Reuters report on trends to high mileage cars

[mrflash818]

Reuters has a story on the continuing shift from the big f-you sized monsters to high mileage sedans.

Excerpts:

Honda's Civic and Accord and Toyota's Camry and Corolla sedans outsold Ford's F-Series pickup truck. It was the first time a sedan outsold the perennial Ford bestseller since 1991.

"It is a watershed month. It's a sign of the times,"

Comments

[mjmj]

are people switching to more efficient cars, or are the truck/suv buyers simply sitting on the sideline, postponing their purchases? (I make the assumption that they are not giving up their trucks/suvs in favor of walking, biking, or renewably-powered mass transit.)

if they are switching to more efficient cars, we should expect demand (and, hence, price, when supply is constant or declining) to go up.

Jevons Paradox

In economics, the Jevons Paradox is an observation made by William Stanley Jevons, that as technological improvements increase the efficiency with which a resource is used, total consumption of that resource tends to increase, rather than decrease. It is historically called the Jevons Paradox as it ran counter to popular intuition. However, the situation is well understood in modern economics. In addition to reducing the amount needed for a given output, improved efficiency lowers the relative cost of using a resource - which increases demand. Overall resource use increases or decreases depending on which effect predominates.

Note that it is not "Jevon's Paradox" or "Jevons' Paradox." There is no possessive apostrophe.

Due to this effect, due to the relative size of the world economy, and due to fossil-fuel subsidies in many countries (some of which are being reduced), no increase in efficiency in the burning of fossil fuels will decrease the amount burned. All that is produced, especially oil, will be consumed for the foreseeable future until it is replaced by nuclear and renewable energy sources. No reduction in CO2 production and concentration in the atmosphere or ocean is likely, with severe long-term consequences.

what to do? tax carbon and subsidize renewable energy production, conservation programs, and efficiency programs to drive the world economy away from fossil fuels. a wise OPEC policy would be to invest in becoming world leaders in renewable energy production while the world economy transitions (smoothly or disastrously) to non-fossil fuels.

[beachofdreams]

One of the most striking examples of the Jevons paradox being intuitively understood -- even by people untrained in economics -- is in the popular worry over the Tata Nano, that $2000 car that, though it gets great gas mileage, would be bought in high enough numbers to offset any benefit in efficiency.

...are people switching to more efficient cars, or are the truck/suv buyers simply sitting on the sideline, postponing their purchases?

Well, it does say that purchases have gone up for the Japanese car companies. Unless the increase is attributable to new consumers in the market, it would indeed seem as if would-be truck buyers are opting for more efficient cars.

[mjmj]

Well, it does say that purchases have gone up for the Japanese car companies.

a better indicator would be total vehicles sold (TVS - cars+trucks+suvs). if TVS is nearly unchanged, but a larger percentage of them are small cars, this would be switch to smaller cars. otherwise, it is possible that automobile buyers are simply switching manufacturers.