Fuel efficiency? I think not!
May 25th, 2007
Jeff Woelker just wrote a post about how ridiculous American car makers are when it comes to fuel economy. Apparently Chrysler is currently running ads for their cars (Jeff has an embedded YouTube clip of a Jeep commercial) in which they're touting 30 miles per gallon as if it were some sort of selling point.
I thought this would be an opportune moment to point out that the 24 year old, 4000 lbs Mercedes that Jessi and I just bought gets—get this—30 mpg! Doesn't seem quite so amazing anymore does it.
A related point: while we were in Wales, the owner of the B&B; we were staying at in Dolgellau drove a new VW Jetta station-wagon. It got 50 mpg. And I'm fairly sure you can get cars in Europe that get 70+ mpg, better than even a Prius.
These, of course, are all diesels, and the modern ones with amazing efficiency can't run on the diesel we're currently selling here in the US. But, as I've mentioned before, the decisions has been made already to start selling low-sulfer diesel here in the States that will allow us to suddenly increase our fuel efficiency from 30 mpg or less to 70 mpg or more. Of course we'll have to buy imports, because American car makers are still claiming that they aren't capable of mileage that high.
It will be an interesting day indeed when the low-sulfur diesel starts flowing through American pumps.
adamg wrote:
on Friday, May 25th 2007 at 4:53 p.m.
One of the depressing things about American cars is how, after CAFE got relaxed by Republicans during the Clinton years, mileage seemed to go down as engines and cars got bigger. I got 35 mph in my '86 Chevy Nova but only 25 mph in my '01 Ford Focus. Feh.
So now I drive a Prius :-).