The BBC covers an amusing competition of automobile efficiency:
Around midday the cars arrive at the Royal Automobile Club in London’s Pall Mall to have their energy consumption measured.
Many of the drivers are stunned to learn how little energy they have consumed.
Exact data that compares the participants’ performance will only be released by the organisers towards the end of this week, but it seems clear that few, if any, of the cars taking part have used more than a gallon of diesel, or equivalent amounts of electricity.
The fuel bill for the winner of the conventional combustion energy category, for instance – a BMW 320D – comes in at £3.66 – which seems good value given that it has carried four adults and TV equipment much of the way.
“An event like this is much more like the real world than the official tests the car manufacturers use,” says David Ward, director general of the FIA Foundation and BBC News’ fellow driver of the car, which consumed just three litres (about two-thirds of a gallon) of diesel to cover the distance.
That sounds to me like they used two-thirds of a gallon of diesel for four adults and equipment traveling about 100 miles…in a BMW.
W00t! Meanwhile in America…
Cadillac postpones using efficient diesel engines (even though it would be an easy conversion) while their gas-guzzling antiques (10 mpg!) somehow manage to find buyers
Cadillac continued to gain strength in the U.S. luxury auto market, posting a total of 12,620 sales in September. This is an 11 percent increase from a year ago, and the eighth consecutive month of year-over-year sales gains for the brand. For the third quarter of 2010, total sales were up 65 percent over 2009.
As a result, Cadillac continues to be the fastest-growing luxury brand in the U.S. Calendar year to date, Cadillac sales are up 44 percent and the brand has gained more than 2 percentage points of market share in the luxury segment.
Congrats to Cadillac on recovery and strong sales but is it really that much to ask for an engine with same or better performance but three times more efficiency and none of the pollution? Other companies can do it. What’s the hold-up?