Your Car Is a Rip-Off

So much would be possible – if it weren’t for the government.

Government, remember, is not composed of experts in much of anything – except control and manipulation. Politicians and bureaucrats are not people who do things.

They force others to do things.

In the car world, you have the ridiculous spectacle of non-engineer mechanical imbeciles dictating functional parameters of engine design to people who actually do know how a four-stroke engine works, the meaning of stoichiometry; who understand that there is an inherent conflict between fuel economy and “safety.” That the more a car is designed to meet the first objective, the less it will meet the second. today. And the sole and only reason for all this additional weight is the increased demand for “safety” eructing from the solons in Washington. Well, so we must presume. Because the people who actually buy the cars were never offered the free choice. It would be interesting to find out what they’d choose if they did have that choice.

We can make some rough calculations.

Let’s start with a pretty fuel-efficient (but ridiculously heavy) car like the current/2015 Honda Civic sedan. This compact (by current standards) weighs in at 2,811 pounds. A 1985 Civic sedan (see here) weighed 1,962 pounds – 849 pounds less than the current model.

It is not surprising that – notwithstanding a direct-injected engine with variable valve timing and an ultra-efficient continuously variable (CVT) automatic transmission – the ’15 Civic sedan only averages 33 MPG – vs. 27 MPG for its ancestor from 30 years ago.

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