Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Fuel Consumption may vary.. Batteries not included.

I remember the days when I saved money by not buying Nike shoes to work in, or Dr.Martins more than once a year. Those were younger days, that was before I pondered kids and mortgages and such. Back then fuel was a buck something a gallon and if I felt like going on a 4 hour drive to take pictures of whatever I ran into, I didn’t ponder the cost of fuel as much as I pondered the amount of extra cash to take incase I ended up needing a room for the night.

Fuel Prices a Rising..
Its pretty obvious to most people that fuel prices are always going to be what we American’s consider high. But in March or so it looks like, according to the experts, its going from high to “dear lord lets panic I can’t go anywhere” type of prices. These types of ups and downs in our comfortable little western world keep us all scared to do things and all scared to spend our money….. because we may just need to go to Meemaws….. When I was a youngster my parents would drive two hours to spend the weekend at my grandparents so we could eat. We were poor, and it was cheaper to drive to eat than to buy and eat. Now its getting cheaper to eat than to go and eat. I can’t go to my grandparents without spending over 100 bucks these days, and I live just as far now as I did then from them. Take into account fuel, eating, and fuel home it’s a good chunk of change.. So we all feel the effects and without going into economics you know this too. “If I drive to work and back and no where else this week, I can go to the movies with friends this weekend.” You may say.
And now the automotive world ,whom for a large part has pretty much left us the consumers, abandoned on the side of the road; as far as fuel economy goes. We are left with these huge gas guzzling vehicles to hope we can afford to feed when prices do hit the $4.00 to five dollar a gallon mark. I myself have a good spread, a 30mpg car, a 15mpg SUV, and a 30 mpg pick up. And two of them are paid for, so I won’t feel the hit as much.. But what about the families that have a Suburban Mud Slinger extreme power power power, what about that family whom fell for the “you deserve this, you’ve earned it” 11 mpg vehicle advertisement? They are stuck of course, because nobody will want it, their payment is more than the thing is worth and to top it off, not many people can afford to go see grandmother in it… so nobody is going to buy it off the lot once its there.
And to top it off, with gas prices mysteriously going up, the Government, yes the ones you or I voted for, told the auto world, “hey we mandate you raise the across the board fuel economy of your fleet by blah blah percentages by 20XX” So the automotive world in kind responded with ELECTRIC cars.. and to top the top of the top off, told us that they are making NEW technology for GREEN living. Something people often forget is the very first land speed record, the very first one, was set by an electric car, drum roll please……………………………………… in 1889. Don’t give me this new tech crap auto world dream weavers. Do watch the soon coming of adverts that will tell you how you’re saving the world by buying one of their electric/hybrid/plug in/hybrid cars. You wont’.. the world can’t be saved by your car, sorry. Do I feel efficient living is a good way to go, of course. Because even in my SUV I do everything I can for efficiency sake (drives my wife a bit nuts I think) if for anything for longevity sake. Oh yeah this is to you automakers, if we all wanted your electric cars, the government shouldn’t’ have to give me a tax credit to buy it. If we wanted it we would be standing at your door step asking for it, constantly.
Truth is this is America, we still like to go see meemaw, we still like to take road trips because we want to… and the new sales pitch to sell these electric/plug in cars is “most Americans drive less than 40 miles a day”.
So that is what they are soon going to tell you your life is like. We all know that an electric car would most likely get us to work, but we would have to stop and plug in on the way home if we decided to go see meemaw too.. so they want you to continue buying the SUV so you can “go places”.. its more of a second car option, they’ll say. And the Chevrolet Volt, well it’ll go 40 miles on a charge and go 300miles on a tank of gasoline. It gets 35mpg people… 40 miles on battery and 35mpg on gasoline, this car will not save the world.. its all over the test results anywhere you look.
My small point of this rambling is.. These car people are giving us this “new” battery operated stuff to cover their utter lack of caring about the environment or we the people for a VERY long time. Now that they are being held accountable they have to bring their average fuel economy numbers up greatly, and a car that uses NO GASOLINE will do so. And they will continue selling massive everything else, because they make loads of change off of them. Don’t let them tell you how you live your life, keep enjoying the roads and continue to go see meemaw.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As a Meemaw to be, this is just not good! Someone must come up with a solution that preserves the trips to Meemaw's house...that will take the family "over the river and through the woods" all the way. And us Meemaws really can't be expected to maintain TWO cars - one for our old lady errands and one so we can see our kids and grandkids and greatgrandkids. Keep telling them, son!