Freedumb! Forbes Magazine Sees Rise In Big-Ass SUV Sales As Proof Of American Energy Security

EDIT

But on that score, there might be even more afoot — and a factor that could come into greater play for large SUVs, especially over the long term. As I argued this week in a piece for the Detroit News Think section (and please read it for my complete argument), thanks to horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the auto industry is at a turning point with energy that could be similar in magnitude to the oil-price shocks of the Seventies. Notwithstanding some environmental concerns, newly accessible oil and natural-gas resources are being loosed across the United States at such a rate that the nation essentially now is awash in them.

During the Seventies, tremendous anxieties about the source and price of gasoline reshaped the auto industry and traumatized American consumers. We internalized the idea of a dangerous vulnerability to “foreign oil imports,” which in turn helped determine everything from the auto industry’s vehicle downsizing to the U.S. military focus on the Middle East, for decades to come.

Could it be that the accelerating turnabout in U.S. oil and gas production and proved reserves — making America flush in domestic supplies for as far ahead as anyone can foresee — could influence some sort of reversal in perspective, or at least a change in direction? This phenomenon already has practically vanquished talk of peak oil and nearly rolled back worries about where our next tank of gasoline is going to come from.

To be sure, the Obama administration’s mandate is still in place for each automaker to reach Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) of 54.5 mpg by 2025, and the auto industry globally is headed relentlessly in the direction of continuing to boost fuel efficiency across the board and in every way. Meanwhile, Americans continue to be concerned about greenhouse-gas emissions. There clearly is a long-term future for electric vehicles in an increasingly urbanized nation, even though — notwithstanding the one-off success of Tesla — rank-and-file Americans don’t yet feel compelled to go out and buy an EV. Natural gas is moving quickly into view as a mainstream vehicle fuel, perhaps in the very near term.

EDIT

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dalebuss/2013/09/13/could-big-suv-boom-hint-at-fruits-of-energy-security/