"LA Woman sues Honda over false 50 mpg claim"

Mombers reminded me about this story (nice to see that the character from a Doors song is still alive and well!) with his comment to an earlier post:

It can be argued that global warming is a myth or won't be that bad but two things can't be argued:

1.Mercury, lead and other chemicals in the air are never a good thing

2.Mahmoud Ahmajinedad, Hugo Chavez et al are real and they're not our mates. Giving them billions of dollars a day is not in our best interests. I think improving efficiency is lower hanging fruit in terms of reducing pollution and petrodollars. Doesn't sell as well as fancy green energy projects though.

1. Agreed. Not so much lead any more though, I thought.

2. Broadly agreed, but...

a) We (the UK) do not give them "billions of dollars a day". We consume approx. 600 million barrels of oil a year, and each barrel earns the producer country about $113 = £73 (£1 = $1.55 as at today's date), so that's about £44 billion a year (3% of GDP).

Maths check: One barrel crude = $113 = £73 ÷ 159 litres/barrel = 46p per litre. Fuel duty 60p + VAT 22p/litre = 82p + plus 7p for refining, transport, retail margin etc = £1.35/litre pump price. Total VAT + fuel duty receipts are about £55 billion a year. Which would give us a figure of 46/82 x £55 billion for cost of crude oil = £31 billion, so let's round that £44 billion down to £40 billion for crude oil imports.

b) As far as cars are concerned, there is little or no low hanging fruit left. I think we have pretty much reached the upper limit in terms of fuel efficiency in miles per gallon, assuming you want to travel with any dignity. Honda can't even manage to make cars which achieve 50 mpg (or maybe they can and LA Woman drives like an idiot).

IIRC, when I was a lad, 30 mpg counted as good. My 1997 VW Golf Mk II achieves around 40 mpg overall. It has a 2 litre engine, which is not small relative to size of car or engine sizes in the 1970s or earlier, and I'm sure it's far less efficient than it was when it was new, or less efficient than a new car today.

So even if we could improve our overall average mpg from 40 mpg to 50 mpg*, this would only reduce the money we send abroad to people who are, frankly, "not our mates", by about £8 billion a year at current prices, which is £129 per capita. I mean, it's worth having, but nothing to lose sleep over; the cost of replacing all our cars would far outweigh this - The Golden Rule is to drive sparingly and to run your car until it falls to pieces.

* Derek in the comments points out that they mean smaller US gallons, and that 50 miles/US gallon = 60 miles/Imperial gallon.