Cars

Driving on the various road systems between West London and East Anglia (about 100 miles), I noticed at least 4 cars we do not have here - not the manufacturers, we have them: Ford and Mazda and Toyota - rather the car. I was thinking about this as we were driving - the defeatist attitude in the US to Toyota or Nissan and how GM has fallen behind and Ford even further behind, yet I saw many Ford's in Europe and models we do not have here.

Why?

Why not.

Do you want people to buy your cars? make models that look like the Ford's I saw. Put the 3-4 models on the US market and make their body style as attractive. Do that and you can get 2-3% of the share back from Toyota or Mazda.

Bring us their gas mileage - a people mover (mini van) that gets 33 mpg on the road is not bad (Alhambra). If ALL our minivans managed 33 mpg we would be well on our way to energy independence.

If we opened our market to the smaller compact cars on the roads in England, we could drop a small percentage of our oil dependence over night.

So many options yet we are slow to do it, and Congress talks of taxes and we will soon hear of gas rationing to reduce use and price. Why. Just do as I suggest and we can avoid this foolish and ruinous path.

1. Bring all the models, Ford and other car mfg make available in Europe, back to the US
2. Bring us their gas mileage. If they get 33 mpg we should be able to get the same.
3. Reduce mfg of large vehicles and move toward the more compact family vehicles.
4. Allow drilling off the coasts of the US and Gulf of Mexico and in ANWAR
5. Tax breaks for drilling in the Rocky Mountains for oil located in shale.
6. Incentives for oil companies to use new methods to get every last drop from all oil fields presently under use.
7. Make a minimum gas mileage on all family vehicles by 2016 of 35 mpg. All SUVs of 30 mpg.

Do the above and we will be energy independent. Do the above and we can tell the Middle East to find someone else who cares because we won't have to.