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February 22, 2006

Out with the old, in with the…what?

When I bought my Honda Odyssey in 1997, it was the most energy-efficient mini-van on the market.

Today, almost 100,000 miles and tons of greenhouse gases later, I need a new car, and a mini-van is far from the most efficient vehicle available. What options do I have?

In this era of climate change, intense hurricanes, and oil wars, buying any car is fraught with environmental and national security considerations that cannot be as easily ignored as perhaps they were eight years ago.

The mini-van met the transportation needs we had at the time – primarily, driving the kids’ carpools. My daughter’s summer camps and dance classes required regular transportation arrangements that always included several friends. My husband spent countless weekends ferrying our son and many of his pals to Boy Scout events, the van loaded with six boys and all their gear. A small car would have made meeting those logistics impossible. We minimized our driving otherwise by virtue of living near schools the kids could walk to and a subway system we used for commuting to work and many social events.

When we realized we needed a second car, we bought a Toyota Prius hybrid, which we use most of the time these days because of its 50 mpg benefits. But we kept the mini-van, as the kids were still active and carpools still very much a part of our weekly life. Now, however, the carpools are pretty much over. Our “little kids” have grown into teenagers; our son heads off to college in a few months, and our daughter as often as not rides the subway herself. We still take family trips, and a dog occupies the space a couple of Boy Scouts used to consume. The mini-van is not yet on its last “leg”, but it soon will be, and I find myself thinking ahead. Should we replace it when it goes? Can we get along with one vehicle, though there will be three drivers in the house for a few years yet and four when my son returns on college breaks? What vehicle should we consider, given that protecting the environment is so important to us, and the war in Iraq rages on?

To check out our options, I went to the 2006 Washington Auto Show when it powered into town a couple of weeks ago – and I do mean powered. Hundreds of cars were on display in the Washington Convention Center. It was as if a huge circus full of combustion engines had set up its tent in the middle of the city.

Sadly, despite the hype and hoopla, I found little to encourage an energy-conscious citizen like myself. Beautiful men and women adorned the podiums of the biggest gas guzzlers, like Mercedes, Jaguar, and Lexus, touting their high performance features (“It’s got XM Radio!” “It can go from zero to sixty in the time it takes you to buckle your seat belt…!”) while noticeably avoiding any mention of their gas mileage. Dozens of people stood in line waiting their chance to “go macho” and drive a Jeep up a vertical indoor challenge track, the Auto Show’s version of Disneyland’s Matterhorn ride. As if to remind the audience what the real price of these cars was, the U.S. Army had parked a huge armored tank at one end of the showroom floor and was handing out recruitment leaflets; anyone eager to head over to the Middle East and help defend the nation’s oil interests – and someone’s right to drive a Hummer, on display nearby – could sign up on the spot.

The evidence of energy-efficient vehicles was depressingly paltry. Toyota had its signature Prius on display, as did Honda, with its Civic hybrid. The Ford Escape SUV hybrid was also there, along with the Saturn’s Green Vue, a new hybrid version of the popular Saturn Vue. Saab offered a brochure about an energy-efficient vehicle it’s promising sometime in the future, and I had to search to find a panel about E-85, the new grain-based fuel that President Bush is touting as an alternative to foreign oil.

Other than that, it was, as they say, “same old, same old.” Given that the nation has just endured a major oil scarcity scare, and prices at the pump are $.40 per gallon higher right now than they were this time last year, you’d think the automakers would be responding at the very least with displays that addressed consumers’ fuel fears. But in fact, for suburban housewives like me – women who are concerned about their environmental impact, unhappy about the billions of dollars we’re spending to defend our oil interests in unstable parts of the world, but still in need of a car sizable enough to transport kids and a dog, groceries, and the whole family during a vacation – there wasn’t much to choose from.

I returned home with a bagful of brochures from the car makers’ various kiosks. Reviewing them now, I’m getting depressed. My options for a fuel-efficient vehicle remain extremely limited, despite the decades of warnings that have been raised about our dependence on oil, foreign or domestic, and the growing awareness that burning petroleum changes the climate. Buying another mini-van is out of the question. None of the vehicles I saw even cracks 30 mpg, let alone 35 or 40. I can get a second hybrid, and go for really great fuel efficiency. At 50 mpg and more, hybrid sedans just can’t be beat. But if I think I need more space than the hybrid sedan offers, I’m sort of stuck. The hybrid SUV, with its 36 mpg gas mileage in the city, is twice as good as the Honda Odyssey mini-van. But the SUV safety factor looms – an SUV is an SUV, after all, and I’m worried about the higher accident rates that SUVs have racked up. When you roll over, does it matter how efficient the car is?

It occurs to me that another alternative is not to get a new car at all. Instead, I could buy a new bicycle, and equip it a la the “sport utility trike,” or “SUT” created by Janie, this week’s “Woman of the Week.”  Now that would be efficient. Then, I could rent a mini-van or hybrid SUV for the occasional vacation or weekend outing as needed. Interesting, but would the rest of the family agree?

My mini-van will probably last at least another six months to a year, so I have a little time to really think through the options. Meanwhile, I’m going to write a letter to the automakers to urge them to create a hybrid station wagon. We women need an efficient vehicle that falls somewhere between a mini-van and an SUV to meet our automotive needs. A station wagon that gets at least 40 mpg could be perfect.

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