What Happened to Affordable Gas? WE did!!

The U.S. has 22% of the world’s cars even though we have less than 5% of the world’s people. It’s not rocket science that the heavier the car, the more gas it burns. From 1987 to 2006, the weight of the average U.S. vehicle went up 29%. Why? Those were the decades Americans thought they had to drive one of the new cowboy, heavyweight SUVs to look cool on the road.

We all know that the higher the horsepower, the more gas an engine burns every mile. Over those same 19 years, the horsepower on U.S. cars and trucks increased 86%. Again, 86%! We also know that the faster a car speeds up, the more gas the engine burns. The acceleration on this country’s cars and trucks went up by 26% from 1986 to 2006.

As we get dizzy watching the $4-a-gallon numbers spinning at the gas pump, we need to consider where we’d be had anyone listened to the warnings about gas shortages twenty years ago. Had our leaders been wise enough to enforce
fuel-economy standards, or had we the consumer been smart enough not to buy heavier and faster wheels to drive, we wouldn’t be going broke today filling our gas tanks.

If the weight distributions for our automobiles had stayed where they were in the 1980s, today’s cars would be 33% more fuel efficient than they are. Instead of the $60 you just spent filling your car’s gas tank, you’d have spent $40 with $20 left in your pocket. Your hypothetical 2006 truck would be 27% more economical to drive than the one you actually drive.

We could say that hindsight is 20-20 vision except for one thing. We knew twenty years ago that the world had a finite amount of oil. We knew the only way to prevent a catastrophic shortage of fossil fuel was for Americans to reduce our consumption. We knew that, but continued to buy cars and trucks that needed more, not less, gasoline to operate. WE are what happened to affordable gas.

From: University of Michigan, Center for Sustainable Systems:
factsheets on Personal Transportation