Thursday, January 05, 2006

high mileage vehicles not possible?

Yes they most certainly are. I just finished reading an article on the subject.

"Ever heard of the Ford Fiesta that gets 45mpg in the city and 60mpg on the highway? Not familiar with the Volkswagen Lupo with a combined city/highway rating of 53.5mpg? Don't remember a car salesman ever offering you a test drive in a GM Opel/Vauxhall Tigra that does better than 60mpg on the open road? Never been passed by the sleek BMW 5 Series Saloon that gets 50mpg on the highway? You are far from alone. According to new research by 40mpg.org/Civil Society Institute, these are just a few of the 86 or more car models that get a combined rating of 40mpg or better ... but are not sold in the U.S..."

"Nine out of 10 Americans (88 percent) say that 'U.S. consumers should be able to get the best of the more fuel-efficient vehicles that already are available in other countries,' according to a new Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) national opinion poll..."

"At least 86 vehicles not for sale in the U.S. achieve combined city/highway fuel efficiency of 40mpg or better. Of these, 65 percent (51) are made by either U.S. auto manufacturers (e.g., Ford and GM) or foreign manufacturers with substantial U.S. sales operations (e.g., Volkswagen, Nissan and Toyota). "

Read the entire article here

You might also want to spin over to 40mpg.org

Don’t get me wrong, I think driving less is the best long-term solution. It makes great sense to build healthy, safe, walkable communities that mix uses and don’t require car dependency. As we transition back to that model however we must remember that anyone who tells us we don't have the technology to build cars with better fuel efficiency is either lying or uneducated on the matter.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Driving less is certainly best. Combine that with vehicles that get triple the usual mpg and we've bought ourselves some time to solve the PO problem.

I just bounced over from deconsumption. Nice blog, I'll add it to the list.

nulinegvgv said...

Thank you.

I was hesitant about a posting that supports car use. I believe that the freedom offered by personal vehicles has harmed the American people by creating a dependency on a finite resource about to enter permanent production decline. I was amazed however to find out so many cars with greater fuel efficiency are already in production yet not offered in America.