{"id":13569,"date":"2012-03-27T14:55:52","date_gmt":"2012-03-27T18:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=13569"},"modified":"2012-03-27T14:55:52","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T18:55:52","slug":"mainstream-alternatives-to-electric-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/13569\/mainstream-alternatives-to-electric-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"Mainstream Alternatives to Electric Cars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It looks like Energy Secretary <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nypost.com\/p\/news\/opinion\/editorials\/time_to_chu_se_1SuATDjstTNvS9KDxiKhlK\" target=\"_blank\">Steven Chu\u2019s 2008 musings<\/a> about manipulating gas prices so people would be forced to buy electric cars was bad politics and bad economics.\u00a0 The statement was bad politics because it confirms that liberals like Chu are willing to distort energy prices \u2013 Keystone XL, anyone? \u2013 to serve the environmental left\u2019s ideological agenda.\u00a0 It turns out to be bad economics because consumers have several more options available than purchasing a Toyota Prius.<\/p>\n<p>In a hyper-link-heavy post, Time reporter <a href=\"http:\/\/moneyland.time.com\/2012\/03\/27\/5-mainstream-cost-effective-alternatives-to-alternative-energy-cars\/\" target=\"_blank\">Brad Tuttle<\/a> \u2013 who makes no reference to Chu \u2013 explains that as the national average for gasoline has risen to $4 a gallon, Americans are responding by buying small inexpensive fuel-powered cars like the Ford Fiesta (40 mpg) and Chevy Cruze (36 mpg); hanging onto old cars longer by delaying non-essential repairs; and in the case of the 21-34 age group, preferring ride-sharing and public transit to car purchases.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, none of these Econ 101 responses to rising prices will convince Secretary Chu and President Barack Obama to stop meddling in the market.\u00a0 The White House is pushing an increase in the tax incentive to buy hybrids like the Prius, Chevy Volt, and Nissan Leaf from $7,000 to $10,000.\u00a0 But this incentive disproportionately benefits hybrid buyers.\u00a0 As <a href=\"http:\/\/ricochet.com\/main-feed\/Obama-10-Billion-in-Taxpayer-Money-to-Help-Rich-People-Buy-Terrible-Cars\" target=\"_blank\">Troy<\/a> has noted, Volt owners average $170,000 in annual income; not exactly the people needing tax incentives to help make car purchases.<\/p>\n<p>Still, it\u2019s nice to see that no matter how much the experts in Washington twist policy into an endless barrage of mandates and tax breaks, consumers in a (relatively) free market are able to make their own decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It looks like Energy Secretary Steven Chu\u2019s 2008 musings about manipulating gas prices so people would be forced to buy electric cars was bad politics and bad economics.\u00a0 The statement was bad politics because it confirms that liberals like Chu are willing to distort energy prices \u2013 Keystone XL, anyone? \u2013 to serve the environmental [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,195,2519,3451,3108],"class_list":["post-13569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-barack-obama","tag-energy","tag-gas","tag-hybrid","tag-steven-chu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13569"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13573,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13569\/revisions\/13573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}