Quote:
Originally Posted by longtailbda
What's amazing is in the late 80's my wife and I both had small cars that got 50-55 miles per gallon and now we can't find one at all.
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once the government (and market) got serious about crash testing, they found one thing in common with all small cars - they were nowhere near as safe as their larger brothers...
all auto makers started making cars slightly larger, adding more features, increasing weight... increased weight requires a more powerful engine, more powerful engine usually means less fuel economy...
engine power efficiency has come up, and across the board, cars are getting better fuel mileage - the difference being that newer cars are just bigger and heavier...
there are some smaller cars (that still make the cars you speak of look like micro machines) that get 40+ mpg, but overall the cars are too heavy and big to get the better fuel economy...