You don’t need a commie car to conserve (your private) resources. “A 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI powered with Shell ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel” will do just fine. (My Turbocharged GTI is pretty thrifty and never gutless, as the Jetta tends to be.) Tire Business has the goods:
“Australian drivers Helen and John Taylor recently broke the ’48 Contiguous U.S. States Fuel Economy’ Guinness World Record, driving a car fitted with Goodyear’s Assurance Fuel Max tires.
The couple previously set the record in 2008 at 58.82 miles per gallon, driving 9,419 miles in a 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI powered with Shell ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel. Their new record, which was set using the same car, fuel and driving route, stands at an average of 67.9 mpg.
According to Goodyear, the pair began their trip July 28 in Sterling, Va., and traveled in a counter-clockwise route that included 14 official check-in and refueling stops across the country. They crossed the finish line at a Virginia Tire & Auto retail outlet in Ashburn, Va.”
Mrs. Taylor attempted to explain to Contessa Brewer—MSNBC’s large-faced, childish, lip-smacking anchor—that driving in high gear (and not necessarily slowly) conserves fuel. In other words, driving well. But Tess had only ever driven an automatic really really slowly, and so lost interest. Her focus further waned when she discovered (by stepping right into the trap and asking) that the fuel-efficient vehicle was not a commie car. A research assistant or producer will be in hot water.
Still, and as a I’ve written, “Perhaps the biggest obfuscation in the gimmick-car racket—which President Bush had fallen for too—has to do with the source of the energy. Whether a vehicle is propelled by hydrogen-powered fuel cells or electricity, both electricity and hydrogen don’t magically materialize in the vehicle. They must first be generated. Be it coal, natural gas, nuclear or a hydroelectric dam, these cars are only as clean as the original source of energy that generated the vim that powers them.
Other than to increase the consumption of gas, because people drive more in them, mandating so-called fuel-efficient cars is a grand exercise in compulsory misallocation and waste of capital. It proves that the development of technologies is best left to the market, not to environmental bureaucracies.”