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With an average national fuel cost currently hovering around three bucks for a gallon of regular, fuel economy matters.
Posted on: March 25, 2008
- In: American Idol | Chevy | Ford | Fuel | gas | GM | SUV
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Over the past decade, the driveways of mainstream America filled with SUVs whose fuel-swilling was, at the time, not a concern.
Fuel costs almost doubled from 1996 to 2006 and grew another 20 percent in the past year. The average U.S. household income, meanwhile, rose only 35.8 percent in the same 10-year period.
The associated shift in vehicle sales is telling.
In 2007, sales of Chevy‘s Tahoe full-size SUV fell by 9.4 percent from 2006, while retail sales for the unlovable but frugal Chevrolet Aveo leaped by 82 percent.
GM‘s John McDonald wrote this off as these vehicles’ being “deferrable purchases,” implying that land barges hold some kind of inherent allure and that Americans would prefer to drive dump trucks if gas were free. This is, of course, entirely possible.
But gas is not free, and we don’t drive dump trucks, and as car buyers search for better fuel economy, they increasingly don’t want to drive trucks of any kind. R&D dollars are focused on unibody crossovers that ad campaigns tout as more fuel efficient than the trucks they replace, with even Ford’s Explorer headed for a frame-free future.
It’s not just big trucks that get lousy fuel economy, either.
The culprits of poor fuel economy are many, but common underlying causes include portly curb weights, older drivetrains, and the conscious exclusion of fuel-saving technologies to keep production and purchase prices down.
Before you spend your money on a new car, make sure you pay attention to the equipment list, because with the wrong engine or transmission choice, heinous fuel economy is sometimes just a checkbox away.
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