Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability [Hardcover]

Daniel Sperling (Author), Deborah Gordon (Author), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 13, 2009

Today there are over a billion vehicles in the world, and within twenty years, the number will double, largely a consequence of China's and India's explosive growth. Given that greenhouse gases are already creating havoc with our climate and that violent conflict in unstable oil-rich nations is on the rise, will matters only get worse? Or are there hopeful signs that effective, realistic solutions can be found?
Blending a concise history of cars and their impact on the world, leading transportation experts Daniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon explain how we arrived at this state, and what we can do about it. Sperling and Gordon assign blame squarely where it belongs-on the auto-industry, short-sighted government policies, and consumers. They explore such solutions as getting beyond the gas-guzzler monoculture, re-inventing cars, searching for low-carbon fuels, and more. Promising advances in both transportation technology and fuel efficiency together with shifts in traveler behavior, they suggest, offer us a way out of our predicament.
The authors conclude that the two places that have the most troublesome emissions problems--California and China--are the most likely to become world leaders on these issues. Arnold Schwarzenegger's enlightened embrace of eco-friendly fuel policies, which he discusses in the foreword, and China's forthright recognition that it needs far-reaching environmental and energy policies, suggest that if they can tackle the issue effectively and honestly, then there really is reason for hope. Updated with a new afterword that sheds light on the profound changes in the global economy in the last year, Two Billion Cars makes the case for why and how we need to transform transportation now more than ever.


"Authoritatively prescriptive."
--Tom Vanderbilt, Wilson Quarterly

"Provocative and pleasurable, far-seeing and refreshing, fact-based and yet a page-turner, global in scope but rooted in real places. The authors make a convincing case that smart consumers driving smart electric-drive cars can find the critical path to a safer planet."
--Robert Socolow, Princeton University

"In this insightful and persuasive book, Sperling and Gordon highlight one of the biggest environmental challenges of this century: two billion cars. They rightly contend that we cannot avert the worst of global warming without making our cars cleaner and petroleum-free. Luckily the authors also offer a roadmap for navigating this problem that is both visionary and achievable."
--Frances Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This look at the global automobile industry explains how such a staggering number of autos came to be, and how we can sustain them all and the planet at the same time. The range of topics is wide; one of the most interesting chapters looks at the psychology of hybrid vehicle purchasers: "at least for the early buyers... it's about the symbolism of 'doing the right thing,' even if the individual contribution is infinitesimally small." The fortunes of fuel-sippers are also considered in relation to gas prices: in the year GM launched the Hummer brand and Toyota unveiled the Prius, gas prices at "near historic lows" made the Hummer ubiquitous in cities and suburbs. Elsewhere, Sperling and Gordon examine the problem of China's car ownership explosion, but return repeatedly to the "pioneering role" of California. Sperling and Gordon are upfront with their California ties(Sperling serves on the California Air Resources Board, Gordon has worked with the California Energy Commission, Gov. Schwarzenegger provides the foreword), and though they profile somegenuinely groundbreaking work, it can read more like public relations than objective reporting; further, some proposed solutions (personal "carbon budgets") read like parodies of Left Coast eco-liberalism. Luckily, there's enough grounding global perspective to save the text from too much California dreaming. 15 b&w photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

With statistical data, charts, graphs, and erudite analysis, Sperling and Gordon present the most thorough study of the automobile industry general readers could hope to find. The authors, with a foreword from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, summarize the history of the Big Three automakers and then expand their scope to include Toyota, Honda, and others. Social scientists will appreciate the pages devoted to America’s long-established car culture while futurists will be intrigued by evidence that we have exported that culture to other countries, placing the entire planet at risk. Far from simply an environmental anti-car tome, however, this volume summarizes alternatives to our current reliance on oil and explains in detail why alternatives have not been utilized. (Fans of the electric car should take special note.) Automobile industry wonks will find much to consider, but the book’s audience should also include those with an interest in U.S. labor history and the political relationship between oil giants and Detroit. This is an American story with international ramifications, and mandatory reading in the current economic crisis. --Colleen Mondor

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; First Edition edition (January 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195376641
• ISBN-13: 978-0195376647
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,138,341 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Blue or Gray? Which will we choose ? November 11, 2008

By Anne TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I grew up in L.A. and I didn't know that the blue sky in picture books was a real thing! I am genuinely serious about this. When I was 18 years old, I traveled to Oregon, got off the plane, and saw that the sky was actually blue--I had thought that it was a myth.

This book is really about the reason for those gray L.A. skies I grew up with. It is one of those books that everyone "should" read. It's important and it matters because it explains a huge issue we are going to have to deal with in the near future and beyond. I was fascinated by the interesting details that the authors included about the car industry and the development of different types of engines.

But, this book is so packed with information that you need to press on and wade into the deep end of it and then keep on swimming. It is a textbook. I assumed that it would be much lighter because of Schwarzenegger's contribution, but he only wrote the forward. As a textbook, I give it a very high recommendation. It is a very, very readable textbook. An easy, light read, this book is not.

As opposed to the other readers, I don't feel that the authors focused too much on California. The chapter that discusses California's situation and the actions that its state government has taken was very appropriate to the overall discussion of the book. One thing was not acknowledged in this chapter, though, and that was the horrible lack of public transporation and mass transit in California. I wish that there had been more of a discussion of mass transit in the book.

This book is definitely worth reading. The best comparison I can think of is that if you enjoy reading the magazine the Economist, then this book should be right up your alley.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Is this book dated even before its release? November 15, 2008

By tomh VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Authors Daniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon have written a book describing their proposals for how we must deal with the energy and climate implications of personal transportation. The title is based on the projection of the number of cars we would expect to see in the coming years, as a number of countries develop their economies, notably India and China. With personal transportation accounting for 30% of US carbon emissions, and some very large percentage of our crude oil consumption, it is clear that the transportation picture must change. In the end, the authors make a case for a number of general solutions, many based on their efforts in California.

The book will be published soon, but its timing is a bit unfortunate; frequently there are sections that refer to the pre-financial-crisis state of the world: high gasoline and oil prices, a regressive Bush administration in place, and a resonable set of assumptions about the availability of capital, car companies that were in bad shape but not near-death, and so on. So much has changed in the last few months that even before being published, in some ways the book seems dated. Of course this is mainly a superficial problem, as the policy proposals and observations in most ways transcend the presumably temporal problems the world economy is undergoing, and the new political landscape in a more enlightened Obama administration. Still, it is hard to read parts of the book only because it is clear that so much that is relevant to the problem has changed.

The book is organized in 9 chapters. The first 6 chapters present the history and current state of what the authors call the automobile monoculture: a world where most forms of transportation have been squeezed out to make room for one form of transit: the car.... The 7th chapter describes the policies that have been put into place in California, many through the efforts of the authors. The next chapter describes how the car monoculture of the US is rapidly spreading to China as well as India. The final chapter presents the authors' proposals in this context.

I may be at the edge of the intended audience for the book -- while the forward (written by California governor Arnold Schwartzeneger) describes the book as accessible, I found it a bit dense and perhaps a little less cohesive than I would have preferred. Several times I felt as though a more ruthless editing would have made the content more readable, and more effective at making the point. I also found that the positions on certain policies were unclear, if not directly contradictory. For example, the authors go to some length to detail why cap and trade carbon policies are not a good solution for the problem of controlling automobile usage, yet in the end seem to include that as one of their proposals. In another example, they describe why technology-specific legislation (e.g. corn ethanol incentives) tend to fail compared to legislation that mandates objectives (e.g. carbon emissions), yet then propose how to regulate some specific energy sources, such as tar sands. Again, perhaps my relative lack of expertise in this area prevented me from grasping certain nuances. However, at some level, I think the book could have been far more effective with another round or two of editing.

I do think the authors eventually present a cogent, well-reasoned and broad solution for the problem the book addresses: 2 billion cars. In particular, they describe how future systems of integrated transportation systems could help us move away from the one-size-fits-all solution that personal automobiles have created. For example, we might have on-demand electric vehicles that can be summoned from our smart phone and which take us to a suitable location to pick up a bus or train. Still, this "Futurama III" scenario they describe seems very distant, and a bit dischordant with the specific, far more pragmatic proposals they present. In the end, I was left with a number of questions about how all of these pieces would come together.

My final criticism of the book is that it is presented in a bit of a vacuum, not particularly addressing how transportation solutions fit with equally important policies relating to other energy and climate problems such as heating and cooling of buildings, eletrical grid use (except as it relates to plug-in cars), agriculture, food, and water. These issues are inextricably bound; policies that address one without consideting others have consistently proven to be counter-productive (consider, for example corn ethanol programs; they help with oil independence at several much greater costs). I fully recognize that such a book must necessarily focus on solutions to the specific problem domain, yet almost no mention was made of how these solutions fit into the larger web of highly-related problems (and solutions). It seems that we often try to fix one problem without considering its impact on others (indeed the book itself makes this point).

As a conclusion, I think this book is best as an example of solutions that have worked in California ... and often under less-than-favorable political and policy conditions. Are these solutions relevant in this post-election, intra-financial world? Read more ›

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Informative and Insightful Discussion on Transporation and the Environment July 13, 2009

By Glenn Gallagher VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Two Billion Cars is a very informative book on transportation and sustainability issues. The premise of the book is that currently we have one billion cars, but in twenty years, the planet will have about two billion cars. If there are no changes, this growth in cars will be disastrous in terms of energy usage, congestion, and global warming. The first two chapters are fairly dry, but the book gets more interesting in chapter 3, "Breaking Detroit's Hold on Energy and Climate Policy", which is a terrific short history on how America got to be so car-centric.

The book will appeal most to people interested in sustainability issues as they relate to transportation and climate change.

Points made in the book:
1. Almost all the growth in vehicles will come from India and China, with annual growth rates in vehicles about 7-8 percent annually. The United States has a current growth rate in vehicles of less than 1 percent annually, so we are less affected by local pollution and congestion, although global warming issues would still be a concern. Whatever India and China do (or fail to do) will have the biggest effect on greenhouse gas emissions.

2. Nothing will get people out of their cars and using mass-transit in the foreseeable future, not even much higher fuel prices. Therefore, making the personal passenger vehicle more environmentally-friendly is the key.

3. We are nowhere near peak oil. The amount of unconventional oil such as tar sands is quite large.

4. The best way to promote energy independence and reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to impose very high fuel mileage standards.... Government should never "bet on a technology winner", but should instead make performance-based goals the only measure of success, both for fuel mileage standards, and greenhouse gas tailpipe standards (both standards are linked).

5. Ethanol from corn probably is less environmentally beneficial than just using imported oil.

6. California is in a unique position to influence national policy on sustainable transportation, and therefore can influence policy globally.

7. American car manufacturers used perverse incentives to create gas-guzzling vehicles (be sure to read about how the "chicken tax" and truck-exemption for fuel mileage led to the dominance of the truck, mini-van, and SUV in American car sales). The only way to end these perverse incentives is to remove the negative incentive and pass fuel efficiency rules.

8. One of the best hopes to increase fuel efficiency is to use plug-in hybrids. Hydrogen-powered fuel cells remain an elusive dream.

Quotes from last chapter of book "Driving Towards Sustainability":

"The world is still in denial about the staggering challenges it faces and the radical transformation it must undertake. Achieving a 50 to 80 percent net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions isn't something that businesses, consumers, and politicians can fully imagine."

"Policymakers must overcome the temptation to prescribe and mandate any one particular solution. Similarly, they must the temptation to pick winners. There's an unfortunate tendency for technological experts and politicians alike to embrace "silver bullets" and pick winners. Innovation and technological changes are too dynamic and too difficult to predict."

"The most effective and least costly way to reduce transportation oil use and greenhouse gas emissions is to improve the energy efficiency of vehicles." Read more ›