There’s an article running on CNN right now about how Geo Metros are making a comeback. From the article:
The 1996 Metro’s average of 40 miles per gallon nears that of the hybrid 2008 Toyota Prius — priced at $21,000 for the cheapest model — and bests most current cars by a long shot, according to government ratings. Older models of the Geo Metro, specifically cars from 1991 and the XFi edition, have the same average as the hybrid.
40 miles per gallon. Woo!
Wait a second. There’s a bit of a problem here. I distinctly remember when I was growing up that my father had a very little 1980 Toyota Starlet. Not the sexiest transportation but it got us around most of the eastern half of the United States and most of the midwest during our mammoth summer trips. I happen to remember, very very clearly, getting 50 miles per gallon on some of those trips. A small light car with a tiny engine is the key.
And we’re not the first to notice this either. There’s this great post on windingroad about the Honda CRX hitting 57mpg over 20 years ago. Their assertion: it’s safety engineering. Cars weren’t built as strong and were much lighter.
I’d be interested in hearing if the advances we’ve made since then (crumple zones, new materials, a less brute force approach to energy absorption during accidents) might be able to create small light cars that still meet modern safety requirements. I’m not an expert in these matters, but it would be interesting to know if anyone has ever done safety to weight studies.
>I’d be interested in hearing if the advances we’ve made since then (crumple zones, new materials, a less brute force approach to energy absorption during accidents) might be able to create small light cars that still meet modern safety requirements.
You called, Tango answered.
http://www.commutercars.com/
Be sure to check out the safety section. Also, you can’t afford it.
Most people would do well just to buy a _car_, rather than a 3 tonne truck. Once we’ve got that far we can start worrying about lighter cars.
Hi Chris,
http://rmi.org/sitepages/pid231.php -> Lecture 3 has answers for you!
Off the top of my head.. big light cars are efficient and still safe. But watch the lecture (or listen to it on the social innovations network.) Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
how about thinking about a diesel smart ?
http://www.smartusa.com/
Safe, light, cheap. Pick any two ;-)
That lecture seems really interesting. It’s also over an hour long so I don’t think I’ll be watching it _quite_ yet. :)
@olly
the smart does it all.
between 12 and 15k eur
Smart:
Safe: http://www.iihs.org/ratings/ratingsbyseries.aspx?id=632
Efficient:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/compx2008f.jsp?year=2008&make=smart&model=fortwo%20coupe&hiddenField=Findacar
Cheap!
The Generation 1 Scion XB (Toyota) is a little more expensive, a little worse in side impact, and about the same gas mileage, but it is a roomy 4 seater…
Interesting finding. Thought, a hybrid utilizes the kinetic energy efficiently enough to wipe off the extra weight disadvantage. Regarding the extra weight due to side-impact protection, it might be reduced by wider use of carbon, the light and strong material of 21st century.
I spent some time looking through random cars on that fueleconomy.gov site to figure out what the best bang for the buck was. I suspect it’s the bottom of the line Toyota Corolla. 27/35 mpg and pretty low cost.
There was an article on NPR about 6-8 months ago on this.. Americans buy cars that have beefy feeling to them and are ‘safe’ and ‘clean’. This means that while lots of fuel efficient and ‘cleaning’ adding items have been added to cars in the last 20 years, they have been eaten up by extra power to keep up with the need for a ‘beefy’ acceleration and speed. Add more acceleration and speed, and you have to add more weight for safety (which means you need a bigger engine to deal with acceleration and speed, yada yada yada). And as the general population of cars on the road are heavier, even your slow cars have to be heavier to survive a ‘typical’ crash. Its the tank phenomena.
One of the big responses I heard from people test-driving prius cars has been that they aren’t beefy enough (accelerate like a brick). While not as beefy as a typical Ford with a V8, the prius has much faster acceleration than the Honda CRX or Toyota Scarlet… if they had the ‘power’ of the older versions.. they would have gas mileage of close to 100 mpg if not more.
It is true that modern small cars are very disappointing from a mileage standpoint. Despite the new small cars (yaris, fit, smart, etc), few manage a significant improvement over the venerable old corolla.
The thing I find so disconcerting is that the mileage ratings on cars is generally for highway driving at 55-60 mph. With the nation’s speed limits jacked up to around 65-70, you actually lose gas mileage. Case in point: this last weekend my wife and I took a 4 hour trip that normally uses 12 gallons of gas driving 70-75 mph. Instead of driving the normal speed, we drove 60 the whole way there and only used 8 gallons of gas. We went from getting 23-24 mpg to getting around 32 mpg… with a head wind. I know that here in Iowa, the speed limit used to be 65 on the interstate, but in the last 5 years they’ve bumped it up to 70 (which means people will drive 70-80 mph). We not only need to look at the fuel economy of our cars, but also the fuel economy of our driving styles/habits.
A good stick shift driver can beat the EPA in almost any car. If you remember your dad getting 50mpg he was probably driving like somebody’s dad with kids in the car.
It was a little 5-speed.
I also remember that it was small enough where you could hug right up behind a tractor trailer and get sucked along without having to use the engine. Unsafe, but the gas mileage was fantastic!
There are some good reasons for modern cars being larger than some of the older cars (not SUV size, but Camry size).
The average height of the population depends on the health and the quality and quantity of food. Population heights in first-world countries have been steadily increasing over the last 100 years. Taller people need larger vehicles to be comfortable (if you do any serious amount of driving you don’t want it to be like an economy-class flight).
The safety legislation related to child passengers in cars has been steadily increasing. This is a good thing for child safety, but means that more seat space is taken by larger child seats and children stay in child seats for longer (there are now some recommendations that special seating is good for 6yo’s). A large sedan in the early 70′s could carry 6 people, that often meant two adults, two children, and two friends of those children – now such a vehicle might have two adults and two children in child-seats and no extra space. A small sedan of the early 70′s could carry four people, but a car of the same size would be unlikely to fit child seats. Some practices which were common when I was young (such as having more child passengers in a car than seatbelts) would be considered shocking by today’s standards.
I think that people who 30 years ago might have been happy with a Corolla sized vehicle will now want a Camry, and people who would have been happy with a Camry sized vehicle 30 years ago will not want a Tarago. This doesn’t mean that fuel economy is going to suck, just that it requires more engineering work and some compromises in other areas of customer requirements (such as acceleration).
@sxpert look closely at the Smart’s gas mileage before thinking they are a good deal. It’s no wonder Smart doesn’t list the MPG in any prominent place on their web site.
I own a 1986 Toyota Corolla,and it gets 40+ mpg. around town and a new Corolla gets 35 mpg. hwy.So have we really advanced in technology?