Guaranteed to blow your mind.

[garybeck]

According to Ford, the 1908 Model T got up to 21 mpg and ran on Gasoline or Ethanol.

The 2004 EPA Average All U.S. Cars - 21 mpg.

Eyes bugging out? Shaking your head? Don't believe it?
http://www.wanttoknow.info/050711carmileageaveragempg
http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=858
http://www.ford.com/en/vehicles/specialtyVehicles/environmental/ethanol.htm

and check this out:

the average of the top five American cars gets 27.4 mpg in the city and 33.2 mpg on the highway, while the average of the top five Japanese cars get 46.2 mpg in the city and 49 mpg on the highway.

http://www.dailyfueleconomytip.com/?p=186

[WindRavenX]

1. Our fuel "standards" are such a joke

It amazes me that people still don't get it--the technology to have much, much, <much> higher fuel standards exists. We just choose not to.

Very sad.

[Initech]

16. We will when Exxon finds a way to profit off of them.

But I agree that our fuel standards are a joke. They could figure out the MPG on a car simply by chucking a bottle of gas down the hallway and seeing how far it goes.

[silverojo]

22. I don't get it

Our cars are being made with increasingly smaller passenger areas, yet the mileage is still horrible. While our car was in the shop, we rented a car...the front seats had so little leg room, that my problematic right knee flared up again. It also didn't help that the ignition hole was so low, that the keys on the keychain kept thumping against my knee the whole time I drove. Even pushing the seats back as far as they'd go didn't help.

When we refueled before taking it back, we noticed that the piece of crap got worse mileage than our 1996 Buick sedan. At least the Buick has room for a human being's legs! :mad:

WTH is the matter with carmakers nowadays? Between the crappy interior design, the seats so hard they feel like cement (great for an aching back--NOT), butt-ugly exteriors that all look alike, and lousy gas mileage, I finally realized why people drive SUV's now.

They want room for their bodies!

If American carmakers want to be #1 in the world again, they have to design for comfort as well as economy.

[SheilaT]

28. What kind of cars are you sitting in?

I often take long road trips, and I've been extremely comfortable in my current Honda Civic, the previous subaru Outback, the Infiniti G20. My Infiniti had better rear seat space than either of the larger Infiniti models at the time, and friends who drove a full-sized Cadillac had less rear seat room. My Civic's trunk, as I like to joke, will easily hold two, maybe three bodies. I cannot begin to comment on the kinds of cars handicapped people prefer, since I'm fortunately able-bodied myself, and have no special needs. Plus, my civic has the lightest cluthc I've ever driven. I only drive a manual transmission, because I have so much more control, especially in dicy weather. The rare times I driven an American car with a manual transmission I'm astonished at how stiff the clutch is.

[sellitman]

2. Is it any wonder that

Toyota is now the #1 Car maker in the world?

[ContraBass Black]

21. Much more than fuel economy, Toyota's popularity is due to its excellent reliability reputation

And its manufacturing many of the most popular TRUCKS AND SUV'S.

[silverojo]

23. Ever sit in a Toyota?

Their seats are just as bad as those in American cars.

Here's how you can tell if a brand of car is comfortable or not. Do you see a lot of them parked in handicapped zones? If not, the seats and interiors hurt like hell.

I guess people figure, if they're going to ride around in a torture chamber, they might as well get better mileage....

[sellitman]

26. I've rented many a Toyota

and have never found their seats uncomfortable. The new Camrey is one of the nicest riding cars I have driven too. With a Hybrid model the Camery can get 40 mpg's too.

[proud patriot]

3. well that's enough to piss me off

disgraceful

[dweller]

4. is that the model that body parts (fenders, dashboard, etc)

were made of hemp?

dp

[garybeck]

5. I don't think so but

this article from the horse's mouth has all the facts about the Model T.

http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=858

[dweller]

11. i guess i heard about it through alternative sites

"Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the car itself was constructed from hemp. On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, 'grown from the soil,' had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel; (source: Popular Mechanics, 1941)."

http://www.freedomclubusa.com/hemp_fuel


dp

[Kelly Rupert]

6. A bit misleading, but still sad.

Today's cars are heavier and go faster, after all. However, our fuel economy is indeed atrocious.

[ContraBass Black]

30. They also release less harmful fumes.

[SheilaT]

7. Why I own a Honda.

And before that a Subaru. Before that an Infiniti. Too many American cars are crap. The ONLY reason they are as good as they are is because the Japanese and German manufacturers forced them to improve. Safety glass, seat belts, crumple zones. As appalling as our highway death toll is, it would be far worse if we were still driving the kind of junk they were selling us 40 years ago.

[IDemo]

8. More irony from the early years here -->>

Thomas Edison inspects electric car in 1914. He and Henry Ford had planned to use Edison's nickel iron battery to power clean, efficient, affordable cars for the masses that would be recharged by home wind turbines, according to author Edwin Black in 'Internal Combustion'.

A 'Black' History of Our Oil Addiction

[Manifestor_of_Light]

9. what i heard about the model T and Model A

My dad said that they had huge pistons, a lot of power, and apparently they had trouble getting the power out of the engine and into the drive train. It was inefficient because they didn't know that much about engineering yet.

[Gregorian]

18. Hypoid and helical gears were still in the making.

Special machines. And the design wasn't perfected yet.


There's a Model A in the town here. I followed the old guy around. And even posted about it here a while back. He was zipping around with his original four banger. And getting up to 50 mph in very short time.

It's sad for those of us who have sat and watched, knowing the truth.


And we all know about the electric rail systems a lot of our cities had.


It all comes back to the corporations. They do what's best for THEMSELVES.

All we have to do is vote with our wallets. They can't take that vote away. And it's the most powerful vote we have.

[Labors of Hercules]

10. and this is news?

Where is the impetus for making cars more fuel efficient? Does it benefit the manufacturers? NO. Does it benefit Amoco or Texaco or BP or the oil industry as a whole? NO. Who does it benefit? The Earth? Air quality? Quality of life for individuals? But, what about the thousands who work for the oil companies? Do we really want to shut down an industrial empire by making relatively inexpensive "revolutionary" engine technology that has existed for over 30 years available on the open market? Eliminate the need for huge amounts of FUEL? Are you insane????!!!! :freak:

[pansypoo53219]

12. american cars are mindlessly big compared to europe

and the rest of the world. because we have so much shit and drive everywhere.
of course if you have to live in your car....

[garybeck]

13. plus we have the "bigger is better" mentality. n/t

[Goblinmonger]

14. Apparently in the rest of the world,

the size of your car has NO impact on the size of your penis.

[silverojo]

24. Europe mustn't have too many tall or handicapped people

Not everybody is a contortionist, able to fold themselves into a crappy Mini Cooper (imagine one of those death traps running into a telephone pole...can you say, "fatalities"?).

I'll admit that these huge SUV's are a bit much (esp. those asinine Hummers). But people are going too much to the opposite extreme with the small cars.

Here's a thought...a nice, mid-sized car with softer seats, ample passenger room, a trunk that will actually hold a family's supply of groceries, AND gets decent mileage. If they'd make a hybrid to fit that bill (instead of tiny little things like the Prius), that model would fly off dealers' lots.

[Eurobabe]

15. Which is why my daughter just bought 2007 Honda Civic

30 city - 40 highway

[Initech]

17. One of the cars I've peaked interest in is the Mazda3 - 29 city / 35 highway

That's unbelievable for a regular gas car!

[krispos42]

19. Top speed of 40 MPH, 20 horsepower

13-21 MPG, 1,200 pounds all-up weight. With only an early carburator and no emmissions control equipment, that thing was a carbon monoxide, volatile-organic-compound, and NO_x spewing machine. Excuse me, deathtrap. No safety equipment at all. None.

By contrast, my 1989 full-sized Oldsmobile sedan weighs well over 3,000 pounds, has 165 horsepower, 173,000 miles on the odo, gets 24 miles per gallon, seats six, and tops out somewhere over a hundred miles per hour. And there's nothing at all wrong with the emissions control equipment, so it burns clean.

And that milage will drop by 30 percent when you begin burning ethanol.

[garybeck]

20. your Oldsmobile "burns clean?"

according to the Oak Ridge National Labs, every gallon of gas that is burned as fuel results in over 19 pounds of CO2 going into the atmosphere.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/co2.shtml

that's "burning clean?"

[silverojo]

25. I miss our 1986 Olds

You can be eco-friendly by having a comfortable, roomy car, and reducing emissions by combining trips and living close to work...as opposed to people with smaller cars who drive 30-50 miles to and from work each day. No matter how good your mileage is, if you're driving that much, you're belching more pollutants into the air than a larger car that's only driven within one's own town/city.

[krispos42]

27. Yup

As far as I know, everything else it emits is within specs. Mostly carbon dioxide and water vapor. Trace amounts of everything else. It's not an ULEV, but it's an '89, so cut my poor beater some slack! :-)

The question is is carbon dioxide a pollutant. It doesn't cause cancer, or asthama, or genetic damage, or affect the lungs, so it's non-toxic. It doesn't react with other elements in the environment to cause toxins, either. Too much of it can suffocate you, but that's about it.

So yes, that's 'burning clean' in that I'm not poisoning people as I drive.

However, carbon dioxide is a known factor in global warming. So driving my car is not without an indirect emission that can affect the environment.

The 19 pounds of carbon dioxide created per gallon of gasoline is a constant. It's the chemical reaction of carbon reacting with atmospheric oxygen, and that amount is the for every gallon of gas, regardless of if it's burned in a Hummer or a Prius or a Vespa.

[garybeck]

29. not exactly

19 pounds of CO2 per gallon of gas is a constant, but it is variable when you consider how many miles you can go on a gallon.

the fact remains that they could build cars more efficient but they have no motivation to do so, and they don't.

[krispos42]

31. Carbon dioxide per mile

That's the variable we need to work on as a nation. My car does .79 pounds of carbon dioxide per mile.

Of course, I just read in Popular Mechanics about the little Nissan Versa they are long-term testing. 28 mpg is their documented average, or 0.71 pounds of carbon dioxide per mile.

Mine is 24 mpg, and significantly more capable than a Versa. Seats six adults and has room for all of their luggage in the trunk.

The simple fact is that, absent of new drivetrain technology, the consumer has to give up an awful lot of safety, room, and performance to get a modest increase in gas milage.

To compare model years, you would have to get a Geo Metro LSi with a 5-speed stick to get double the gas milage of my beater. You know, 3-door hatchback one with the 55-horsepower 3-cylinder engine and skinny tires on 13-in rims?

That's a hell of a difference between cars. One that many Americans don't want to make. Or didn't until recently.