Keeping tabs on gas
I have uploaded the data set for my car’s mileage and gas purchases from April-October of 2006. It’s in the Daily Commute page in the upper right column. Every time I made a stop I recorded the information and later entered it into a spreadsheet.
I will be doing this again during the six months starting in January.
For the curious my car is a 1996 Geo Metro. I have driven this car across the country; along the spine of the country from Maryland through Ohio to Indiana and then south through Kansas to Texas, from Texas through Kentucky to Maryland, from Maryland to West Palm Beach Florida, and WPB to Texas for a total of about 9 times. (The first 7 times without a radio. But no worries during long trips I’d play fun games like “I spy” to pass the time. When I arrived in the town I live in now, I finally put a radio in the car. Those carefree gaming days are over. Besides I was getting tired of losing all the time. )
Well more on that later.
And so after 11 years of extensive travel across this great rocky, hilly, snowy, rainy and sunny land my car is really showing its age. I fear that it may die during this experiment. If so I will have to get another car which will be a huge expense and something new. So that is a necessary caveat during this Six Months to Reset experiment.
But when/if I do need a new car you can bet it will be the most efficient car available within my means. I’m currently leaning toward the Toyota Prius and the Toyota Corrola.
And to those who ask why not buy American cars you have a Chervolet now? I say, fuck the American Automotive Industry. For fifteen years they built nothing but gas gussling SUVs and trucks with no innovation other than how many cup holders can be put in the middle seat and the installation of tiny television screens in the head rests. They had no vision, no conscious of the future and now are paying the price while others pay an even higher price to salvage and bail them out of the hole they dug for themselves and to a larger extent the country. (I don’t put the blame all on the big three, the sheep who purchase these vechicles garner some of the blame as well. But to be fair, they were up against some pretty serious marketing/advertising and social pressures to purchase these types of vechicles, especially considering those were mostly all that were being offered.)
This recent 35 mpg legislation is bullshit also. 35! That’s an average for every car the company builds. So they can build one whole mess of cars and the average needs to be 35, not the minimum for all. That’s not innovation that’s a numbers game. And by 2020! What the fuck is that about? That’s not change that’s slow as molassis growth. With or without this legislation by 2020 average mpg would have increased by market pressures alone. Especially after the world (and hopefully Americas) started getting their spine back against corporate interests and excessive consumerism - hopefully. (Something has to give soon.) 2020! Who the hell do they think they are fooling here? Apparently everyone.
You want to really make a car that will sell? Build a car that gets 100 miles to the gallon and you would be on top of the world. And if you had built it 15 years, nar 10 years ago, there would be no financial crisis for your business and people would have bought that car in droves even in the mid 1990s. I know I would. If it was up to me it’d be 100 mpg in three to five years and if you can’t keep up sell to someone who can and get out of the way. The times they are a’ changing! (I wonder why the auto industry hasn’t been to interested in building gasoline efficient cars for a while now? Seems to me if they had, some global crisises might have been avoided or at least lost the influence and false sense of urgency subtly driving them. But that’s just crazy talk.)
Well I’m getting into a rant and this was suppose to be just an update to the Daily Commute to give you an idea of how that part will work. Data under the page and rants and commentary in the blog posts.
Until then.