I find myself getting disgusted lately when watching television and see these new commercials advertising the Silverado pickup stating how good the fuel economy is. How bad is it that a company as large as GM is happy to announce that they have the best fuel economy for a full size truck with 20MPG on the highway? I mean, we have a craft on the surface of another planet, taking samples and sending back scientific data about the chemical makeup of the soil at the speed of light but our trucks still get only 20MPG and that’s the BEST! (hybrids excluded). If you look back, say, 20 years and see how far we’ve come you’ll see we’ve gone from 8 tracks to lps to cds to mp3 players. We’ve gone from room sized computers to large, HDD free computers with 12" floppy drives, to laptops, to palms and mini pcs with 64GB of solid state memory. The television we had back in the 80s was a curved, oversaturated dial controlled tv to the HD DLP tv I watched the HD commercial on that started this rant stating that 20MPG Highway is the best fuel efficiency we can get with over 100 years of research and development in a full size truck. It’s really just sickening. That is all. [/rant] [/soapbox]
Exactly. It is pathetic as to how many in the United States are so unwilling to think for themselves, face the inevitable, and take action.
Any vehicle that is advertised as having a capability of 20 MPG should cause red flags of shock to be flown. Unfortunately nothing seems to jar us out of this lethargic coma. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=hobbes28;4514]I find myself getting disgusted lately when watching television and see these new commercials advertising the Silverado pickup stating how good the fuel economy is. How bad is it that a company as large as GM is happy to announce that they have the best fuel economy for a full size truck with 20MPG on the highway? I mean, we have a craft on the surface of another planet, taking samples and sending back scientific data about the chemical makeup of the soil at the speed of light but our trucks still get only 20MPG and that’s the BEST! (hybrids excluded). If you look back, say, 20 years and see how far we’ve come you’ll see we’ve gone from 8 tracks to lps to cds to mp3 players. We’ve gone from room sized computers to large, HDD free computers with 12" floppy drives, to laptops, to palms and mini pcs with 64GB of solid state memory. The television we had back in the 80s was a curved, oversaturated dial controlled tv to the HD DLP tv I watched the HD commercial on that started this rant stating that 20MPG Highway is the best fuel efficiency we can get with over 100 years of research and development in a full size truck. It’s really just sickening. That is all. [/rant] [/soapbox][/QUOTE]
Nonexistant sales due to high fuel cost will shock the auto makers into the 21st century. There is a Nissan dealer in B.C. that is giving away an econobox with every Titan (full size PU) they sell to encourage sales. I can’t see that being too profitable in the long term.
Automakers lost me when they started putting catalytic converters in the exhaust pipe?!?!?!? Why? To burn the unburned gas coming out of the engine! Why not make the engine more efficient and burn that gas where it can do some good? I guess gas guzzlers are more profitable. Internal cobustion is a deadend technology, even if we could boost combustion efficiencies you still have the cost of coolant, the limitations of Carnot’s law, a big heavy hung of iron with a million moving parts that need constant lubrication under pressure to work. The energy lost from starting and stopping 4 - 8, 10 pound hunks of steel 1000’s of times per minute, the scraping of hardened steel rings against the inside of a cylinder 1/2 of the time with NO lubrication. There was some experimentation with a gas turbine engine in the 70’s, But cost, (the entire thing had to be made out of high temp ceramics), the fact that it had triple the efficiency of even a rotary engine, made it an oddity for the lab. To be fair it also had an annoying whine instead of the familiar thumping of a V8, it also had different acceleration curves, and made most of its power at the very top end of RPM. Electricity is just a better way to use energy. We can turn ANY other source of energy into electricity at a very high 80-90% efficiency or more. Huge strip mining trucks and most trains are electric. Electric motors are available in any size, shape, RPM, HP or torque. And at almost any price or area.
I do not like this ad
Hmmm
FACTS:
You cannot pull 10,000 pound trailers or haul 2500 pound loads with a cramped up Leaf.
Cat converters reduce/eleminate the nasty chemicals produced by a petro fuel engine.
The shocking thing is how many of you shocked people hire or borrow one of these 20 MPG things when you have a load to move. Whats even more shocking is you ***** about the mileage while piling more stuff in the box and hooking up the trailer with the excess stuff that you don’t really need to exist on this green earth.
The gas turbine was killed for many reasons among them was horrible fuel economy.
The electric mine trucks just happen to have a HUGE diesel engine driving the generator that power the electric motors
RAM has a diesel pickup that gives mileage in the high 20s and has a 700 mile range.
Chevy pickups have been my vehicle of choice for 59 years. The low point was 1973 when I got 8 miles per gallon My current Avalanche gets 19 1/2 at 80 MPH on the Freeway. The Honda gets close to 30 under the same conditions.
Overall I put more miles on my GEM per month (250 to 300) than I do on my truck. But when its 90+ outside and I need to haul cargo or people in comfort the Big Chevy gets the nod.
Be very very careful and don’t get a ride in a full size GM truck, you might like it.
Rodney
Well said Rodney, I too use my gem as much as I can. we go to dinner and small shopping trips, but my go-to vehicle is my 06 4 door GMC truck, for long distance driving it can not be beat. When you own a truck you know how valuable they are, when you don’t own one, you wish you had one. We are in the process of downsizing our life style, getting ready for retirement, and I too can not believe the stuff I have and never use, it’s on it’s way out.
The old saying “The one that dies with the most toy’s win” is BS, I want to go out with a bang, and wright a bad check the last day I’m here. LOL