I just bought a new KIA. Does that make me UN-american?

[csziggy]

84. For years I bought domestic cars - but they just didn't make what we needed

For a price we could pay the last time around. That is still true.

A sedan just does not cut it for our needs. The original Prius hatchback is good, but we need a little more room, thus the Prius v.

A Ford C-Max Hybrid might handle what we need, but I will not buy another Ford. They are perfectly good cars but the local dealership are crooks and I will not put business in their direction. I live in a fairly isolated market - I would have to drive to Georgia or a hundred miles to stay in my state in order to get to another Ford dealer. Any specialize servicing on their hybrid would need to be done at a dealer and that is not going to happen locally.

When I can I buy locally and American produced goods - but I cannot afford to spend money on things that do not fit my needs, that are over priced compared to the competition, and that will cost me more money in the future.

I would love to buy a GM made hybrid, but the Volt sedan is not what I need and the Chevy Tahoe and Cadillac Escalade are far beyond my price range - and if I need that much hauling space, I already own a gas powered GMC Suburban. It is not gas efficient, but it is paid for and I will keep it as long as I can keep it running. Since I seldom need to use it, the dismal gas mileage is not a huge concern anymore. It will be the last large vehicle I will ever buy.

American car manufacturers should have started building efficient cars and experimenting with hybrid or other alternatively powered engines in the 1970s. Instead they imported cheap, undersized foreign made cars that they sold under their brands. Then they abandoned those models as soon as gas prices dropped. I have a book from the late 1970s about converting gasoline cars to electric - if it could be done by home tinkerers, why couldn't American engineers do it better, cheaper and more efficient forty years ago? They left the door open for Toyota to build the first mass produced, widely sold hybrid and break open the market.

The same is happening today, American manufacturers are letting politics dictate what they are willing to spend their research dollars on. The US should have been leaders in solar power and other alternative power sources. Ronald Reagan and the Bushes made sure that would not happen. Now India, China and Germany are building more plants to produce solar panels and generating significant percentages of their electricity with their own solar panels. In contrast, US states are trying to pass legislation to restrict the use of solar power - fortunately here in Florida, that initiative failed last year, but I am sure the backers will try again.

American manufacturers screwed themselves and screwed consumers along the way. We had the brains, the money, and the ability to build better cars for the last half century. Jimmy Carter told us forty years ago that we needed to make the steps to energy efficiency, but we let the oil companies and the Republicans bull shit the country into ignoring President Carter. So screw the American car manufacturers - they've done it to themselves.