Pain in the Gas

By NANCY GIBBS

Once upon a time, cars were hailed as the solution to an acute environmental hazard. A century ago in a city like Milwaukee, a quarter of a million lbs. of horse emissions fouled the streets each day. In Chicago, 10,000 dead horses had to be towed away in a single year. The flies and the pathogens in the manure dust aside, magazine writers compared the overall "horse cost of living" unfavorably with the cost of switching to cars. At the time, a gallon of gasoline cost 18-c-, which today would be close to $4--exactly where some experts think we might be headed. But that was still a bargain compared with the oats and tack and stables needed to sustain what Thomas Edison called "the poorest motor ever built."

These days we are looking hard at the cost of cars to purse and planet. Gas prices are up 36% since December, to a record $3.22 a gal., and environmental concerns are at an all-time high as well. It is easy to find surveys that show people saying they will slow down, shop online, carpool, eat out less. Seven in 10 drivers say they will scale back their driving with prices this high.

But when it comes to cars, actions don't necessarily follow. Even if prices keep rising, 2 out of 3 drivers say they will never switch to buses. It can now cost $130 to fill the tank of an SUV, yet SUV sales have shot up 25% over the past year. In 2000, when gas cost $2 a gal., fuel efficiency ranked 29th on the list of features car buyers cared about. With gasoline prices higher than ever before, that priority has climbed all the way up to ... 22nd place.

In fact, beyond the problem of too little refining capacity, the other factor boosting gas prices is growing demand. AAA predicts a Memorial Day weekend as busy as ever. Some experts say you won't see drivers really get price sensitive until they are routinely paying $100 every time they fill up. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg can float congestion-pricing schemes and tell taxi drivers they have to switch to hybrids by 2012, but to the general public, this is about time and love, not money and reason. We may fear global warming, replace our lightbulbs, recycle our plastics. But in America a man's car is still his castle, and you don't pick a castle for its energy efficiency.