Mar 12 2006
Car Talk in the Sears Matress Section
“Do you think a car can go 75 miles on one gallon of gas?”
This was a question that my wife and I were asked last night while waiting to re-order a matress in Sears. The woman asking this question was pretty frantic and looked very desperate, so I tried not to look at her and say ‘Are you Crazy?’ but I couldn’t help but wonder if Ashton Kucher was hiding somewhere with a camera.
She starts to tell us about her car problems and the more she says, the more I’m thinking ‘Um, maybe you just need a jump start if you’re tank reads half-full’ at the same time I don’t want her to think I’m one of the guys from Car Talk so I keep my mouth closed. But she keeps talking about how she has no money because she left her purse at home, and she’s gotta get home to her mom, and her cars making a noise when she does this and…and finally the sales woman chimes in with “Mall Security can probably help you more than us.”
Poor girl, I hope she made it home.
Earlier today I was at the Toyota Dealership getting some work done on my car. I’m walking around looking at cars and come to the Prius. Now here’s a car that girl could have used yesterday; a car that gets 60 miles to the gallon (allegedly) , she would then be only 15 miles from home!
I don’t know which is worse:
- feeling so desperate that the idea of a car going 75 miles on one gallon seems plausible, but let me just ask these two strangers first, or
- That the most fuel efficent car in the US gets only 60 miles to the gallon in perfect conditions (and that’s in the city. On the Highway it’s 51 miles).
And while I would like to see more fuel efficent hybrid cars, I’d settle for hybrids that are not egg shaped. How about designing a car gets great mileage and looks good instead of stuff like this:
Well about the fuel efficient cars going over 60 mpg here’s some good news and bad news.
Good news - there are Deisel Cars out there that get 75-85 mpg
Bad News - they are tiny and ugly two seaters from Europe that won’t pass the American emmission Standards.
Chances are until Oil gets pretty scarce we probably won’t be seeing cars in the US that go more than 65mpg on the highway
I would have trouble knowing whether someone like that was telling the truth or not. I feel terrible when I hear someone’s problems - yet I don’t feel compelled to actually do anything about it. It must be because I’m Catholic and the guilt is baked right in!