Miles to Go

What's important is to focus on many alternatives instead of one, single alternative. In a country filled with monopolies we tend to think of option A or option B only. Yes, ethanol has its issues and corn along with corn-based products will become extremely expensive if it is the ONLY alternative that we choose. What about biofuel? biodiesel? fuels that can be made from switchgrass and from food waste? *mixtures*? We must not limit ourselves with binaries. Newsweek should be ashamed for publishing such a poorly informed and misleading article.

My wife and I bought a VW Jetta diesel wagon with 5sd manual trans in 2003 it has achived 53MPG once and usally averages mid 40s, and, it has loged 165,000 miles. Iv'e been on the freeway between Flagstaff and Phoenix at 93 MPH just to keep up with trafic with no reservations. I have Ford deisel F-350, two Corvettes and a Harley and I'm not put off by the Jetta at all. When it is replaced it will be a VW diesel as well.

Just some food for thought. I drive a 1995 Monte Carlo w/3.1Liter V6 and a gross weight of approxametaly 4200 lbs That's over 2 tons!!. On average I get 30+ mpg with the AC on and a very comfortable quiet ride. Interestingly enough, this motor was introduced in late 1994 and was redesigned in late 1995 to now only get about 26 mpg! It's still a 3.1Liter so where did the mileage go? One more thought. Plastics have come a long way since the 50s. Many have a tensile strength higher than steel!! Plastic is much cheaper to mold and it's lighter than steel. JUST SAY THANK YOU TO THE ONES LINING THEIR POCKETS AND CAN'T SEEM TO GET ENOUGH!!!!

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A lot of this story it bull ***. Aluminum cars?? Europe has 60MPG, not Alum, and fairly cheap. I think this article was edited by US car companies & oil companies. Let the US people deside what they want to drive. Have the choices available here, in the USA, as they are everywhere else in the world. US will not allow those 60MPG cars. Why? Oil companies what bigger profits; big cars with big engines use more gas.

Honda had the 1987 Civic CRX 1.5L, and that was not fuel injected and was at or near the 50 mpg! Twenty years ago.I would like to know how many of the car companies(politicians) have invested(partnered) in the fuel companies? Ethanol would be a great alternative if we could distill our own, oops there goes the ATF getting involved from prohibition days.


Ethanol

you don't have to sacrifice safety or comfort for gas mileage this is an oil company perpetuated myth, i drive a 1991 mercedes diesel that avergaes 30 mpg and weighs almost 2 tons empty,the technology and engineering is available, but if i was an oil company earning record multibillion dollar a quarter profits i would be sure it was suppressed too

there are a few things a person can do to increase the mileage on certain cars that are receptive to it.,, for instance a 73 subaru,a 78 datsun and an 81 dodge colt (mitsubishi), i was able to squeeze 50 mpg out of with very simple adjustments and changes . I wont say what as dont want to run afoul of emmission laws .also in more recent times find the mercury topaz ,,with the 2.3 litre engine to be a sleeper and very responsive to tune and adjust.and slight additions and removals ,,mine now will get 50 on a freeway trip and better 40 on all around hwy and town,,(not a large congested city) and still will pass emmission laws . the mfg's are very good at getting better emmission readings at the tail pipe by increasing fuel consumption. was worse in the primative systems ,,but still holds true today somewhat.. also have a 82 vw rabbit diesel that gets 50 on trip ,,and after having diesel expert tune for higher altitude here exceeds that even. but for my money hydrogen is way to go,, and therein lies the future . but for now your big oil wont allow it ,,honda has a prototype out and running that makes the hydrogen as you use it ,,and you just fll with water ,,the exaust is water vapor .but you wont see that here ,,,,huh uh ,,,,no way ,,too much big$$$ involved in oil.

Toyota Corolla's in Japan can be had with diesel engines and gets 65 MPG so the nonsense about 50MPG being difficult is bull....

Toyota corolla's in Japan come with diesel engines and get 65 MPG and corolla is a pretty roomy and safe car so who's fooling who....

War ends We win: when we pass a law that makes the minimum price of gasoline at the pumps: $1.75/gallon.

The ethanol investors do not build ethanol distilleries because monopoly OPEC would lower the price of crude/gasoline to rust out the billion dollar/million barrel a day ethanol stills.

Brazil is energy independent: ethanol; All their cars come built running on ethanol; The gas station fills the tanks with ethanol, no gasoline.

Archer Daniel Midland made millions in the USA selling $1.00 gallon ethanol in the 1990s;

That trumps any canard/invalid objection to ethanol. Use Cellulose ethanol, not corn ethanol.

Cellulose Ethanol energy independence in the USA, will balance the trade deficit, create full employment, bring down the price of fuel, break the monopoly on the pricing of fuel, balance the USA government budget, create less pollution, make the USA energy independent, and end the war because we will stop funding the bad guys everyday at the gas pumps.

With all the cars running on ethanol; the price of oil will collapse and the radical Moslem hordes will no longer have the funds we used to give them from gasoline sales to finance the war against us.

I built a distillery and converted my GM car to 160 proof ethanol by 1982; and tried 25 years to get the USA off of gasoline. Unless the strategy I am outlining is adopted, the war that is coming, regardless of who is elected, will make Vietnam look like a cake walk.

Sharia people are at war with The West because Sharia people believe Islam can not survive against: a free market economy with free speech to criticize Islam.

International law, has defined a set of war rule parameters that guarantee no war can be won by good guys and that guarantee nice long lasting wars with lots of weapons sales.

Generals: Patton. Eisenhower, Marshall , Sherman et al would all be war criminals under international law and Europe would be under Hitler; the American civil war would not be over if fought under the current rules; which, intentionally or unintentionally, are designed for a hundred year terror war.

Cut off terrorist infested countries/areas: no phones, no lights, no motorcars not a single luxury. No food, no water, no ships/airplanes in and out, no trucks cross their borders; nothing till they give up the terrorism. Better the terrorist should die right there than have a war where the world is terrorized for 100 years.

The leadership that sponsors these terrorist suicide murders are the Heads of state in Tehran, Riyadh, and Damascus.

Intelligence analyst: Getzel

Utter nonsence! I have a 2004 Fiat Panda that gets over 50 miles to the gallon. It's equiped like a Mercedes, all standard. It hums along at 130 kilometers an hour on the excellent French motorways and will top out at about 145. It is very quiet, thus well insulated against noise. Its comfortable. Studies have shown that it is one of the most reliable cars on the road, far more reliable than American cars. And its good looking.

Utter nonsence! I have a 2004 Fiat Panda that gets over 50 miles to the gallon. It's equiped like a Mercedes, all standard. It hums along at 130 kilometers an hour on the excellent French motorways and will top out at about 145. It is very quiet, thus well insulated against noise. Studies have shown that it is one of the most reliable cars on the road, far more reliable than American cars. And its good looking.

Utter nonsence! I have a 2004 Fiat Panda that gets over 50 miles to the gallon. It's equiped like a Mercedes, all standard. It hums along at 130 kilometers an hour on the excellent French motorways and will top out at about 145. It is very quiet, thus well insulated against noise. Studies have shown that it is one of the most reliable cars on the road, far more reliable than American cars. And its good looking.

The era of cheap energy is over. That means the entire American centralized corporate to consumer culture is done. The suburban life will soon be extinct. People will have to return to living in urban areas where they can walk to work and store or use mass transit systems. Local industries will re-emerge and Walmart will dead. Americans are stupid if they think they can go on living the way they have the last 40 years. If they think that lifestyle is good and desirable they are complete morons.

Today???s SUVs and mega-trucks are the opulent equivalent of the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado and its tail fins. You accurately point out that in Europe all new cars average 43 mpg and Japan averages hit 50 mpg. What you don???t say, however, is that here in the United States, where we're stuck at 25 mpg on average in our considerably larger and more powerful cars, we have not followed the European and Japanese practice of taxing gasoline (and diesel fuel), engine displacement, and auto price. The higher CAFÉ ratings overseas are a direct result of consumer economics. If we want to drive a 3 ton, 5+ liter, $40,000+ vehicle we should be willing to pay for it.

to say that consumers in the US would have a trade off between cost, safety or drive quality and gas economy is a fallacy. How do they do it in Europe and Japan?

Today???s SUVs and mega-trucks are the opulent equivalent of the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado and its tail fins. You accurately point out that in Europe all new cars average 43 mpg and Japan averages hit 50 mpg. What you don???t say, however, is that here in the United States, where we're stuck at 25 mpg on average in our considerably larger and more powerful cars, we have not followed the European and Japanese practice of taxing gasoline (and diesel fuel), engine displacement, and auto price. The higher CAFÉ ratings overseas are a direct result of consumer economics. If we want to drive a 3 ton, 5+ liter, $40,000+ vehicle we should be willing to pay for it.

The biggest reason that small cars are so dangerous is that 50% of American drivers think they need a huge SUV or a Monstu Twuk. Once we get those off the roads things will be a lot safer for gas efficient vehicles.

There is one American car company which is about to go into production on an extremely efficient car. One version of the car is all electric and goes 120 miles on fifty cents worth of electircity. The other version of the car is a gas electric hybrid which goes 300 miles on a gallong of gas and $0.50 worth of electricity and then gets 130 mpg after that. It's called the Aptera and can be seen at their website. I'm on the waiting list for the gas electric hybrid version.