Why has the U.S. not put an emphasis on alternative fuels and environmentally friendly cars?

Question

In light of the current situation in the Middle East & the price of a barrel of crude oil, why hasn't the U.S. done more to blaze the trail of leading the world towards alternative fuels and environmentally friendly cars?....why must we always follow instead of lead the world??

Answer 1

The US has put some emphasis on it, just not as much as you would like. Why not more? More is a relative term. You can always do more, no matter how much you do. Why don't we do more to save stray dogs and cats from being killed in animal shelters? We COULD do more about that, right? Why don't we do more to fight poverty? Why don't we do more about all kinds of things? We do as much as we can and divide that effort up between all the things we do, so any increase in what we do about one thing causes us to do less about something else.

If by the US you mean the US government., there may be people who think we have done too much, wasting money without getting any payback, or too little, wasting time while we depend on oil that is running out and causing pollution. Basically, the government is doing what the majority of the voters like, because it they don't, they get voted out of office.

If you mean why have private companies not done more, the answer is that there is no profit. A company that spends money on a new kind of clean technology that makes no profit soon runs out of money and goes out of business. There have been many such companies, but they are all out of business now. (OK, a few are still in business, but since they aren't making a profit they are in the process of going out of business.)

If you mean individual people in the US, some are doing a lot, more than you or me.

Answer 2

The chief reason why we have not seen a shift towards alternative fuels and eco-friendly cars is that the auto manufacturers and the oil corporations have substantial influence on policy makers in government. They do not want to incur the significant costs that it would take for them to produce alternative products. Nor do they possess the long term vision required to predict the highly-probable negative consequences of doing nothing. In point of fact, the present administration in the White House is dominated by men from the oil industry.

Answer 3

By U.S., you mean the government? If you always look to government to solve your problems and take care of you, you will always be disappointed. Plus, you're completely inaccurate when you say "we always follow instead of lead the world".

As to eco-friendly cars, the U.S. works on supply and demand. The fact is that most Americans will not drive an eco-friendly car, in least in their current forms, for many reasons. And since the U.S. automakers have enough problems, they cannot afford to sink a bunch of money into R&D for something that isn't in great demand.

Many companies have been working on alternative fuels for quite awhile now. It's just that there isn't any viable idea out there right now. Nobody has come up with an idea that solves the entire problem, from production to distribution. When somebody eventually comes up with a solution, big companies and the government will throw hordes of money at them to develop it and get it into the marketplace. It's an extremely complex problem to solve, if you take into account all the factors.

Answer 4

The second half of your question is not true...American-made vehicles pollute FAR LESS than they did twenty or even ten years ago. This is a direct result of the CAFE standards imposed by the federal government. Emmisions are down significantly and contrary to the barrage of pessimism from the media, air quality in most American cities has improved dramatically since the 1970s. The United States has, in fact, led the world in lowering vehicle emmisions...with standards in many states being tighter than in most of Europe.

As for alternative fuels...until recently, gasoline has been very inexpensive in the United States. There has been very little incentive for people to conserve gasoline or look for alternatives. With higher prices now, I already see that attitude changing.

Answer 5

Because it all has to do with the profit. For instance if you have seen the movie "Who Killed The Electric Car" you'll know the answer to your question. Basically oil and car companies depend on each other for business purposes. If they see something that will put them out of business or brings down their profit, like the electric car, they try really hard to buy it or get it out of the market and hide it from the world. Also there is no specific law that states what kind of car you can you can use, but only standards cars must meet. The states have the ability to choose stuff like that. I recommend that you see the movie "Who Killed The Electric Car" because it'll answer your question and its a powerful and well done piece of film. Its a must see.

Answer 6

This is more economics than science. Corporation A has a product that uses an item to make it work. That item is relatively readily available and easy to refine into a usable state. Infrastructure is already in existence to refine it and make it available for use by the product owners. When sources of the item decline, it takes small amounts of capital to find new sources. Bottom line, current use of the item and product that requires the item means practically limitless source of corporate profits.
Along comes another potential item for a new potential product to replace the old item/product combination. Problem: LOTS and LOTS of capital to develop and make the new product available at a price everyone will want to spend. Problem 2: Item needs LOTS and LOTS of capital to create the infrastructure required for any new product owners to get item to use in there products. Hmm that was LOTS and LOTS and LOTS and LOTS...4 LOTS means nope gonna stick to the readily available item/product profit making combination and not waste corporation's capital that can be better spent giving corporation's executives giant multi-million dollar bonuses.
And, yes, you got it, item=oil/fuel and product=car.

Answer 7

Because we are more vested in the OLD ways of producing fuel; i.e. - OIL. The men in power (in both parties) see no immediate profit in switching us to another fuel source, when they can run this one into the ground and make money on it, with little further capital investment.

Answer 8

Umm, just because you aren't up on the news about all the research they're giving grants to to find out alternative fuels doesn't mean they aren't doing it.

Answer 9

We will, once the oil companies figure out a way to monopolize the alternative fuel source.

Answer 10

because most environmentally friendly cars aren't produced by american companies and oil supplies aren't critical enough to distroy this country so they would rather leave it alone.