Re the Oil thing. Do a search on Google for "Peak Oil" and there are massive discussions about it.

Oil is a resource that we are using up. As the price per barrell increases on the market; Brent / NY then then oil that was not economic to extract becomes so. The industry is now talking about moveable "ship based" platforms that can tap into fields that may only have a life of a few years instead of looking to fields with 10's of years.

There is a supply vs demand problem and this will continue until fuel consumption becomes a criteria for the choice of vehicle. In most of the EU, MPG is a criteria for the purchase of a car. I don;t feel that is is so in the USA.

In the past I was shocked to read about the import duty's on EU cars in the US. Is this to protect the US motor industry. I believe that the US does not see MPG (yet) as a criteria for the buying of cars.

In the UK (and I assume the rest of the EU) any car that is returning an average 8 MPG would be a super car. Our Petrol (and Drv) prices are such that such a car would not (and could not) be considered as a "every day driver".

Perhaps high fuel prices in the USA would "help" to move the US motor market to move to a more MPG driven choice.