No less than one third of new car buyers in America considered fuel economy an important factor.. Due to the preoccupation today with air pollution, global warming and America’s dependence on international sources of oil, it’s actually shocking to learn that as long ago as 1992 a car that got 100 miles to the gallon was built by General Motors. Another automobile, the GM TPC, which looked a lot like the Geo Metro, weighed only 1000 pounds and could easily get 75 miles per gallon. Advancement of the vehicle, the engine that had 3 cylinders, was dropped because, in order to meet American safety standards, it had to be reinforced which added 200 pounds to its weight.
It may be surprising that GM had this car built and discontinued, but they had other prototypes that ended the same way. These types of vehicles include the GM Lean-Machine in 1982 at 80 MPG, and the GM Ultralite which got 100 MPG. Once Honda in 1992 reached 50 mpg with the Civic VX, GM was promoting cars that got 20 mpg, while in the background they had vehicles capable of 100 mpg. Surely this begs the question as to why these cars that are capable of 100 mpg are not available to the public.
It’s a weird phenomenon that some companies sell traditional vehicles in the US, but sell different, more efficient cars in other countries. Cars that achieve more than 70 mpg have been available in Europe and Japan for a lot of years. A case in point of a car / truck never sold inside the US and capable of 78 mpg, is the Lupo by Volkswagen. Honda launched to the US market in 2007, a car named the Fit, but known as the Jazz in other parts of the world. You can get economy-boosting options with the Jazz in Japan, say for example a smaller engine and other ways to reduce consumption, but not so with the Fit in the US.
In America the manufacturers say they have to build big cars simply because that is what the American public wants. It really is apparent that manufacturers don’t earn a lot of money selling a small 2-person commuter vehicle, but they certainly do selling big SUVs. Commercials have convinced the citizens of the US that Tanks on Wheels are an absolute must to have. The fact that options have never been provided reveals where the big companies have their interests. GM could currently have been in the forefront with fuel-efficient vehicles, but they elected, rather, to champion SUVs. Several other manufacturers also have developed fuel-efficient cars, but they’ve all practiced the same as GM by not offering them to Americans.
American auto makers have never given the US people an opportunity to acquire a fuel-efficient car, despite the world having beem embroiled in oil wars and being severely polluted. Ask yourself how many people who were never given the option would have been excited to have a car that was fuel-efficient? Possibly the moment has come to restore building those cars that were developed only to be abandoned all those years ago.