I was driving into the city yesterday and saw one of these Smart Cars built by Mercedes and man are they small. As you can see by my scientific image above, the Smart Car is as high as 0.718 Gary Colemans. Oddly, right behind it was a Toyota Prius. Man, all these people in their super fuel efficient cars. I was feeling a bit of envy. But honestly, I don't think I would want to be seen driving in a Smart or a Prius. I just don't want to compromise THAT much car. I did a bit of poking around and found some interesting MPG facts.
The Smart Car, in real world use gets about 40 mpg which is pretty nice. You'd expect that from a car that is so tiny with a top speed of about 90 mph. The Prius gets about 45 mpg, and is a bit larger so more practical in my opinion. My BMW 323i sadly gets about 25 mpg. So in the US, these hybrids and mini cars seem to be great when it comes to fuel economy.
Now, we don't use diesel in our cars here, but abroad it does seem to be more common. Diesels are an issue here mostly because of the emission problems. But most of those concerns were 20 years old and solutions have been found by now. So here's the thing. If I purchase a BMW 520d (diesel), which is a much nicer looking and a better performing car than any hybrid or shoe sized car, you get 41 mpg. A Honda Accord diesel gets 52 mpg and a Volkswagen Polo gets 60 mpg conservatively. The somewhat smaller companion, the Volkswagen Lupo gets almost 80 mpg. And none of these cars look gay. Unless we're going to introduce pure electric cars at reasonable prices any time soon, my next car will be a diesel. From a mpg standpoint, it just doesn't make sense to purchase a hybrid. So suck it Leonardo DiCaprio. If you really cared about the environment, you'd be driving around in a monumentally more efficient Lupo.
And screw you Ford and GM for pushing crap cars out for all of eternity. I hope you do flounder and go out of business, because I'm sick and tired of my tax dollars being used to bail-out your cruddy asses for poor business practices and no vision. Goes for you too American Airlines.
3 comments:
I could totally see Sung* rockin that car. Aww him and Gary Coleman would make such a nice couple. (*Names have been changed to protect the identity of people in this story.) ;)
Oddly enough, when you factor in a dominating older sister, Sung is equal to 0.81 Gary Colemans.
-D
Those smart cars were all over Europe when I was there a couple of years ago. I thought they were amazing. Now they are beginning to infiltrate the US, as well they should with our gas crisis. But they problem is they are so tiny the huge SUVs would never see them. They would drive right over them and keep on going. In Europe, nothing is bigger than a compact car so a smart car is at least visible. And people park them on the sidewalk there! I'm not kidding.
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