Rather than having gov't subsidize problematic things like ethanol, it would make more sense to have a free marketplace sort out a mix of solutions.
Big petro-fuel taxes would do that. This is why we see more efficient vehicle choices across the pond, eg, smaller vehicles, more diesel engines, more
demand for mass transit, bike friendly cities. Gov't imposed solutions are going to be heavily influenced by fashion & lobbies rather than intelligent planning.
True. In the 90's when I was a young duckling I remember thinking that the prices for fuel weren't bad while on a port visit to Italy. (granted this was during the bad days for Italy when the lire was trading at 15000ish to the dollar -- I saw prices for (granted expensive items) things listed using scientific notation). After I had done the math and converted the numbers I thought meh, that's only about $2.50 what was everyone complaining about with the price of gas...then a buddy pointed out that the price was
per liter. After I stopped gasping with shock I was further shocked to discover that
anyone was driving at all.
After visiting Oslo recently, I was amazed at the efficiency (price and regularity) of the mass transit system, the huge amount of biking/walking paths and the relatively (by US standards for a comparably sized city) low vehicle traffic. I was still shocked by the price of the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel (exceedingly long I admit at approximately 50km cost was 955 kr about $198 US.), and ruefully admitted that I should have taken the advice of the nice (and handsome) young man running the taxi stand at the airport and rode the train or bus.
I will point out that beyond the taxation issues, one other factor affecting the physical size of vehicles in many European countries is the street size. Particularly in the older cities some streets make it impractical, at best, to have large vehicles.
