South Dakota 15th for Dependence on Gasoline

As you commute across South Dakota's wide open spaces this morning, you probably won't be surprised to learn that we South Dakotans spend more of their income on gasoline than many other Americans. In this report from March 2010, the National Resources Defense Council calculates that the average South Dakota driver spends over $1600 a year on gasoline. That's 4.3% of our average income.

By that score, we rank 15th in the nation, just a tick behind our bigger-spending but also bigger-earning neighbors in North Dakota. Poor Mr. Kurtz and his Montana neighbors rank second in the nation, spending over $2000 a year on gasoline, 5.9% of their annual paychecks. Gasoline eats up the largest chunk of paychecks in Mississippi.

State	Avg % Income spent on gasoline	Avg amt spent on gasoline	Avg income	Rank by gas %	Rank by gas amt	rank by income
Mississippi	6.22%	$1,880.95	$30,240	1	4	50
Montana	5.88%	$2,017.96	$34,319	2	1	38
Louisiana	5.26%	$1,908.72	$36,287	3	3	30
Oklahoma	5.12%	$1,830.77	$35,757	4	5	32
South Carolina	5.06%	$1,638.98	$32,391	5	11	44
Kentucky	5.02%	$1,583.50	$31,544	6	18	49
Texas	4.87%	$1,818.89	$37,349	7	6	26
Maine	4.65%	$1,700.66	$36,573	8	9	28
Georgia	4.64%	$1,595.08	$34,377	9	16	37
Idaho	4.54%	$1,467.33	$32,320	10	22	45
Arkansas	4.52%	$1,459.02	$32,279	11	25	47
Tennessee	4.49%	$1,568.96	$34,943	12	19	35
Utah	4.44%	$1,400.80	$31,550	13	35	48
North Dakota	4.33%	$1,717.29	$39,660	14	8	18
South Dakota	4.32%	$1,626.29	$37,646	15	13	24
New Mexico	4.30%	$1,437.33	$33,426	16	28	43
Michigan	4.20%	$1,436.89	$34,212	17	29	39
Kansas	4.13%	$1,585.31	$38,385	18	17	23
North Carolina	4.10%	$1,440.40	$35,132	19	27	34
Wyoming	4.07%	$1,930.68	$47,437	20	2	6
West Virginia	4.06%	$1,311.61	$32,306	21	40	46
California	4.04%	$1,727.67	$42,764	22	7	9
Missouri	4.02%	$1,463.53	$36,406	23	23	29
Iowa	4.00%	$1,486.22	$37,156	24	20	27
Rhode Island	3.94%	$1,622.61	$41,183	25	14	15
Wisconsin	3.91%	$1,461.35	$37,375	26	24	25
Hawaii	3.91%	$1,649.52	$42,187	26	10	13
Ohio	3.88%	$1,383.68	$35,662	28	37	33
Minnesota	3.78%	$1,601.12	$42,358	29	15	11
Alabama	3.76%	$1,257.58	$33,446	30	48	42
Vermont	3.75%	$1,446.03	$38,561	31	26	21
Indiana	3.70%	$1,264.65	$34,180	32	46	40
Virginia	3.67%	$1,264.48	$34,454	33	47	36
Oregon	3.60%	$1,302.80	$36,189	34	42	31
Nevada	3.54%	$1,403.87	$39,657	35	34	19
Arizona	3.53%	$1,188.45	$33,667	36	50	41
Delaware	3.52%	$1,419.34	$40,322	37	32	16
Illinois	3.44%	$1,434.47	$41,700	38	30	14
Nebraska	3.39%	$1,309.37	$38,624	39	41	20
Alaska	3.39%	$1,475.74	$43,532	39	21	7
Florida	3.36%	$1,291.67	$38,443	41	43	22
Washington	3.31%	$1,409.14	$42,572	42	33	10
Pennsylvania	3.27%	$1,315.34	$40,224	43	39	17
New Jersey	3.23%	$1,635.08	$50,622	44	12	3
Colorado	3.00%	$1,266.50	$42,217	45	45	12
New Hampshire	2.96%	$1,279.05	$43,211	46	44	8
Maryland	2.90%	$1,425.42	$49,152	47	31	4
Massachusetts	2.60%	$1,318.18	$50,699	48	38	2
New York	2.56%	$1,216.06	$47,502	49	49	5
Connecticut	2.52%	$1,391.18	$55,206	50	36	1

Spending on gasoline as percentage of income.
Income calculated from given data on percentage and amount spent on gasoline.
Source: NRDC, March 2010

Three interesting correlations pop out of these numbers. First, check out the oil-producing states. Down by the rigs and refineries in places like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, folks are still spending a higher proportion of their income on gasoline. North Dakota has more oil fields than South Dakota, and North Dakotans have similar open-country driving needs as South Dakotans, but they are paying more for gasoline. Alaska defies that apparent relation, paying less than most states for gasoline and ranking 40th on gasoline spending as percentage of income. But I wonder: given that possible relation—or lack thereof—between oil production and spending on gasoline, would South Dakota enjoy any gasoline savings if Hyperion built the Union County refinery?

A more solid numerical correlation: compare gasoline spending as percentage of income with income itself. I run those numbers through my spreadsheet and get a correlation of -0.69. In other words, the poorer the state, the bigger the chunk of income one spends on gasoline. That reflects, perhaps, the inelasticity of gasoline demand: even if you're making less, you still have to drive around. But a lot of those states at the bottom of the list are spending less in dollar terms as well as percentage terms. Places like Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and New York also have pretty good mass transit.

One more correlation: the states spending higher percentages of income on gasoline look pretty conservative. The states at the other end of the list look pretty liberal. The point of the NRDC report was to highlight the states that are most vulnerable to oil price shocks. So we could read this data counterintuitively: the conservatives who could benefit most from getting America off its oil addiction and adopting energy policies that would insulate us from oil price shocks are the most inclined to oppose legislation on climate change and energy security that could get us off oil.

Or we could say the above split is perfectly logical: the liberal states are already kicking the gas habit, so they don't mind carbon taxes and other legislation that drive investment in other fuels and raise prices at the pumps they whizz by on their buses and bikes.

Lake Herman 60 Degrees, 70% Ice-Free

...and I go for a bike ride....

Whoo-hoo! Lake Herman is open... mostly! 60° Fahrenheit, big bright sun, and 20–30-mile-per-hour south wind have pounded the local ice cap apart (click pix to embiggen!):


The view from the porch: lake wide open toward the north! The white on the far shore is the ice heaved up by the wind onto the rocks.

Looking east toward the state park, we see some ice still hung up along our shore in "Cottonwood Cove."
South side of the lake still socked in. Tomorrow's seventies and more south wind ought to fix that.

Of course, what's a beautiful day like today without a bike ride! I stopped by Lake Herman Auto, where my neighbor Dan Uthe has had a 2008 Smart fortwo on display this month. dan didn't pay me to stop by to do an ad; I just wanted to compare the Smart to my favored mode of transportation:

The Smart is a little longer than my Burley, although if I were riding in long-wheelbase mode, it would be close. It cost me $900 to get my Burley six summers ago; Dan's asking $13,998 for the Smart. On dollars per inch, I think I got the better deal.

But if my bike had a car rack, I'd have bungeed that Smart to the back of my bike and brought it home.

SB 65: No New License Plates!

A million here, a million there... pretty soon, you've balanced the budget!

Governor Rounds has proposed what looks like a reasonable idea for saving a million bucks. In State Senate Bill 65, he has requested that we skip redesigning our license plates this year and stick with our current plates for another five-year cycle. Skipping the redesign frees up $1,000,000, which the Governor wants to transfer to the prison industries revolving fund.

The only people who might be disappointed by this budget move are license-plate collectors... and while I'm no aficionado, even they might not be so bummed. These flat plastic plates just don't seem as kitschy-cool as good old raised-character metal plates.

But hey: if Governor Rounds can find a million-dollar savings that hurts no one, where else in the budget might we find some savings by making do with what we have?

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Update 2010.01.21 11:06 CST: SD-DMV director Deb Hillmer tells Bob Mercer this measure will give counties more money for road and bridge work, since the state won't have to deduct money from license fees to pay for new plates. (Mercer also corrects a mistake on timeframe he wouldn't have made if he had read this post first! ;-) )

China: Car Sales Up, Gas Sales Flat

Folks who disagree with me on the need for strong energy security legislation. This year China has indeed seen its people buy lots more automobiles, but gasoline sales in China have remained flat. Some folks have floated a conspiracy theory, that the Chinese government is buying cars and stockpiling them, just to make it look like the economy is humming. As usual, the reality is less X-Files-y and more mundane:

Kevin Wale, the president of General Motors China, said that automakers knew who was buying their cars and saw no evidence of a car-buying conspiracy. Sharp improvements in fuel economy — partly because of government mandates and partly because of a shift to smaller cars — help explain the slow growth in gasoline sales, he said.

A series of recent increases in regulated fuel prices may have also discouraged some driving, he added [Kevin Bradsher, "An Oddity in China: Car Sales Leap, but Not Gas Sales," New York Times, 2009.12.09].

Check that out: the Chinese are able to increase their economic activity and improve their standard of living (if you consider adding car payments, maintenance costs, and parking fees to your life an "improvement") without a massive increase in realted energy consumption. The Chinese have the will to use technology and regulation to do more with less. Do we Americans?

MDL Advertises Smart Cars in Bloomington! Let's Go!

I wonder if ads like this in the Madison Daily Leader spoil Pat Prostrollo's breakfast:

Smart cars in Bloomington! Base price $12,000... not much more than I paid Cars for Les for my Jeep ten years ago. Might be easier to buy local if Prostrollo's offered buggies like the Smart car!

There's Carts, and Then There's Carts: Librarians and Shriners in Trojan Days Parade

Dakota State University held its Trojan Days homecoming parade today. Amidst the spectacle: carts...

Madison librarians and friends bust some precision moves with their book carts

...and more carts!

The El Riad Shrine Sprint Car Unit from Sioux Falls
burns some Trojan Days rubber. Typical driving for Madison, actually.

Of course, Madison put the carts before the horses...


...but shouldn't they have had the skid steers bringing up the rear to clean up?

Teen Driver Texting Almost Puts Madville Times on Hiatus

This letter may run in Tuesday's Madison Daily Leader.

--------------------------------------
To the Editor, Madison Daily Leader:

The Letters to the Editor section regularly features glowing thank-yous to the wonderful citizens of our idyllic community. Permit me to dabble in the genre...

I want to thank the teenage driver who managed not to kill my wife, me, and our three-year-old daughter Friday night.

My wife and I were bicycling around Lake Herman Friday night, with our daughter in our bike trailer. Around 6:40 p.m., we were eastbound on 233rd St., the road between the lake and the golf course. Ahead we saw a black 4-door vehicle coming north up Herman Drive toward the road. There appeared to be two teenage boys inside. The driver rolled through the stop sign and turned east onto the pavement. Had I not hit my brakes and swerved, or had he turned west, he'd have crumpled my bike and perhaps my daughter in her trailer.

The driver did not look either way, west or east, as he pulled out. He did not look up at all until my shouts finally penetrated his rolled-up window. (And yes, I did shout, vigorously, and with colorful language. I publicly apologize to my neighbors and any golfers with whose swing I may have interfered.)

Yes, the young man was texting. His eyes were on his phone.

But hey: he didn't actually hit us. He came to a complete stop, kittywampus halfway into the eastbound lane. He waited patiently as we wheeled around him and as I pointed to the stop sign fifteen feet behind him. He even had the courtesy to change directions after we'd passed and go the other way, the long way around the golf course, so he and his friend could still get to town without subjecting us to his exhaust fumes or a closer look at his license plate number.

If I had the young man's number, I'd call and thank him personally for sparing our lives... but I wouldn't want to cause a traffic accident.

So I'll say it here:

GET OFF THE PHONE AND DRIVE.

Sincerely,
Cory Allen Heidelberger

--------------------------------
Update: MDL ran the letter right away. Thanks, Jon!

Potpourri! Death, Doctors, Tinkle, Justice, and Energy

Brain full yet?

Holy buckets! I've got eight tabs open on my browser—time to clear the cache! Here's some brain potpourri:

1. Senator Gene Abdallah: before you stink up the airwaves again with your suggestion that we ought to expedite death penalty trials, read Bob Herbert's column about a Texas father put to death for killing his children by arson. 18 years after the fire, a scientist hired by the state of Texas finds the fire was an accident, and the father was innocent.
2. Bill Moyers is on a health care tear this summer. His latest Journal on PBS features American doctors destroying the myth that America has the best health care in the world.
3. But don't take Bill Moyers's word for it: run your own numbers on the really cool Death Risk Rankings calculator from Carnegie Mellon.
   
4. McCook Central School District is getting double the bang for its computer buck by using netbooks in its elementary classrooms. Now where'd they get that idea?
5. "City Commission Worried About Water Supply," but not enough to give first reading to its new proposed public urination ordinance. Says KJAM, Madison's leaders "wanted to take some time to change the original wording of the proposed ordinance." Now where'd they get that idea?
6. That Sioux Falls paper turns a couple quotes and now "No comment" from the White House into fodder for speculation that President Obama will give the Black Hills back to the Lakota. Hold your nose and gape in awe at the ignorance and racism in the Argus forum. Note also that Nixon gave federal land back to the Taos-Pueblo in New Mexico in 1970, and no social chaos ensued.
7. Hey Jason! Want to get us off oil? Why not do something simpler than building stills everywhere: just ban cars! Vauban, Germany, has!
8. Also on getting us off oil: individual homeowners may lead the way in creating more solar power-generating capacity. Now if we could just get the big power utility corporations out of our way....

Dang this Internet for giving us so much interesting stuff to read!

State Govt Restructuring Eliminates Drivers License Exam Stations

Candidate Munsterman, I smell another small-town campaign issue!

Not only does your driver's license cost 150% more now, but many of you will have to drive farther to get your license renewed. Folks up in Britton are seeing their local driver's license services end next month. Britton is losing theirs because, says the state, the Britton station issues less than 0.4% of licenses and IDs statewide. As of October 1, they'll have to drive 42 miles to Webster... assuming their licenses haven't expired. The exam station in Webster is open Fridays 08:00–16:30, so Marshall County drivers will have to take off work to get renewed.

According to the Marshall County Journal, the state appears to be cutting back to 56 licensing stations. That closes 16 of the currently listed 72 stations. I'm looking around for a complete list of the closures, but I hear Howard, Salem, and Flandreau may all lose their already infrequent visits from the driver's license examiner. I'm also trying to find whether this is coming from the Legislature (you know, the folks who vote for increased fees for less service) or if this is simply an in-agency decision to streamline budgets. More tips are welcome!

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Update 15:05 CDT: Make that 17 towns losing service. State driver's licensing director Cindy Gerber says this move reduces the number of offices from 74 to 57 (I guess I can't count). The Aberdeen American News has the list:

1. Beresford
2. Britton
3. Canton
4. Clark
5. Clear Lake
6. De Smet
7. Deadwood
8. Flandreau
9. Freeman
10. Howard
11. Mission
12. Parkston
13. Philip
14. Platte
15. Salem
16. Tyndall
17. Wagner

And cut the legislature some slack: yes, they increased our fees, but according to Rep. Sue Wismer (D-Britton), no one informed legislators that this fee hike would be followed by a reduction of services. Rep. Wismer and likely a number of her fellow non-metro legislators are not pleased:

"I find it kind of sad commentary on how unimportant (the state feels) it is to involve the Legislature in decisions that affect rural populations," she said. "It's this kind of action that breeds mistrust and long-lasting ill will between legislators and Pierre."

Some poor and elderly people in the Britton area seldom leave town, and now will be forced to drive at least 45 miles to renew their licenses, she said.

"It appears (the state is) taking the process of county consolidation into their own hands," Wismer said, referencing an idea that has been occasionally discussed in Pierre [Scott Waltman, "Driver's Exam Stations Closing in Britton, Other Communities," Aberdeen American News, 2009.08.28].

I can understand Rep. Wismer's frustration. She and her legislative colleagues (like our own Senator Russell Olson) now have to explain to voters why they are paying more and getting less. Besides, some legislators floated a county consolidation resolution this year; it failed to survive its first committee vote. The executive branch seems to be sneaking ahead where the Legislature has said 'Don't go there."

Update 15:30 CDT: Bob Mercer notes that the Rounds Administration gave no one any indication this move was coming. I smell rotten sneakers here....

Learn to Park! South Dakotans Color Outside the Lines

Hat tip to Jeff Martin, who Facebooks this video of bad parking in Aberdeen, courtesy of Lonestar's Jason Robinson and Keech Rainwater:



It's interesting how slight automotive improprieties rouse us to such ridicule. I do the same thing, shouting "Learn to park!" at kittywampus cars from behind the safety of my rolled-up window. I almost never yell similar things about the way my neighbors walk or sit or bicycle. Why are we so hypersensitive about each other's automotive behavior?

Madison Car Dealer: Whole State Happy About Cash for Clunkers

Pat Prostrollo really loves Cash for Clunkers. He loves it so much he'll let his general sales manager John Draper go on statewide television to say Obama and those Democrats in Washington are doing a spectacular job for the whole darn state.

Well, Draper didn't say exactly that... but close enough!

At Prostrollo Auto Mall in Madison, there's little doubt how everyone feels about "Cash For Clunkers."

"We're happy, customers are happy, and I think the whole local and state economy is happy because it's bringing in more business and more tax dollars," said John Draper, Prostrollo's General Sales Manager

Draper believes the auto industry has been steadily improving over the year. Along with lower gas prices and financial bailouts, the "Cash For Clunkers" program has helped revive his business.

"It was slow," Draper admitted. "Part of it was people were concerned about the viability of GM and Chrysler because of the bankruptcy. But now that that's handled, a lot of customers have some faith now there's going to be a dealer in their town" [David Brown, "Clunkers Help Small-Town Dealerships," KELOLand.com, 2009.08.08].

Everyone's happy. Whole state economy is better off. Pesky GM and Chrysler bankruptcies are handled. Dang—sounds like a mighty vote of confidence in Washington to me!

-----------------
Minor media quibbles:

1. Hey, David Brown, who you callin' "small-town"? We're Madison, the 13th biggest city in the whole state of South Dakota! And did you see the size of the Prostrollo Auto Mall (not to mention that big white buffalo)?
   
2. Send the sports guy to do news, and what do you get? "'There's a lot of confidence for the community and the people working at the car dealership and directly, for other businesses that are depending on the automobile business," Draper said. Which puts Madison squarely in the driver's seat." Ugh! Sentence fragment... and the figure of speech doesn't even make sense tacked onto the end of this quote. Call the Saturday editor!
   

Cash for Clunkers Not Green Enough for Conservatives?

SDP's new traffic wunderfräulein, Miranda Flint, says Cash for Clunkers set off her enviro-spidey-sense. She just knew the program couldn't be as green as it seemed. And thank goodness, Fox News comes along to assure her she's right:

It takes energy to shred and recycle metals; plastic components often cannot be recycled and end up as landfill cover; and the engine fluids, refrigerants and other chemicals essential to operating products end up as hazardous wastes ["Does Cash for Clunkers Help the Environment? It's Debatable," Fox News, 2009.08.05].

When conservatives have to resort to arguing that a liberal policy successfully stimulates the economy but causes environmental harm and "does nothing to reduce America's dependence on oil," we liberals must be winning.

Ms. Flint should rest easy. (Demolition concerns in a moment.) First, not only has Cash for Clunkers provided much faster economic stimulus than expected, but it has also proved greener than expected:

Dealers estimated that they moved a quarter-million cars with the rebate money. The Transportation Department reported that of 120,000 rebate applications processed so far, the average gas mileage of cars being bought was 28.3 miles per gallon, for SUV’s 21.9 miles per gallon, and for trucks, 16.3 miles per gallon, all significantly higher than required to get a rebate.

“The statistics are much better than anybody dreamt they would be,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who, with Senator Susan M. Collins, Republican of Maine, was the author of an early version of a “cash for clunkers” bill that would have required bigger improvements. The actual mileage gain seen so far, she said was not due to the details of the law but “the good judgment of the American people” [Nick Bunkley and Derrick Henry, "As 'Clunker' Rebates Help Ford, Aid May Be Extended," New York Times, 2009.08.04]

But what about the messy, stinky, leaky scrapping process? Sure, it takes energy to tear apart a car, and the process can release all sorts of engine fluids and other chemicals. But that happens with or without Cash for Clunkers. Much as I hate to think about it, my 1993 Jeep Wrangler will someday go to the scrap heap. (It will probably just fall apart beneath me on the highway someday, spewing its parts and fluids all over the road, rather than letting anyone haul it away to the old clunkers' home.) The same environmental impact accrues whether we scrap these gas guzzlers now or five, ten, twenty years down the road. Scrapping them now incurs that salvage cost now and saves us 5–20 years of operating emissions.

I would also speculate that scrapping them now means more recycling. Suppose I did Cash-for-Clunkerize my Jeep today. Some salvage yard would have a whole heap of 1993 Jeep Wrangler parts to resell. And the market for 1993 Jeep Wrangler parts will only get smaller. The sooner my parts are available, the more chance the salvage yard will have to sell them and make some money rather than having Jeep bits rusting and polluting their pristine junkyards.

Cash for Clunkers is making the conservatives mad because it is working so spectacularly well on every front. It's boosting the economy. It's making long-term improvements in fuel efficiency. It's providing a simple and vivid counterargument to all that "gummint can't do nothin' right" talk that GOP games-players have to sell to hide the fact that they can't come up with policies that do work.

But I thank Ms. Flint for her concern about the environment. Now I wonder what she thinks about that big nasty foreign oil pipeline being dug through our fair state....

----------------------------
Update 14:40 CDT: Alas, Ms. Flint misrepresents my argument:

Mr. Heidelberger at The Madville Times responds to my post by arguing that even though destroying vehicles probably does harm the environment, it's alright because it boosts the economy. Cory is beginning to sound a lot like a Republican!

Well, Ms. Flint is correct that Republicans tend to embrace economic gains without due regard for environmental impacts. But what I said was that we incur the same impacts of junking these cars now as we would years down the road. Fifty years from now (big picture, Miranda), the landfills will be as junked up as if we hadn't done Cash for Clunkers. But by junking the clunkers now, we eliminate the environmental impact of their continued use. The gain over a non-Cash-for-Clunkers scenario may be small, but it is still a gain. More to the point, Ms. Flint has not proven net environmental harm greater than if Cash for Clunkers had not passed.

Prostrollo Loves Cash for Clunkers

Pat Prostrollo, fellow socialist
(photo courtesy Madison Daily Leader)

The irony never ends in Madison. Affirmation of my argument that Cash for Clunkers is big government green stimulus that works comes from none other than GOP stalwart Pat Prostrollo:

Pat Prostrollo, president of Madison's Prostrollo Auto Mall, has no doubts that the rebate progam has performed in the manner that its backers had hoped.

"Since the program started, it's been fast and furious around here," Prostrollo said. "It's certainly done the job that the program was designed to do."

"We'd certainly like to see it carry on," he said. "We'd hate to disappoint the customers who want to use the program" [Chuck Clement, "Cash-for-Clunkers Runs out of Cash," Madison Daily Leader, 2009.07.31].

We are all socialists now.

I should have accepted that invitation to the Thune reception at Pat's dad's house last month. The conversation had to be fascinating:

Thune: All this government intervention in the economy is terrible.
Prostrollo: Darn right. No one should get a handout.
Thune: That's why I'm working to stop the bailouts.
Prostrollo: By the way, do you think just one billion is enough for Cash for Clunkers? I really thought the $4 billion in the House bill was a better idea....

Also of interest:

• Pat Prostrollo's campaign donations on OpenSecrets.org ($15,400 to the state GOP and GOP candidates for Congress and President over the last two decades)
• Representative Herseth Sandlin voted against Cash for Clunkers, along with 8 other Dems and 110 Republicans. She also voted yesterday against the $2 billion extension, with 13 other Dems and 95 Republicans.
  
• Senator Thune tried to block Cash for Clunkers, but ultimately voted with Senator Johnson and 89 other senators to pass the supplemental appropriations bill that authorized the program.
• The National Auto Dealers Association is alerting dealers to call their senators and urge them to pass more funding for Cash for Clunkers. Senator Thune, Pat Prostrollo on line 1....
  

Green Stimulus That Works: Cash for Clunkers

Here's stimulus that Pat Prostrollo, Dave Billion, and us hippies can love: the Cash for Clunkers program is such a doorbusting success that it's burned up its one-billion-dollar budget in barely a week and has buyers and dealers clamoring for more:

The federal program provided rebates of $3,500 or $4,500 to consumers who traded in vehicles with combined city/highway mileage of 18 miles per gallon or less and bought more fuel-efficient new cars or trucks.

The program was designed to run until Nov. 1 or until 250,000 cars had been sold, whichever came first. Many analysts had expected the money to last at least until Labor Day.

..."I hope they will extend the program because it was such a win on so many levels -- for the consumers, for the environment, for all the car manufacturers," said John Sackrison, executive director of the Orange County Automobile Dealers Assn. "It got a lot of people to go car shopping who wouldn't have otherwise."

...Dealers and automakers said the plan clearly sparked a level of interest that had been missing in new-car showrooms, which have looked like ghost towns for much of the last year [Martin Zimmerman, Tiffany Hsu, and Jim Puzzanghera, "'Cash for Clunkers' Program Runs out of Gas," Los Angeles Times, 2009.07.31].

Now it's possible we might have just gotten lucky: car sales had been so slow for so long, there was nowhere for them to go but up. The incentive program may just have coincided with an upturn that would have happened anyway. And I still hesitate to cheer about government programs that encourage people to buy more stuff.

But if we need people to buy stuff to get us out of the recession, we can at least aim at getting people to buy something useful, like cars that get better gas mileage. It looks like Cash for Clunkers is one government stimulus program that's hitting on all cylinders.

Keep the RV: We'll Take the Smart Car!

My wife and I first saw the Smart car on the streets of Vancouver BC in 2005. Cute, tiny, and available as a convertible, it represents the direction GM ought to go if it wants to sell cars to the world: smaller, cheaper, more fuel-efficient, using less resources and less space. I know, it's no good for hauling your ice shack in a blizzard, but for 90% of the trips that 90% of us Americans make, it's all the car we need.

So we got excited when we saw a Smart car in Sioux Falls yesterday:

Whoo-hoo! A fellow American taking the lead toward smaller, smarter transportation!

Oh. Oops. Still American.

But hey, it's better than those RVs towing Escalades.

By the way, the Smart car was marked with the logo of LiddleKidz.com, whose Tina Allen was in Sioux Falls over the weekend to conduct an infant massage certification course.

Prostrollo Loses Cadillac Franchise; Madison Elites to Buy Fords?

Didn't see this one coming: Madison's Prostrollo Auto Mall is losing its Cadillac franchise. Evidently GM is scaling back its high-end franchise to be sold exclusively in the big city—i.e. Sioux Falls and Rapid City.

Not to worry: Prostrollo and Madison's Cadillac demographic are a resilient and loyal lot. I'm sure our local Caddy owners will show their solidarity with local business by trading in their ritzy GM clunkers and buying some nice Ford Fusions from Pat and Nick.

South Dakota GM Dealers Seek Nanny State Protection

I'm still trying to sort out the lawsuit two South Dakota General Motors dealers have filed to fend off GM's effort to shut them down. The dealers, Springs Auto in beautiful (I mean that!) downtown Wessington Springs and Yankton Motor Company (I'd link, but they have a really annoying low-quality autoplay jingle on their website) in Yankton, claim that South Dakota law prevents GM from shutting them down without a hearing. (Feel free to page through South Dakota's vehicle dealers regulations, particularly SDCL 32-6B-45 and 32-6B-46.)

So just checking: is this an example of good Republican businessmen hiding behind the skirts of the nanny state? Do we have capitalists begging the government to prevent their business partners from acting like capitalists and making free-market decisions that are in the best interest of the corporate bottom line?

Sibby says no, this is businessmen hiding behind the skirts of the South Dakota nanny state to protect themselves from the Obama nanny state. Sibby reminds us that Obama (and the rest of us) own GM now, so really, the suing dealers are asking the courts to protect them from... themselves. Ourselves. Aaaagghh! This is as bad as "I'm My Own Grandpa"!

Whichever way the legal cookie crumbles on this one, it is interesting to note the apparently unique role South Dakota government plays in setting the terms of the car sales business in our fair state:

"South Dakota has a statute that says you can't end a franchise with a dealer before having a hearing," said Michael Dady, the attorney representing the two dealers.

"We'd like you to revoke the letters, schedule a hearing and you can tell the hearing examiner why you have the right to do it and we can tell them why you don't," he said of the notice sent to GM.

Dady said he's negotiating with GM's attorney in hopes a hearing can be scheduled.

GM's in-house lawyer handling the issue could not immediately be reached for comment.

Dady said South Dakota is one of a few states -- or maybe the only one -- with such a requirement.

"It's not typical," he said [Carson Walker, "2 South Dakota Auto Dealers Sue GM to Stay Open," AP via Chicago Tribune, 2009.06.09].

South Dakota car dealers must have a lot of pull around here.

According to Walker, the dealers argue that GM is violating South Dakota's unusual dealership franchise laws in four ways:

1. GM "didn't notify the state." (I didn't know capitalists had to inform the state of their business decisions.)
   
2. GM "hasn't given a good reason to close the franchises." (I didn't know capitalists had to give the state a reason for their business decisions.)
   
3. GM failed to show that the needs of the communities will be served without them. (Serve the community? Isn't that socialism?)
4. Dealers have a right to a new contract if they fulfilled their obligations. (Right to a new contract? Boy, if only South Dakota's workers had that sort of legal protection.)
   

Our car dealers may donate and vote Republican, but this lawsuit and the legal protections they've gotten written into state law show that they are as socialist as anyone else.

Hydrogen Power in Your Tank Today?

An eager reader (probably another one of those darn liberals trying to use less gasoline) told me about a Texas outfit, EVO Technology, that is working on a new kind of hybrid car: gasoline plus hydrogen. If it works, it could reduce gasoline usage and be a step toward that fabled water-powered car.

The basic science: you add a water tank to your car. Use a little juice from your battery for electrolysis to split the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. Inject that hydrogen into the internal combustion engine. Boom! Your fuel burns more completely and cleanly. EVO claims to have achieved fuel efficiency gains of over 30% in the vehicles it has tested.

So is the idea legit? EVO offers an installation manual with component images and an electrical diagram, but their Products page remains "Under construction." The "installation expert" cited in the manual is "eborowsky@hplus-hybrid.com". That appears to be Erez Borowsky, marketing executive and partner at EVO Technologies. Borowsky is the registrant of the hplus-hybrid.com domain name. Borowsky also appears to have a hand/money in wrapped carbon competition kite tubes. And if I'm reading the Internet right, Borowsky played minor-league baseball for the Twins for five years. Some casual Sunday Googling doesn't turn up anyone else associated with this company.

EVO's website does produce a 2008 report from the Southwest Research Institute summarizing past successful research on hydrogen-enhanced internal combustion engines. However, Mike Allen, senior automotive editor at Popular Mechanics, has written quite a bit debunking this technology:

This malarkey boiled down to perpetual motion: something for nothing. Essentially, it takes more energy—in the form of the chemical energy in the gasoline you're burning in the engine, to spin the alternator to make the electricity and generate the HHO—than you get back. In fact, it's not even close: Multiply all the inefficiencies in that system and you only get a few percent back, certainly not in excess of 100 percent [Mike Allen, "Why Water Won't Improve Your MPG," Popular Mechanics, 2009.03.27].

But what about all that research?

Before you start e-mailing me copies of those same scientific papers (I've seen them a dozen times) that supposedly prove that this works, let me tell you, these documents don't apply to your car. Without getting very detailed, these papers all deal with ultralean experimental engines with fuel-delivery systems enhanced with a stream of pure hydrogen, achieving a small improvement. They have nothing to do with retrofitting a conventional engine (with computer-controlled engine management that keeps the mixture near a perfect 14.2:1) with a device that adds a hydrogen-oxygen mix [Allen 2009].

I welcome commentary from my science-minded readers. I'd like to think innovations like hydrogen injection could help us save gasoline. Even small decreases in consumption can produce significant price declines. But from this weekend's reading, I'm inclined to believe hydrogen injectors won't be beating high gas costs or the laws of thermodynamics in my Jeep any time soon.
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Read more:

• Dateline NBC report to which Mike Allen contributed, debunking a similar hydrogen technology peddled by Dennis Lee. Note that Lee tells Dateline that NBC is simply in he pocket of Big Oil.
• Allen and Dateline didn't buy Lee's claims about his hydrogen assist fuel technology, but a New Jersey judge found the Federal Trade Commission failed to prove Lee had broken any laws.
  

KELO Runs Corporate Propaganda from Billion as News

I sure wish I could call KELO and get free advertising. (Well, they do run the Madville Times for free, which is mighty nice of them.) KELO gives Dave Billion of Billion Automotive the opportunity to assure customers that everything going on with General Motors—dealership closings, bankruptcy filing expected Monday—is good for customers. Billion also makes sure he gets to mention that his inventory is bigger than the Sioux Empire Fairgrounds and that "We're having a record sale out here" (Perry doesn't put the exclamation point, but feel free to read your own there).

Now Dave Billion does run the fifth-largest GM dealership in the country (hey! I didn't know that!), so it is perfectly sensible that Perry Groten should turn to Billion for some perspective on the industry. It's also perfectly sensible that Billion should give us the corporate spin line. For instance:

• "The good news is with the government owning 70 percent of General Motors, it's nice to have a partner that owns a printing press that can print money, I don't think you have to worry about going broke." Forgive me if I read that as a backhanded compliment from a good McCain donor whose business was just saved by the American people.
• On closing small-town dealerships: "I see it as an opportunity to sell more vehicles, cover broader territories and perhaps acquire additional dealerships." Small towns are such a nuisance for big businesspeople. Never mind that the dealership closings "will cost thousands of jobs, create holes in local tax bases, eliminate community pillars and create economic ripple effects across the country" [Tom Krisher and Dan Strumpf, "GM Dealers Expect Word on Plans to Cut 1,100 Shops," AP via Google News, 2009.05.15].
  
• Groten reports that "Billion says GM's filing for bankruptcy shouldn't have any impact on the price of vehicles." Of course not: it's the closing of competing dealerships that will do that. The whole point of closing dealerships is to reduce customer buying power and allow GM to make more per sale independent of any changes in the actual quality of the product. This business plan makes sense in a world where there's nothing but GM... but has GM (or Chrysler) considered that by yanking their dealers from small towns, they might be increasing the chances that buyers will turn to the remaining dealers of other brands that are willing to (a) stick with the small towns, (b) beat GM's price, and (c) provide better quality?
• Billion also takes the interesting position that GM should have declared bankruptcy sooner, to end the uncertainty for dealers and customers. That may be a valid point, but I wonder: could we argue that it is more admirable for a company to stand and fight, to do everything it can to avoid bankruptcy?

One thing Dave and I can agree on: Billion Automotive will be fine. They're big and they're diversified. But that won't help the little guys Billion is clearly eager to crush or buy out.

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Update 14:55: KELO does give the little guy some air time as well. Glen Rapp of Rapp Chevrolet in Marion doesn't see closing dealers as good for GM: "Every time they eliminate a dealer, they eliminate a customer and I certainly wouldn't want to lose any of my customers." KELO says Rapp is lobbying our lawmakers to help small dealers like his open to serve rural customers who need big trucks. Hmm... Rapp must be one of those big-government Democrats....