{"id":577934,"date":"2010-05-25T13:09:01","date_gmt":"2010-05-25T17:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/green.yahoo.com\/blog\/daily_green_driving\/62\/six-gas-mileage-myths.html"},"modified":"2010-05-25T13:09:01","modified_gmt":"2010-05-25T17:09:01","slug":"six-gas-mileage-myths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/577934","title":{"rendered":"Six gas mileage myths"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Photo: Peter Dazeley)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Do Americans care about fuel economy as oil spills into the Gulf of Mexico<\/a> and gasoline hovers around $3 a gallon? You bet they do, though they also have a fair number of misconceptions about how to squeeze a few more miles<\/a> out of every drop.<\/p>\n

The Consumer Federation of America’s (CFA) most recent survey<\/a> says that if we had a 50-mile-per-gallon car fleet today, we’d save more oil than the entire proven reserves in the entire Gulf of Mexico. And people care about that. <\/p>\n

According to Jack Gillis, author of The Car Book<\/em> and a CFA spokesman, 87 percent of respondents said it is “important that the country reduce its consumption of oil,” and 54 percent said it is “very important.”<\/p>\n

An amazing 65 percent of Americans surveyed support a mandated transition to a 50-mpg fuel economy standard by 2025. That’s a tough standard, some 15 mpg better than the ambitious goal set by the Obama Administration (35 mpg by 2016).<\/p>\n

“The expectations of American consumers are reasonable and achievable,” Gillis said in a conference call.” CFA says that Asian carmakers, compared to the U.S. competition, are offering twice as many vehicles with 30 mpg or better.\u00a0“It’s shocking that so few of today’s cars get more than 30 mpg<\/a>,” he said. <\/p>\n

Mark Cooper, CFA’s research director, noted that in five years of the group’s polling, the public’s views have stayed remarkably consistent: Americans want less dependence on Middle Eastern oil and higher fuel-economy standards.<\/p>\n

People care about fuel economy, but they’re misinformed about how to actually achieve it. The federal government’s fueleconomy.gov<\/a> site (very useful to check cars’ mpg) just published the “Top 10 Misconceptions About Fuel Economy.” <\/p>\n

Here are a few big myths:<\/p>\n