Not for the first time, newspaper headlines are proclaiming the end of the automobile as we know it. Such serious publications as the Financial Times run full page articles on the merits of electric cars.
Then there are demonstrating truck drivers and talk of a Parliamentary backbench revolt around the fuel tax multiplier and the UK government's plans to add 2p to the tax on a litre of petrol to encourage people to drive less and buy fuel-efficient cars.
With petrol costing something like 20p a litre more than it did a year ago, an extra 2p is not much of an "incentive" to be more fuel efficient. The tax system takes a sizeable chunk of that extra 20p in VAT. So, even if the government does drop the 2p increase, it will see no decline in the revenues it expected at the time of the Budget.
While Europe has problems with rising oil prices, the real pain is likely to be felt in the USA. The place just isn't designed for walking. Even in built-up areas in parts of cities like Los Angeles, you are seen as strange if you try to walk 50 yards from a hotel to a restaurant.
That is why we can take  initiatives like the FreedomCAR seriously, despite its name, with its undertones of "freedom fries". This is a major R&D initiative "whose ultimate goal is to enable the full spectrum of light-duty passenger vehicle classes to operate completely free of petroleum and free of harmful emissions while sustaining the driving public's freedom of mobility and freedom of vehicle choice".
The FreedomCAR and Fuel Research Partnership, to give it its full name, is managed by the US government. It brings together the big indigenous car companies and "five key energy companies". The programme has been on the road for five years and has been written up at length in FreedomCAR's latest annual review.
As with many such major ventures, a part of the work has been in agreeing a "roadmap, with a detailed set of research goals and milestones". With industry and government at the party, the collaboration means that, as the report puts it, the programme can take into account "both the long-range, precompetitive research needs, as envisioned by the automotive and energy companies and the nation's societal needs related to automotive vehicles and fuels".
The venture is not about the distant future. The timetable is that by 2015 they will arrive at "the point where the private sector can make a decision, based on information generated by the Partnership, about the commercialisation of fuel-cell-powered vehicles fuelled by economically competitive hydrogen produced from a variety of energy sources".
The whole idea is, of course, to continue the 'business as usual' model. It is about technical fixes, with plenty of discussion of energy storage, fuel cells, electric propulsion and so on.
The term 'road pricing' is notable by its absence from the FreedomCAR's analysis. But that isn't the point of the venture. With luck, other bits of the US government, national or local, are considering such heretical ideas.
The report reveals hefty government spending on clean cars, with $274m for "hydrogen-related activities" alone. In all, the appropriation for the fiscal year 2007 includes around $400m of taxpayers' money, half of it for FreedomCAR. President George Bush actually made a commitment to request $1.7bn over five years for the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership.
For a country that espouses free trade and dislikes it when others subsidise their industries, the US is doing a fine job at backing its car makers, hardly the poorest industry around, even though it is a shadow of its former self. There is nothing wrong with spending money like this. Given the size of the challenge, a couple of billion is probably small change. With luck, Europe can match this investment with similar amounts to support what is left of its own car industry.
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