New car gas mileage standards for 2008

The EPA has updated the way they calculate gas mileage for all 2008 model year vehicles. The test uses much more realistic driving conditions, so the fuel economy for most cars dropped by around 2 miles per gallon. In addition to the definite numbers for highway and city driving, they provide ranges for each and a combined average. The EPA put up a really good web site at www.fueleconomy.gov that allows you to enter how many miles per gallon you're getting (by entering in when you buy gas, how many gallons you bought, and how many miles you drove) along with driving habits. Whenever you look at a car's gas mileage, you can see what people are actually getting for gas mileage instead of just what the EPA says. They've also estimated what the gas mileage of cars from 1985 - 2007 would be with the new standards. If you want to find information out about gas mileage, this is definitely the site to do it at!

Cars have been getting bigger and heavier

A lot of my posts here have and will focus on simple things that you can do to help the environment. One of the biggest sources of carbon emissions is your car. This EPA Carbon Emissions Calculator can show you just how many pounds of carbon emissions your car and house cause. Changing your driving habits is a lot more invasive than recycling more but can have a huge positive impact on the environment.

Buying a more fuel efficient car can greatly reduce your carbon emissions, if you don't want to move and get a job close to a subway station. But have you noticed there really aren't too many cars that get really good gas mileage? The Prius, Insight, and Civic hybrids are great, but other than them, which cars get exceptional gas mileage? With the environment in the shape that it's in, you'd think that car companies would really be pushing 40+ mile per gallon cars since the environment is a popular issue now. But we're bombarded with car ads boasting SUV's that get 20 miles per gallon, and big cars that get 30 miles per gallon, like 20 and 30 miles per gallon are actually good numbers.

Technology has advanced so much in the past 20 years, yet the cars from 20 years ago got as good if not better gas mileage than most of today's cars. Why is that? As this AP news article points out, the weight of the average vehicle sold in the U.S. has increased 923 pounds, and the average vehicle's horsepower has increased by 105 since 1987. While I won't comment on the increase in horsepower (who doesn't like more horsepower?), the increase in weight is pretty staggering. A lot of this is from SUV's becoming so popular, they are significantly heavier than cars. But, cars have gotten a lot bigger as well. When I park my relatively new compact car next to a late 80's Corolla or Civic, my car looks much bigger! And a new Honda Accord looks really big parked next to a late 80's Taurus. Take a look at the Wikipedia Honda Civic article, and compare the third generation to the present generation. The third generation (1984-1987) was 150"l x 64"w x 53"h, and the current generation coupe comes in at 175"l x 69"w x 54"h. That's over two feet longer, and five inches wider!

Why don't the car companies make smaller cars? Some of us who care about the environment would take smaller back seats and trunks for better gas mileage. But the car companies just have very few options out there for really small cars. Sure, 35 miles per gallon highway seems pretty good, but cars from 20 years ago got better than that. With the exception of hybrids, which are still a pretty small share of the car market, there's no excuse for the car companies to not have anything that gets better gas mileage than the cars from 20 years ago did.