Say Anything Blog

Why is it that after 30 years of ongoing engineering that highly complex hybrid economy car gets no better fuel economy than a 1970s era VW Rabbit diesel? It’s because cars have been getting heavier and heavier. But don’t blame the automobile companies. It turns out that it’s the social engineers in Washington DC, not the mechanical engineers in Detroit who decided that cars and trucks needed to pack on the pounds.

Eric Peters writes:

cars are also much heavier, more complicated—and expensive—than the cars of the past.
But which is better: A car that performs well in a 30 mph offset barrier crash but is also beyond your means? Or a car that’s maybe not quite so sturdy but which you can still afford to buy?
Like it or not, that’s the bottom line choice here. Just as we can’t all drive V-8 Cadillacs, neither can average people afford to buy the ever-increasing roster of safety equipment that Washington regulators think they need—and should be forced to purchase, in an ever-increasing spiral of add-on expense.
This creates all manner of absurd distortions. For example, the car companies have had to go to ridiculous lengths—using completely unnecessary technology—to (barely) achieve the same fuel economy in a modern gas-electric hybrid car that was possible in a simpler, non-hybrid car 20 or 30 years ago ... at two or three times the price.
For instance: A 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid gets about the same real-world mileage as a late 1970s VW Rabbit diesel or ‘80s-era Plymouth Champ. But the Prius costs several times what those cars cost because it is vastly more complicated. Get rid of the weight and expense-padding “safety” mandates and the car companies could stamp out legions of simple, lightweight 50 mpg (or better) economy compacts that could be sold for less than $10,000 brand new.
After all, 40 mpg cars were common 25 years ago—before the government’s rules added several hundred pounds of deadweight to each new vehicle. Nix the rules that add the weight—and with the benefit of modern engine technology, such as direct injection and Continuously Variable (CVT) transmissions—it should be easy to build a 60 mpg economy compact without having to resort to elaborate hybrid vehicle technology.
With diesel power, 70-80 mpg ought to be possible. In fact, VW sells a compact diesel model in Europe that is capable of close to that figure—but we don’t get it here, thanks to Uncle Sam.

For the sake of comparison, I decided to compare the weight of the Toyota Prius and Willys Jeep (the first SUV). The Prius weighs in at almost 2,800 lbs. The 1940s Jeep weighs in under 2,300. So a modern economy car is almost 500 lbs heavier than a 1940s SUV. Of course comparing an SUV to an economy car is like comparing apples to oranges. I also compared the Prius to a fifty year old economy car, the Citroen 2CV. It turns out the Prius more than twice as massive as the 2CV.
Of course it would be illegal to produce and sell a brand new Willys MB Jeep, Citroen 2CV or any vehicle of comprable simplicity.