At least one third of new car buyers in America considered fuel economy an important factor.. In 1992 previously General Motors built a vehicle that got 100 miles to the gallon – and all these years later on one of people’s major concerns on top of global warming and pollution is dependence on foreign oil. An additional automobile, the GM TPC, which looked a lot like the Geo Metro, weighed only 1000 pounds and could easily get 75 miles per gallon. Development of the vehicle, the engine of which 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.
This was not the only protype built by GM which ended up on the scrapheap. The GM Lean Machine of 1982, which could achieve 80 mpg, along with the GM Ultralite which realized a fabulous 100 mpg, were two of these vehicles. GM seemed to be selling cars to the shopping public in 1992 that did 20 mpg, while Honda was getting 50 mpg with their Civic VX, but right then GM already covertly had cars doing 100 miles per gallon. In the event that cars which were able to do 100 miles per gallon had already been developed way back then, why is it that such cars are not being sold today?
It is just a weird phenomenon that some companies promote traditional vehicles in the US, but sell different, more efficient cars in other countries. Consumers in Japan and Europe have for quite some time now managed to get cars that do 70 miles per gallon and more. A case in point of a car never sold in the US and capable of 78 mpg, is the Lupo by Volkswagen. A vehicle called the Jazz elsewhere in the world was unveiled in the States in 2007 as the Fit. There are economy-boosting options with the Jazz in Japan, such as a smaller engine and other ways to reduce consumption, but not so with the Fit in the US.
In The United States the manufacturers point out they have to build big cars simply because that is what the American public wants. Building a small commuter type vehicle doesn’t make the manfacturer big money, unlike with a large SUV. A Tank on Wheels is the thing to have – that’s the message that the commercials beguile the American public with. The fact that options have never been offered shows where the big companies have their interests. The top in fuel economy may have been General Motors, but they prefer to remain the leader in SUVs instead. The many other auto producers did the same thing by producing fuel-efficient cars, then again denied them to Americans.
All of us live in a community that has conducted wars over oil, that has been polluted, and car makers have never even given the choice to people in this country of fuel-efficient cars. Just how many people would’ve loved having a car that got good gas mileage, and were never presented with the option? Maybe it is time to get those old plans back out and build a vehicle that has already been built before.
Learn more about gmc rims.
Tags: Gmc Rims // Add Comment »