In case you didn't read about it, three car companies -- Nissan, Ford and Tesla -- were awarded a combined $8 billion in loans last week from the U.S. government.

Why? To save jobs. And to improve fuel efficiency in cars made by those companies.

If you're keeping track, American taxpayers are in hock to the tune of about $70 billion to the American auto industry, give or take a few billion dollars.

By my quickie calculation, that's $4 billion for the "cash for clunkers" program, another $4 billion to deduct sales taxes on new-car purchases on your income taxes, about $48 billion for GM and Chrysler before bankruptcy and $14.6 billion to the big-three auto companies under the Bush administration.

And, of course, part of the deal -- as it should be -- is that any domestic auto manufacturer that survives the current economic times will be investing more of its (or our) resources in an attempt to design vehicles that either don't run on gasoline or, at least, are not the gas hogs they've been.

In other words, it's time to improve fuel efficiency. And the feds would like American cars on the road that get upwards of 30 mpg. Better, if possible.

Hey, that's a goal worth working towards. As far as I'm concerned, we should have been working in that direction 20 or 30 years ago. Foreign car makers were doing it, but we weren't. I drove a VW Beetle in 1967 that got better than 30 miles to the gallon. That was 40 years ago.

And now, American car makers are paying the

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price for being slow on the uptake.

Well, actually, American taxpayers are paying the price for the domestic auto industry's lack of vision. We're being forced to foot the bill so that American car makers can do what they should have been doing on their own initiative two or three decades ago.

It's a shame, really.

Anyway, we're finally getting around to sorting out a bunch of new technologies designed to end or reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. Fuel economy standards have been set by the federal government; now it's just a matter of letting the cream rise to the top of the technology bucket.

Except for one small problem -- there is every indication that auto manufacturers and the feds have settled on the notion of an electric car that will drive upwards of 100 miles on one battery charge. It's all new technology -- lithium-ion batteries -- and zero emissions, too.

But I'm not convinced it's the solution to the problem.

We're trying to move away from fossil fuels for several reasons: 1. We don't produce enough of it in our own country to be self-sufficient; 2. It's become very expensive; and 3. It's made us dependent on countries that don't like us -- Iraq, Iran and Venezuela, for example -- to meet our fossil fuel needs.

Plus, the burning of fossil fuel contributes mightily to this country's air pollution problem.

We have every good reason to find a solution to fossil fuels.

But electricity?

Call me a contrarian, but has anyone looked closely at their electric bills recently?

I have, and it's a killer. It's easily one of the top three or four most expensive bills I have to pay each month. Mortgage, taxes, gas/electricity, groceries.

Electricity is very expensive. And it's going to be getting more expensive. Within another year or so, it'll be the second highest monthly bill I have to pay.

And there's always a shortage of it, particularly in the summer months when folks are running their air conditioning. Imagine the blackouts and brownouts we'll have once several hundred million Americans are recharging their car batteries every night.

Plus, there are various conservation and pollution issues with the production of electricity, as well.

So I'm wondering what's the benefit of using more electricity, other than that it provides an alternative to using gasoline.

I can't help but feel we're jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The oil industry's loss could turn out to be the electric power industry's gain.

And for those of us in the middle -- the consumers -- it could turn out to be half-a-dozen of one and six of another. Pick your poison, I guess.

But what good is it if we substitute one crisis for another?

I don't know what the answer is, but it seems to me that an electric car is every bit as problematic for Americans as a car powered by gasoline.

And I'm not sure that's in the best interest of taxpayers or consumers. Or even the American auto industry, in the long run. I know one thing, a dollar spent on gasoline, or a dollar spent on electricity, is still a dollar spent.

Anyone got a better idea? Solar-power perhaps? Or hamsters running around on a wheel? I'm open to suggestions. But it's got to make my life easier, cleaner or less expensive; otherwise we keep dumping hard-earned cash down the same rat hole.

Where's the progress in that?

Columns by Larry A. Hicks, Dispatch columnist, run Mon days, Wednesdays and Fri days. E-mail: lhicks@yorkdispatch.com.