We’ve been in love with cars in America for as long as… well, as long as there have been cars.

At $8 a gallon gas we were just getting into European Territory. SUVs are now parked or reconfigured as small homes, air travel is a luxury again and we’re sticking closer to home for school and family ties. Our air is a lot easier to breathe, and we know our neighborhood cop and the region we live in a lot better. Now let’s move into $10 gas. What does Christopher Steiner see for us at $10 a gallon?
We’ve been in love with cars in America for as long as… well, as long as there have been cars. But you know how sometimes late at night, you wonder if that first love was really the one after all? We’ll get that second chance at romance at $10 per gallon with an old flame - the electric car. Sure she’s still mad at us for abandoning her for Henry Ford’s cheaper gas engine cars, and for getting her hopes up in the late 1980’s with GM’s EV1 before tossing her on the scrap heap once again. But at $10 per gallon, she’s going to look like the one we’ve always loved.

UPS is using all electric delivery trucks in Manhattan as I write this. UPS can see the future, and for them, it’s future with a lot less gas in it. UPS spent over $ billion on gas in 2008 at $4 a gallon. At $10, well, let’s just say that UPS already has 1600 alternative fuel vehicles on the roads now, and is adding more. Alternative fuel vehicles can run more than double a gas guzzler, but at $10 gas, the operating savings are worth the upfront investment. $10 a gallon gas may seem futuristic to us Americans, but it’s pushing that price at the pump in parts of Europe, and with level or declining supplies and rising demand for energy, we’ll likely see it in the next decade. UPS will make hay on their testing and planning now.

We’ll be gradually weaned into electrics by the hybrids we are already driving, and by car’s like the Chevy Volt - produced by Greenopolis Partner GM - that run only on electricity, but have a small on board gas engine to charge the battery for longer trips.

We’ll move into all electric cars, and other innovative drive systems, like compressed hydraulics (UPS is already testing these), or compressed air, like Motor Development International in France is already testing. But electric will become common rather than a novelty at $10 a gallon. Right now, filling up a battery car to carry us 100 miles costs about $5 worth of electricity at today’s rates. Filling my Honda Pilot to go 100 miles, takes about 4 gallons of gas - more than $10 today and nearing $20 when gas topped $4 a gallon. The smart money will be in battery technology, to give us the range we’ve gotten used to in gas powered cars.

Other changes to look forward to at $10 a gallon include the death of snowmobiles and jet skis- gas powered noisemakers at least - and Steiner tells us we won’t miss the 12,000 annual jet ski accidents each year. Get a sailboat, or take a paddle. Go skiing through the forest. There will be a snowmobile or two for rescue work if you need it, but you won’t have to worry about being run over by the beast - most folks won’t be able to afford the gas at $10. Same with ATV’s and dirt bikes, and big powerboats will belong only to the very rich. But the forests, lakes, bays, snow covered meadows will be quieter, cleaner, and healthier.

Biobased plastics will edge out petroleum plastics, and we’ll grow our plastic rather than drill for it. Most of these biobased plastics will be compostable or recyclable, so we can reuse it or put it back into the soil and grow more. There’s already an amazing array of bioplastics that will flourish when the price tips $10 a gallon.

Ready for more dizzying price heights? Hang on to your hats and wallets - next time we look at $12 dollar gas.

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$20 a Gallon, Part 6: $12 Gas – Bye ‘Burbs, Hello City Life!
$20 a Gallon, Part 5: $14 Gas —Small Town Renaissance
$20 a Gallon, Part 3: $8 Gas Clears the Friendly Skies!
$20 a Gallon, Part 2: $6 Gas Kills SUVs dead!
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