Excellent post, Matt. I agree wholeheartedly with most of what you said... and appreciate that you identified the government as part of the problem. I said as much in my own post when referring to regulations that allow truck-based vehicles (that are most often sold to perform regular passenger duties) to be held to different (much less stringent) standards than car-based vehicles.

Of course, the vehicle industry lobbyists played a large part in keeping things that way too, fighting and resisting any attempts to improve fuel efficiency and emissions standards, in order to maintain their status quo, selling the high profit margin truck-based vehicles to the public without taking many real steps to bring them closer to car-based standards.

The entire system is screwed up, and yes, all 3 of the entities you mentioned are responsible. I personally think that there's enough blame to spread across them all.

 

You both are correct, with a very large % being the US consumer's fault. Just look at this:

CNN.com:


We are a Nation of easily manipulated, attention deficient morons.

 

I'm not a fan of the commercial at all, or that susuki cammercial doing the same thing. And you are right when an escalade goes up a hill it probably does get 9mpg. But they are cool lookin trucks. i know i'm gonna get torn apart for saying that but i have always like cadi's in general. probably the only good line of cars that GM owns.

 

When I set my little computer window in the tach to actual mpg, I see that my R50 can drop to 12mpg when revving up quickly past about 3500rpm. At cruising speed, at that rpm, I get in the 30s. The mileage of any car will drop when pushed (even moderately) hard.

 

I wouldn't buy any GM product right now, since they are gonna go bankrupt lol. Unless they figured a plan out like Ford did.

 

That's why I am not shocked or disappointed when I get about 27 mpg on my MINI. The hills of San Francisco and the stop lights and signs at EVERY corner don't make for optimum MPG.

But when I take it on the freeway I am getting about 32 MPG.

This dang City is expensive to live in, in so many ways.

Sidenote: I see very, very few gas guzzling SUVs or Escapades, I mean Escalades on City roads. I imagine those get about 8 to 10 average MPG in this town.

 

My brother owned in the past both an Escalade and a H3. He likes my MCS more (only second to his Mustang GT, but I think he is bias because that GT s his baby).

Anyway IMO nothing beat driving a MINI, they are just so much fun.