There's been a lot of nonsense spoken on the subject of fuel ecconomy recently, some of it by the sort of people who should know better. I thought it was time for some common sense so here you go.

 

Hybrid technology along with all other kinds of engineering trickery, including diesel, just misses the point. Taking the problem of transportation back to the basic laws of physics is the only way to solve the fuel problem.

 

A heavy object requires more energy to move it than a light object.

An object with a small frontal area creates less wind resistance than an object with a large frontal area.

It takes more energy to move an object at high speed than at low speed as the friction and drag forces are greater.

The most efficient machine is always working at it's optimum capacity.

 

You can mess around with changing the power source to diesel, electric, vegetable oil or anything else but these will not break the laws of physics. Big, heavy, fast moving vehicles use more energy and small, light, slow moving vehicles use less. It is possible to use less energy by making sure that a vehicle is well maintained and driven carefully, but still the smaller lighter vehicle will be relatively more ecconomical.

 

There is one more way of reducing the amount of fuel used and this is probably the easiest to implement: Drive less, especially during the inefficient peak times.

 

So should we all go out and buy the latest most efficient small car or motorbike? Probably not. The energy and rescources required to make the car in the first place are huge compared to the amount a car uses in everyday use.

 

What do I think about the current fuel prices? It will cause us all a problem, but it will affect most significantly those people who do not make an effort to reduce their fuel usage. Maybe that's not such a bad thing.

 

In 1948 Citroen made a car that could do more than 50 miles to the gallon. Currently the best petrol cars can only do about 15 more than that. That kind of progress over 60 years is pathetic. We deserve more.

 

It has been fashionable over the past few years to consider the carbon emissions of almost everything. This is a big mistake. To guage the pollution of any vehicle the complete range of pollutants must be considered from the land destroyed to mine the raw materials to the land destroyed in scrapping it at the end of it's life.

 

I have always believed that the amount of energy put into a machine is relative to the amount of damage it can do. Yes, there are other factors such as the type and quantity of materials required to make it, but if you're looking for a sensible measure then fuel usage is probably it.