8
February
Why Is It That We Cannot Build Fuel-Efficient Vehicles?
When selecting a new vehicle, fuel economy was an important factor for at least one-third of American car buyers. Because of so many people now very worried about global warming, pollution and reliance on foreign oil, you might be surprised to know that in 1992 General Motors built a car that actually got 100 miles per gallon. The GM TPC became a car that was able to get 75 miles per gallon, weighed about 1000 pounds, plus looked like the Geo Metro. The vehicle had a 3-cylinder engine, but was abandoned when it needed 200 pounds of reinforcement to be added to comply with America’s safety laws.
It might be surprising that GM had this car built and left behind, but they had other prototypes that ended the same way. These types of automobiles include the GM Lean-Machine in 1982 at 80 MPG, as well as the GM Ultralite which got 100 MPG. GM had been presenting cars to the purchasing public in 1992 that did 20 mpg, while Honda was getting 50 mpg with their Civic VX, but right then GM already covertly had cars doing 100 miles per gallon. In the event that cars which were able to do 100 miles per gallon had already been developed way back then, why is it that such cars are not being sold today?
It’s really a peculiar phenomenon that some companies market traditional vehicles in the US, but sell different, more efficient cars in other countries. Consumers in Japan and Europe have for quite some time now managed to get cars that do 70 miles per gallon and more. A case in point of a car never sold in the US and capable of 78 mpg, is the Lupo by Volkswagen. A car known as the Jazz elsewhere in the world was introduced to the States in 2007 as the Fit. You can get economy-boosting features with the Jazz in Japan, say for example a smaller engine and other ways to reduce consumption, but not so with the Fit in the US.
In America the manufacturers say they have to build big cars because that is what the American public wants. Building a small commuter type vehicle doesn’t make the manfacturer big money, unlike with a large SUV. A Tank on Wheels is the thing to have – that’s the message that the commercials beguile the American public with. Fuel-saving options from the big companies are uncommon, so it’s pretty easy to deduce where their interests lay. Instead of being synonymous with SUVs, GM today could have been known as a leader in fuel-economic vehicles. A number of other manufacturers also have developed fuel-efficient cars, but they’ve all ended up the same as GM by not offering them to Americans.
Despite global warming and the incredible pollution of the world environment, US car makers have yet to react positively and at least give Americans the option of a fuel-efficient car. Ask this question: how many people who were never given the opportunity would have been excited to have a car that was fuel-efficient? Could it be time to retrieve those discarded designs and, again, start building those vehicles that were once built a long time ago?
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