"Ed Pawlowski" wrote in message
...
On 7/21/2015 10:16 PM, Roger Blake wrote:
On 2015-07-21, Robert Green wrote: so
impossible to believe such dishwashers can be created? Cars used to get

11 MPG and now they get incredible higher mileage out of the same single

gallon of gasoline. Why? Because the Feds pushed the industry to do so.

Utter and complete bilge. What are you, like 12 years old? There were
a number of compact cars available in the 1950s and 1960s capable of
delivering 20-25 miles per gallon, some of the smaller imports even
higher.
I've owned some of them myself over the years.

The equivalent to that 25 mpg car in the 60s is now 40 mpg.

That full size Chevy Caprice that got 11 mpg is now getting 28 mpg and
is not stinking as much as the typical 50/60s cars.

My Sonata 2.0 Turbo will beat the older 10 mpg Cameros in the 1/4 mile
and still get 28 mpg.

Thanks for the sanity check. I don't feel the need to respond to Mr. Blake,
who seems to think adults make debating points by first insulting someone.
I would say he's got it exactly backwards as to who's the pre-teen. (-:

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-
sheets/2011/04/20/driving-to-545-mpg-the-history-of-fuel-economy

http://tinyurl.com/ok4lhwb

Has a pretty good recap of how mileage has increased in the US over the last
20 years. This chart shows it graphically:

http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/leg...hart650jpg.jpg

And while it's true there were some cars like VW's that got good mileage
because they were so pitifully underpowered (former Karmann Ghia owner!) the
fleet average pre-1975 was in the 11mpg range.

That site also says: In response to the oil price shocks of the early
1970s, Congress passed the nation's first Corporate Average Fuel Economy
(CAFE) standards in 1975. The law called for a doubling of passenger-vehicle
efficiency-to 27.5 miles per gallon (mpg)-within 10 years. The National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was also given the authority
to set a separate standard for "light trucks," which accounted for a fifth
of new vehicle sales at the time. By 2002, light trucks had surpassed cars
as the leader in light-duty vehicle sales.

So I am not sure where Mr. Blake is getting his information, but it's pretty
clear that Federal guidelines had an awful lot to do with boosting the
nation's average fuel economy and, as a wonder side benefit, sticking it to
the Oil Sheiks.

As you noted, the economy didn't come completely at the expense of
performance because there a plenty of cars that can really haul ass despite
getting mileage far superior to the cars of 20 years ago. The free market
can't do things like that - it has no mechanism to act in the public good
for the most part. The Pew article closed by noting the industry's response
to the CAFE standards:

Domestic automakers predicted that fuel economy improvements would require
a fleet primarily of subcompacts. In 1974, a Ford executive testified that
the standards could "result in a Ford product line consisting . . . of all
sub- Pinto-sized vehicles." Despite these objections, Congress passed the
law, and Ford's top seller today is its F-Series pickup.

--
Bobby G.