For a long time now we have been exhorted to think green especially with our car choices. Leading this charge have been Toyota with their Prius and Honda with the Insight and the various hybrid concoctions out there from various companies. What we haven't seem to have had is the other side of the equation. More efficient and cleaner vehicles that won't break the bank. You see, my beef with alternative energy cars has been the huge premium that you are expected to pay just to own then. Be honest, how many people buy these cars because they're cleaner? They are purchased mainly to save money on gas - be honest - you know it's true. On a recent edition of the UK motoring show 'Top Gear', they had a challenge to drive nearly 700 miles across Europe on one tank of gas. The cars chosen? A Subaru Forrester , a Jaguar twin turbo V6 diesel and a diminutive WV Polo BlueMotion with a 3 cylinder engine. Believe it or not, they all made it and the Jaguar even had enough gas for another 100 miles or so. Actually, the Jag was driven like a maniac across France and even then still made it. The VW was my real interest though. Here we have a car with better mileage than the Prius and a heck of a lot cheaper to buy. The Prius is rated at about 66mpg while the VW is rated at 74 (actually got over 80 mpg) and the VW is over $8000 cheaper. Now why, in all that's holy, don't we have cars like this in Canada? There is a real lack of diesel engined family vehicles and we seem to be blinded by the hybrid/electric marketplace. This lack of real investment in more economical cars at reasonable prices is part of what has brought our domestic auto industry to it's knees. Mind you, the Asian car manufacturers haven't shown any sign of bringing more of their fuel efficient cars here either, so there is plenty of blame to go around.
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