I'll use some rough numbers to illustrate. You trade in your Civic, which averages about 32 miles per gallon, and buy a Prius, which gets a whopping 47 mpg. You've bumped up by 15 miles per gallon -- a big deal, right?Sort of.
Over the next 15,000 miles of driving, you'll have reduced your fuel consumption by 150 gallons. That's fine. But consider what happens when you upgrade your SUV. That's where the real action is.
You swap out your Dodge Durango (16 mpg on average) for a Toyota Tacoma (23 mpg). It's an upgrade of just 7 miles per gallon. It seems tiny. But consider that over the next 15,000 miles, you will have saved 285 gallons of fuel -- nearly double what your fuel-sipping neighbor saved.
Now change the numbers so that the car swap goes from 50 MPG to 100 MPG and the SUV swap goes from 15 MPG to 18 MPG. Let's also change the miles driven to 18,000 so we don't get any fractions. Over the course of 18,000 miles, the 100 MPG car uses 180 gallons of fuel while the 50 MPG car uses 360 gallons of fuel. That's a reduction of 180 gallons. Now for the SUVs. The 18 MPG SUV uses approximately 1000 gallons, while the 15 MPG SUV uses 1200 gallons. The SUV driver cuts his fuel usage by 200 gallons, or 20 more gallons than the car driver.
Therefore, the 100 MPG breakthrough is less important than getting a few more MPGs out of our trucks and SUVs.
4 comments:
I should have used vehicles instead of cars. 100 mpg should be the goal for each (or the highest gas mileage possible). But anyway, we don't know the cost of raising an SUV from 15 to 18 mpg and a car from 50 to 100 mpg.
I think vehicle miles driven go up as fuel efficiency goes up. Although I can't prove it and am too lazy to try to find the article I read that in.
The OP's logic is sound, but you're missing the number that really matters. Sure you save more by upgrading your SUV, but you still use far more than any of the cars in question.
"...the 100 MPG car uses 180 gallons of fuel... The 18 MPG SUV uses approximately 1000 gallons..."
The really important number to be found in your statements is that the 100mpg car will use 820 gallons less than the 18mpg SUV. Let's use the 50mpg car instead because it's a current reality. That leaves us with 640 gallons less than the 18mpg SUV.
The point here is not to advocate any particular type of vehicle, but rather to say that an upgrade of 15 to 18mpg is still far from the best solution (especially since most SUVs are just urban assault vehicles anyway.)
Curt,
We're not going to eliminate trucks and SUVs.
Good luck getting any of my neighbors to switch to a Prius. Out here, people actually need trucks and SUVs. I really ought to have one, but I like cars better.
In the city, many people (especially with families) find SUVs useful, as well.
My point is that you can save as much fuel at the low end as you can at the high end.
Of couse 100 is better than 18, but many people simply will never drive a high-efficiency car.
Absolutely. I would never argue for the elimination of big trucks. I was simply pointing out that in this whole discussion the best answer is for more of the people that don't need trucks, e.g. most city dweller, e.g. most Americans, to drive smaller vehicles. This is, in Ryan-esque market driven fashion, already happening.
You can only save as much at the low end than at the high when you're comparing low to low and high to high with no crossover, but the crossover is where more meaningful mpg savings come in to play. "Many people will never drive a high-efficiency car," is dead on. But most should.
Post a Comment