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\F0\CTHE FUTURE OF CARS - ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT AND ECONOMICS


\J	The automobile gives  most Americans the freedom to  go where
they want  whenever they want to go and carry  along a closet full of
whatever they want to carry.   This freedom is so highly valued  that
almost all of  us accept risks that have killed  more people than all
our  wars.  We spend perhaps 20% of our  GNP on cars,  gas and roads,
and we have suffered considerable air pollution  and aesthetic damage
on behalf  of this freedom.   Other countries have  been following us
along the automobile path as fast as their economies permit.

	The social  costs of  the automobile  have been  increasingly
emphasized lately,  and it has even been  suggested that we must give
up  much of our  mobility in order  to have a  better environment and
consume less energy.   The facts are  not all in yet,   and we  still
don't know what  long term trade-offs are  available between mobility
on  the one  hand and  environmental and  energy costs on  the other.
Besides that,   we don't  know what trade-off  point the public  will
choose once the alternatives are  known.  In the short term, however,
the automobile will not change much,  and the problem is how to  make
it work better.

	This  symposium is  for the  presentation  and discussion  of
studies relevant to  these questions.  The first session concentrates
on the effects of various options that are available in the immediate
time frame between the present and 1980. The second session discusses
alternative  engines and  their effect in  the 1980-2000 intermediate
time frame. Both energy and environmental quality are considered. The
third  session  is  dedicated  to  short term  public  policy  issues
including whether the  Clean Air Act  should be modified.   The  last
session concerns  the long  term future  of the automobile  including
where  the energy is  to come  from after the  oil is gone,   whether
individual  transportation must  or  should  be  given  up  for  mass
transportation and communication, or whether, on the other hand,  the
individual freedom given by the automobile can and should be enhanced
and how this might be done.\.