I'm curious today as to why car manufacturers boast about getting 35 MPG. I don't watch much TV but I was the other day and happened to see a commercial for a car and that was one of the big selling points - gets 32 MPG!
I found this incredibly odd since my 1986 Hyundai got 35 MPG way back then. Haven't we improved anything since then? It seems we've gone backwards. I'm not a big car fanatic so I don't know if the 32 MPG is pretty normal but I had to assume that it was considering they were so proud of it.
I still didn't really get the gravity of the whole thing until I was talking with my European friend who just bought a car that gets 51.5 MPG. Now that makes more sense to me (35 MPG 25 years ago up to 51 MPG now) so why such a difference between here and there? It wasn't a small car either, it was a mid-size car so that doesn't explain it at all. Their smaller cars are boasting something like 55.5 MPG. I guess I just don't get it.
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Comments: 41
though with hybrids I often wonder why dealers boast about the cars getting in the 30s as well...I want one that gets more...granted we are driving 2 1998 SUVs so we are lucky when we get 20mpg on the highway :( and right now one of ours doesn't work and the other needs new breaks...ugh...
Generally, we don't pay that much attention to gas mileage, either.
The Hyundais i10 which is smaller does even better while the i35 ( drool) still does around the 50 mark. If the Accent is too small perhaps the Matrix is available over there and it's a much better size and still great value.
When gas was cheap mileage wasn't significant, but as gas costs go up then mileage counts. If you have a long commute to work it really means more.
Mileage also translates to pollution too. A 12 MPG vehicle creates more pollution then a 32 MPG vehicle. So switching from low MPG to higher MPG means a better place for you to live in.
Higher MPG also means increased national security, because we are sending less of our dollars to those areas that would terrorise US.
Does this help.
Advertised MPG figures though, are somewhat false. They are based on criteria from the 1950's when top highway speeds were lower which caused higher MPG.