Just last weekend I got back from my yearly trip to Italy, which I undertook during February so that my dad and I could go skiing. As another deviation from the normal routine, I rented a car this time, one with an automatic transmission, so that I could take on some of the driving duties (I can technically drive manual, but I'm not comfortable doing it yet on European mountain roads).
The car I got was a Volkswagen Golf, which came with almost all the bells and whistles. Keyless ignition, which kept tripping my dad and I up, Apple CarPlay, lane assist, and even that functionality where the dashboard shows you the road signs near you. It beeped whenever I got too close to something in front or in back, but didn't have a backup camera, which is a little confusing on my car here but would have been nice paired with those proximity sensors.
It was a good car, though, and we agreed that it was extremely fun to drive. The pickup on it was monstrous, as I proved on the last morning when I had to overtake a big rig truck on a two-lane country road. It went from about 70kph to about 117kph in a couple of seconds, with nary a complaint from the engine, and I was out in front of the truck long before we got to the curve and any oncoming traffic.
A few of the levers and buttons were over-engineered and confusing to use, and the dashboard itself was curiously uninformative on matters like how much diesel I had in the tank or how far we'd driven. The only thing it showed was the range, which is the actual subject of today's blog.
When I picked up the car from the rental agency, its range hovered around 950 kilometers to about 1,010, or between 590 and 627 miles. This might be because it was a diesel, which typically gets better mileage than gas-powered cars, but either way, it beats the hell out of the nearly 400-mile range my Honda HR-V here in California gets.
The other notable thing about the Golf is that in the ten days I had it, we only took it to the gas station twice, and one of those was just a top-up on the final day to ensure that we brought it back with a full tank of gas. Technically, we could have skipped the first trip to the gas station, because my dad was worried that the stations along the freeway to the airport would be more expensive, but it proved not to be the case.
So to sum up, the Golf boasted a longer range than my own car, survived a road trip to the mountains and back without needing a fill-up, and accelerated more quickly and smoothly than my own car. This last is because it had about 100 horsepower more than my car.
The thing that really got to me, though, was that fuel consumption: I'd be interested to take the Golf on road trips of similar length to what I do in my car, but I have a hard time imagining circumstances where I could drive my Honda for nearly two weeks without needing to buy gas. I'm proud enough of its range that could get it from the Bay Area to LA on a single tank of gas, though whenever I drive down to Southern California I always fill up on the way. But that performance simply doesn't compare with the Golf's.
And by the way, it's not only this wonder-vehicle from Volkswagen that has great mileage. My dad has a Fiat Panda, one of those toy cars that are super common in Europe because they're great for city driving. Last year we calculated the mileage it had gotten on its latest tank of gas, and we came up with about 67 mpg. And here I was impressed that my Honda ekes out 42 mpg when I drive it down the length of the Central Valley.
I understand that the comparisons probably aren't too useful. The Panda has a manual transmission, lacks a lot of the electronics of my Honda, and is also pretty dinky in comparison. Yet it still gets about 50% better mileage than my car, a number that most American drivers could only dream of.
We're in the midst of an environmental crisis, where governments are trying to shift consumers away from gas- and diesel-powered cars in favor of electric vehicles, which are way cleaner to run, even if they end up being powered by dirty electricity. The fact that gas prices are so high, due to the war in Ukraine (among other factors), is providing another impetus for consumers to explore buying EVs, and to the credit of American consumers, we do seem to be going down that road more quickly than in Europe, or at least Italy.
On the other hand, European cars have always been a bit more fuel-efficient than American cars, in part because Europeans tend to buy smaller. You see very few monstrously huge SUVs or pickup trucks in Europe, because in addition to the higher fuel costs you'd have a devil of a time parking the damn things. So the average vehicle consumes less, which means drivers aren't in such a hurry to shift to hybrids or EVs.
And yet, a couple of months ago I was annoyed to learn that the latest model of the HR-V would have a hybrid option in Europe, but not here. It might be surprising, given that I drive a crossover SUV, but I do care about gas mileage, and having the option to reduce my trips to the gas station would be welcome. I just get annoyed that because most Americans don't seem to care, I don't get that option.
It's probably folly to sit and wish that the US were more like Europe in every respect, but this is one area where it could be achievable. European fleets are more efficient and smaller in part because gas prices are so much higher than here - I'm not suggesting that gas should cost as much here as it does in Italy, but Europe's high gas taxes have clearly spurred a lot more innovation toward fuel efficiency. Political opposition from Republicans aside, the Biden administration could easily mandate higher gas mileage throughout the US fleet.
None of this is to suggest that we shouldn't be moving toward EVs - they seem to make sense, and I'd have considered buying one myself the last time I was in the market for a new car. What stopped me was the upfront cost and the lack of range among non-Tesla models. Ironically, even though I don't have a long commute, I do think I'm more likely than many American drivers to drive long distances. But for all that I wasn't ready to go electric, a hybrid would have been a great option for me, if only it had been available.
No comments:
Post a Comment