Stop Whining About the Price of Gas

I am getting fed up with everyone talking about the price of gasoline. Sure it's over $4.00 per gallon, and it is getting really expensive to fill up our gas guzzling vehicles. But instead of complaining about the price of gasoline, we should instead be complaining about the cost of driving a mile.

You see, I would not care the least bit if gas went to $5/gallon, if my vehicle could get 80 miles per gallon. That would equate to roughly 6.25 cents per mile for gasoline. But automakers continue to produce cars based on ancient technology that barely gets 30 miles per gallon. Most Northland drivers in their SUVs and pickup trucks are lucky if they get 15 mpg, so they are paying about 33 cents per mile driven, just for gasoline.

CAFE Standards Have Not Changed in Over 20 Years
The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for cars has not changed since 1985, when the target was established as 27.5 miles per gallon. Okay, it did change for a couple of years, when our wise leaders actually lowered it to 26 mile per gallon, then they "raised" it back to the old 1985 standard. Even the proposed new standards for the year 2015 and 2020 do not raise the standards above 36 mpg. So automakers will have no legislative incentive to produce a fuel efficient car. Only the market forces will compel them to give us vehicles that get high fuel economy.

Efficient Cars Can Be an EASY Reality
If does not take rocket science to produce cars that can get 50 plus mpg. Nor does it take hybrid gimmickry. It's really quite simple. Just shave several hundred pounds off the weight of the car, and cut back on the horsepower. Think about it. Twenty five years ago, Japanese car makers were turning out cars for sale in the good old USA that averaged 45 mpg without "hybrid" gimics. Sure, they did not weigh in a 4,000 lbs curb weight, but they were well built and reliable and got great mileage. I get irate when I see automakers now boasting about cars that get an "amazing" 35 mpg. What a disgrace. It's twenty-five years later, and the mileage has decreased 20%.

Do you really need to go from 0 to 60 in six seconds flat? Do you really need to have the protection of a Sherman tank as you drive down the road? I would suggest not. But car makers have succeeded in scaring the bejeezes out of us. We are afraid that every day we are going to get broadsided by a SUV and that our 5,000 lb SUV is going to save us. Well, I ask you, how many times have you been hit by that big SUV?

If we all drove smaller lighter cars, and avoided being hit by semi trucks, we could cut our fuel consumption in half.