Uh. Passing other vehicles? My first car was an old subaru that took several miles to hit 70mph on the highway. I don't think I'll be disapointed by a diesel rabbit.
But seriously, if the average automobile engine nowadays has 40% more power than it needs for cruising at the speed limit (my estimate), just for passing and accelerating, how much gas are we wasting just because we are obsessed with the "bigger better" syndrome. It's pretty amazing what the new diesel cars can do, while still getting 50mpg, compared to the old diesel cars -- double or triple the power. But imagine if they had focussed on increasing the gas mileage instead of just increasing the power for the last 15 years. The Lupo TDI is a possible example of this. Even the new hybrids get lousy gas mileage, because the hybrid design is optimized for adding power, not increasing mileage like the insight and prius were. As a culture, we'd be better off if we'd stop being so impatient with everything anyway and just relax. Not only would we use less gas, but maybe have less hypertension and heart disease too. I admit that there is a legitimate safety arguement that having some reserve power is good. But that arguement can rapidly turn into an arms race to the bottom (e.g. SUV's) if we aren't careful. Plus, it's so tempting to speed if your car has the power to do so. Which probably wipes out the safety advantage of having reserve power, and uses even more gas. _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
