Every day I drive myself to work. Its about a 15 mile round trip. As I sit in traffic and at lights, I look at the other, newer cars longingly.

You see, I am cursed. In 1996, when I bought my last new car, I chose a Toyota. 12 years and 100,000 miles later, I have the same car. And there is nothing wrong with it. All I do to it is oil changes and routine maintenance, and it runs tirelessly for me. Unlike our VW, which needs a repair and/or a recall every year we have had it, the Toyota is simple but flawless.

Which is to say, I have no real argument for getting a new car. Mine still runs fine. There are conveniences it doesnt have but those are, well, conveniences not necessities. The only significant problem with it is that it does not have the LATCH system for child seats. Something that has only recently become an issue.

All the same, I periodically dream and shop for a new car. But even that has become increasingly hard to do.

If you have read my blog, you already know that I think science is real and so is global climate change. Pollution from billions of human beings is affecting the planet and those changes are enormous.

As the years have gone by, I have found it increasingly unconscionable to buy a car that gets less than 25 MPG. On some days I think traditional cars at all are a crime but even I am not at the point of giving up my personal transportation.

So I look at fancy new cars from BMW and VW and Audi and Lexus. I check out the stats and prices and then I get to the MPG...

18 MPG? That is a crime.

My Toyota from a decade ago gets 25. Even if I had the money, I dont think I could allow myself to purchase a new luxury car because of the MPG. Cars have gotten too darn heavy. It makes me angry.

Then I start to think about what my alternatives are and I get even more angry. As a kid, I watched the Jetson's skim around in flying cars. This is a new millennia and we still have two basic choices: car or motorcycle using gasoline or diesel fuel.

Go to KBB.com and you will see 10 categories of cars. That is it. All cars fit into 10 buckets. Pick any car and you will then find 3 or 4 vehicles that are virtually identical. Capitalism has brought us superficial choices in brand, color, style but no real choice.

Where are the 1-person vehicles that fit between a motorcycle and car? Where are the funky, space-ship vehicles? The alternative fuel vehicles? The plug-in electric vehicles?

Where is the fucking human ingenuity? Where are vehicles like this?

What we have is the confluence of capitalism and manufacturing to produce the most similar, cost effect vehicles for the market.
What we dont have is any real choice or anything that deals with global climate change.

The more I think about it the more it annoys me. I want a $15,000 emission-free vehicle for my 15 miles commute. Where is it?

A hint comes in recent articles like this one.

Debate Arises on 3 Wheeler

By STEPHEN POWER

Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- Is a three-wheeled vehicle an automobile? That question is at the center of a vigorous lobbying effort in Washington.

The vehicle in question is the Aptera 2e, a machine that looks like a cross between a Cessna plane and a tricycle. It's the brainchild of Aptera Motors Inc., a three-year-old, closely held car company in Vista, Calif.

The DOE ruled last year that the electric 2e didn't qualify under the $25 billion loan program. A three-wheeled vehicle doesn't meet the definition of an automobile under federal law as being "any 4-wheeled vehicle," according to a letter to Aptera last December from Lachlan Seward, the loan program's director.

The government set aside research money for alternate fuel vehicles but the law is written is such a way that only traditional incompetents like GM can get the money. Even when we throw money at a problem, we do so in a way that prevents any real change.

I know things will get worse and change will come. But I am tired of waiting.