Instant Fuel Efficiency
Detroit loves ethanol because it can use it to inflate fuel-efficiency ratings on their cars artificially. The mammoth Chevy Suburban, produced as a flex-fuel vehicle capable of burning both ethanol and gasoline, magically boosted its fuel efficiency to 29 miles per gallon from 15, since under federal rules only a vehicle’s gasoline consumption need be factored into the equation.
[William Grimes, "Heard the One About the Farmer’s Ethanol?", New York Times, 7 March 2008; reviewing Gusher of Lies, by Robert Bryce.]
2 Responses
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Leave a Reply
To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.
I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Friday, 7 March 2008 at 18.57
Permalink
One fill-up at our current $3.46/gallon for regular should disabuse any prospective Chevy Suburban buyer of fantasies about getting 29 mpg.
I know it takes all kinds, but it's still hard to believe a significant number of people would fall for such an inflated mpg claim in the first place. I read sometime back that a hefty majority of vehicle shoppers take fuel economy ratings (an industry-friendly term if there was one, when fuel consumption is what's being rated) with a large grain of salt. Going by your factoid it's not hard to see why.
on Friday, 7 March 2008 at 23.08
Permalink
After consulting with my better half and minister of finance, it was more like $3.26.9/gallon here, which is still outrageously high.