Let Sustainable Transportation Drive Your Buying Habits

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Heckeroth with his zero-to-60 in 8 seconds, 100-mile-range E-Spyder.
Heckeroth with his zero-to-60 in 8 seconds, 100-mile-range E-Spyder.
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The E-Spyder and E- Tractor on Heckeroth’s homestead in 1993.
The E-Spyder and E- Tractor on Heckeroth’s homestead in 1993.
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Heckeroth's RAV4 EV has 160,000 trouble-free miles. The shed in the background has a photovoltaic roof to offset the electricity for charging the EV. The solar array paid for itself long ago and now provides free power.
Heckeroth's RAV4 EV has 160,000 trouble-free miles. The shed in the background has a photovoltaic roof to offset the electricity for charging the EV. The solar array paid for itself long ago and now provides free power.
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This chart shows the overwhelming advantages of plug-in hybrid (HEV) and battery electric (EV) vehicles. EVs are zero emission and can be charged from renewable energy sources like the sun and wind. By adding more batteries, plug-in hybrids can be built which offer the range of gas vehicles with the zero-emission and cost-saving benefits of battery electric vehicles for short trips.
This chart shows the overwhelming advantages of plug-in hybrid (HEV) and battery electric (EV) vehicles. EVs are zero emission and can be charged from renewable energy sources like the sun and wind. By adding more batteries, plug-in hybrids can be built which offer the range of gas vehicles with the zero-emission and cost-saving benefits of battery electric vehicles for short trips.

When you wake up in any city in North America you hear the roar of hundreds or even thousands of internal combustion engines. There are over 200 million licensed drivers in the United States who each burn an average of 800 gallons of fuel annually to go a total of over 3 trillion miles. We seem to have forgotten that we have legs. The only walking many people do is to and from their car. Even many of the people who realize the critical importance of exercise — let alone sustainable transportation — get in their car to drive to the gym. To make matters worse, the top-selling vehicle in the U.S. for the last 32 years is the Ford F Series pickup truck. In 2013, three out of the five top-selling autos in America were pickup trucks that get less than 18 miles per gallon. This may explain how America, with only 4 percent of the world population, burns about 25 percent of the oil consumed in the entire world.

The Loophole Big Enough to Drive a Truck Through

According to federal regulations, light-duty trucks are supposed to be primarily designed for the transport of property or for off-road operation, and have a gross vehicle weight of less than 14,000 pounds. The “light truck” classification was created in the early 1970s to acknowledge the difficulty that vehicles used for work or on the farm would have meeting the same standards as cars. In 1978, Congress enacted the federal Gas Guzzler Tax and again exempted light trucks. The auto industry has exploited the fact that vehicles in this category do not need to meet the same safety, fuel economy or emission standards as cars by introducing luxury trucks, vans and four-wheel drive SUVs that are mainly used for the on-road transport of people. A study by Friends of the Earth found that, since 1999, automakers have avoided paying billions in Gas Guzzler taxes by calling passenger vehicles “light trucks.” Because trucks don’t need to meet the same safety, emission or fuel economy standards, they are much cheaper to manufacture so the profit margin on these “light trucks” can be more than ten times greater than that of the more fuel efficient cars that serve the same purpose.

The billions of dollars that have gone into advertising these grossly inefficient vehicles has taken light truck sales from 30 percent of vehicle sales in 1990 to over 50 percent of the nearly 20 million vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2013. As a result, the fuel economy of the U.S. vehicle fleet as a whole has been declining over the same period, even though the fuel efficiency of cars has been increasing. Indeed, the advertising of utility vehicles has been so successful that many environmentalists drive four-wheel drive vehicles so (supposedly) they can get closer to nature. In fact, less than 10 percent of the vehicles in the light truck category ever get used for the off-road or utility use that allowed them to avoid the same safety, fuel economy, emission standards and taxes imposed on cars. Now, it is a common sight to see grocery store parking lots full of shiny big vans, four-wheel drive SUVs and even monstrous crew-cab pickups with dual rear wheels.

Please, join the Friends of the Earth in pushing to close this sustainable transportation loophole. If you are using a pickup truck, van or four-wheel drive vehicle as a daily driver and complaining about the high cost of fuel, you might want to consider whether your vehicle choice was your own or driven by corporate advertising.

  • Published on May 21, 2014
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