vehicle fleet rises. That's just common sense, as reported on Tuesday by North Jersey.com:

The average age of a car or truck in the United States hit a record 10.8 years last year as job security and other economic worries kept many people from making big-ticket purchases such as a new car.

That's up from the old record of 10.6 years in 2010, and it and continues a trend that dates to 1995, when the average age of a car was 8.4 years, according to a study of state vehicle registration data by the Polk automotive research firm.

However, despite the fact that gasoline prices have been over $3.00 per gallon for more than a year now, and many analysts expect it will top $4.00 or even more by this coming summer, hope still springs eternal in the auto industry:

However, Polk analyst Mark Seng says that a rebound in sales last year and expected growth for the next couple of years will likely lower the average age of cars as a whole in America. The aging of the American auto fleet has been a big boon for repair shops and companies that sell replacement auto parts.

In 2011, auto sales rebounded a bit to 12.8 million vehicles, especially in November and December, when sales were unusually strong. Last year, sales in the United States totaled 11.6 million. Many analysts expect this year to be better than 2011, anywhere from 13.5 million to more than 14 million vehicles. Even 14 million is still below what industry analysts consider a normal sales rate of close to 15 million per year, and far lower than the U.S. sales peak of 17 million sales that was reached in 2005.

I have proposition for Polk analyst Mark Seng. My prediction is that auto sales for 2012 will actually lag behind last year because of the continued high gas prices and the likely global economic slowdown. That's called reality-based analysis, rather than wishful thinking. So if I'm right, Mark, can I have your cushy job?


Addendum: There's nothing more gratifying than running acrosss another news story which confirms my post's thesis before I even hit the "publish post" button. Here is Bloomberg with a report that U.S. fuel consumption has sunk to the lowest level in 10 years:

Oil traded near a one-week low after gasoline stockpiles rose and consumption fell to the lowest in 10 years in the U.S., the world’s biggest crude consumer.

Futures were little changed in New York after slipping 0.2 percent yesterday. While crude inventories declined, gasoline use dropped to the lowest since September 2001, and supplies of the motor fuel increased to the highest level in 10 months, according to a report yesterday from the Energy Department. U.S. demand for oil products in the latest four-week period was down 7.2 percent from a year ago, according to Societe Generale SA.

“This is an ominous sign for the U.S. economy,” Mike Wittner, head of oil market research at Societe Generale in New York, said in a report dated yesterday. “Gasoline fundamentals remain weak. The market is anticipating firmer future fundamentals due to Atlantic Basin refinery closures. We are skeptical.”

It sure is, Mike. Sorry, Mark, but you might as well be wishing for unlimited unicorns and lolipops at this point.


Bonus: "I wish I was a messenger, and all the news was good"

What's the Matter With the Electric Car?

Very few people want to buy them, actually. Here is MSNBC with the details:

If the White House hopes to meet its ambitious goal of putting 1.5 million battery cars on the road by mid-decade it better hope that 2011 wasn’t a good indication of what Americans think of electric vehicles.

Add them all up, hybrids, plug-ins and pure battery-electric vehicles, or BEVs, and they accounted for little more than 2% of the U.S. automotive market last year. Remove conventional gas-electric models, such as the Toyota Prius and Ford Fusion Hybrid, from the equation and more advanced battery vehicles generated barely 20,000 sales.

“I’d say they failed,” proclaims Joe Phillippi, chief analyst with AutoTrends Consulting.

Ouch...harsh. So if they failed, as Mr. Phillippi says, WHY exactly did they fail?

...they aren’t cheap, battery vehicles saddled by price tags that are thousands – in some cases, tens of thousands – of dollars more than comparable gasoline vehicles.

That might make sense had fuel prices held at the near-record levels seen in early 2011, but gas has dropped sharply since then. Meanwhile, manufacturers have been making major strides when it comes to the fuel efficiency of conventional, gas-powered vehicles. In the compact segment where Ford will compete with the Focus Electric, for example, 40 mpg on the highway is the new norm.

Both government bureaucrats and electric vehicle manufacturers, says analyst Sullivan, “aren’t giving consumers credit for being able to do the math. It just doesn’t make economic sense” to buy an electric vehicle – at least if your primary goal is to save money by reducing your energy bills.

There are, of course, other reasons. There’s the desire to clean up the air and to curb oil imports, especially from the Mideast. But whether that can be used to draw more buyers into the market remains to be seen. Especially in this economy, value is the big motivator, rather than politics and social concerns.

Oh, no shit? You mean that very few people other than a handful of greenie-minded, upper middle class yuppie types actually takes such things as the environment or Middle East oil imports into consideration when making a major purchase like a car? For that brilliant observation, let me present you with the coveted Dr. Obvious award. I'm not saying it's right, but it is a fact of life that most people make purchasing decisions based upon the bottom line to their pocketbooks.

I wrote back in June on this blog about how when I was ready to purchase a new vehicle after nine years and ultimately decided on a Ford Escape, that I chose to go with the conventional gasoline powered model rather than the hybrid because the latter cost nearly $6,000 more (and there was a three month waiting list for the hybrid). Six months later, I've put just over 5,000 miles on the car, meaning I would have to drive it for many more years to make up the cost difference between the purchase price and what I would have saved on gasoline.

The sad fact is that the time for America to start transitioning to electric vehicles was 20 years ago or more before we began staring the peak oil crisis right in the face. Even if President Hopey-Changey's unrealistic goal of 1.5 million EVs on the road by the middle of the decade is met, that is less than one percent of the total and still leaves something on the order of 250 million gasoline powered vehicles still out there.

There is also the problem that even if every car were suddenly magically converted to being an EV, the power grid couldn't handle charging them all. Additionally, much of our electricity comes from coal fired power plants, and coal is also not only also a fossil fuel but a bigger contributor to global warming than oil. You wouldn't think it would be necessary to have to keeping repeating all of that, but sadly it is because so few people seem to realize it.

I suspect that going forward EVs will remain a niche product purchased mostly by select members of the upper middle class in a desperate attempt to keep their car-centric lifestyles going as long as possible. But I doubt that ultimately they will have a future that lasts much longer than their gasoline powered counterparts.


Bonus: The Boss's Chevy wasn't a Volt, that's for sure

Why Do Personal Electronic Devices Hate America?

This past week, there was a report that the National Trasportation Safety Board has taken the dramatic step of recommending that every U.S. state ban the use of personal electronic devices while driving. Here are the details:

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) called Tuesday, Dec. 13, for a nationwide ban on nearly all use of personal electronic devices — including cellphones and smartphones — by drivers.

The board’s recommendation came in a review of a highway accident that occurred last year in Gray Summit, Mo., that killed two people and injured 38 others. A review determined the accident likely was caused by a distracted driver who sent several text messages in the moments before the pileup.

The NTSB’s recommended that all 50 states and the District of Columbia ban drivers’ “nonemergency use of portable electronic devices” except for uses that support the task of driving, such as GPS navigation. The board is also calling for the ban of drivers’ use of hands-free calling technology.

Just for the record, I am in total agreement with this idea, even though the corporate interests that profit from the manufacture and distribution of cell phones will no doubt lobby heavily against the effort citing its "curtailment" a people's "freedom" to risk their stupid lives while chattering on and on about nothing. Because it really is Jerry Seinfeld's America, and the rest of us are just living in it.

Nevertheless, this story might have been of only passing interest to me but for this passage:

“According to [the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration], more than 3,000 people lost their lives last year in distraction-related accidents", said NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman in a statement Tuesday. "It is time for all of us to stand up for safety by turning off electronic devices when driving."

A press release announcing NTSB’s recommendations cited a Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study of commercial drivers that found “a safety-critical event is 163 times more likely if a driver is texting, emailing or accessing the Internet.”

Wait an minute...where have I seen that "more than 3,000" figure before? Oh that's right, that's the number of Americans who were killed on 9/11, the event which in the subsequent decade has caused us to lose our collective sanity, shred the Constitution, spend trillions of dollars on unnecessary wars, kill thousands of our own soldiers and hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals, engage in torture and rendition, open an offshore concentration camp and pretty much turn our backs on our long tradition of civil liberties just to make sure such a horrific event never happens again. Yet every year out on or highways and byways, just as many people are killed, and many thousands more are no doubt maimed, because of how collectively self-absorbed and distracted we are. All without a peep of protest.

There is a very simple reason why those of us who oppose the destruction of the personal liberties of American citizens in the name of fighting terrorism feel the way we do. The fanatical efforts to prevent the next potential major terrorist attack have caused far more damage to the fabric of our society than even another successful attack could ever cause.

There is a risk in life's every activity. Clearly, right now in America you are at far more risk of death and serious injury from being struck by a distracted driver than you are from an attack by a Muslim jihadist. But everyone makes a rational decision whenever they leave their house that the nevertheless infinitesimal risk that they will become a fatal auto accident victim is outweighed by their need to go to work, go to school, go grocery shopping, or whatever else they need to do to survive. It's a point that cannot be reemphasized often enough: by crippling our economy and enacting draconian curtailments of the freedom of our citizens, we are doing far more to destroy ourselves than Osama Bin Laden ever could have hoped to achieve.