Gas Mileage Tauted As "Amazing": You've Got to be Kidding!

This morning, I caught a television ad for one of the KIA sedans, tauting its supposedly amazing gasoline mileage. The ad shows a young couple trying to figure out which side of the car should be closest to the gas pump for refueling. The implication, actually stated at the end of the commercial, is that this couple has to fill up so infrequently, they have forgotten where the gas tank is located.

Turns out the amazing mileage this car gets is a measly 32 mpg. on the highway.

I have no idea why automobile manufacturers for the US market keep thinking that 32 mpg. is good.

My little SCION XA (no longer available as 2006 was its last year in production) gets approximately 38 mpg. on the highway. To me, this is still not good. How 32 mpg. is good escapes me.

Too Little, Too Late? Where Are the Fuel Efficient Cars?

The fuel-efficiency legislation Bush signed into law today increases the federal standard automakers must meet to an industry wide 35 mpg for passengers cars, SUVs and small trucks (by 2020). The standard for cars today is 27.5 mpg and for trucks and SUVs 22.2 mpg.

It requires refineries to increase the use of ethanol from about 6 billion gallons a year this year to 36 billion gallons by 2022 and mandates that by then at least 21 billion gallons are to come from feedstocks other than corn.

How pathetic! I drive a car presently that gets approximately 35 mpg to 37 mpg on average, and I think this is terrible! So the idea that Americans are going to be allowed to continue to drive SUVs and trucks that are humongous both in size and in gas-guzzling for another 13 years is literally horrifying. On top of that, I found out today that my 2006 Scion XA is the last of its kind. Seems Scion has replaced the smaller, more fuel efficient XA with a larger, more gas-eating XD. D as in "deviant." This is presumably to cater to the young, a customer base that Scion has yet to reach. Look around: Most people drving Scion XA and XB are 50-plus! Americans need to accept that we should be driving smaller, fuel efficient cars.