When buying a new car, most of us will consider the same issues. Price, speed and size, perhaps color and add-ons. For what it’s worth, gas mileage usually isn’t at the top of the list, despite its importance.
The automobile industry has been working hard on improving this important aspect of it, through a variety of measures. One aspect, a fairly overlooked one, is weight. When trying to improve mileage, scientists will look at the engine, or the fuel itself. Now, these aren’t bad approaches, however there are other inroads to be made.
For a long time, the preferred way of going about this was to make the cars smaller, which wasn’t considered the best option as people wanted big cars. Certainly not everyone, however little smart cars are clearly less popular than bigger alternatives. So, on the whole, this was not the path to take.
Instead what is happening now is that they are trying to make car parts lighter, while maintaining the original shape and size of the car. Many vital car parts are still made of steel-not exactly a lightweight material. Now people are working on replacing steel with other materials. The current favourite is aluminium. Much lighter and usually thinner, it can easily replace parts of modern cars.
Concerns for safety have been easily dispelled as the newer lighter cars perform just as well in safety tests as their hard-steel counterparts. The car parts that are currently being replaced do not affect a cars safety in an accident. Not all parts are being replaced as of right now, however more than enough in order to seriously lower the weight and improve the mileage of the new cars.
The US has a goal set for 2025-to improve the mpg (miles per gallon) to 54.5mpg. The current goal expires in 2016 and mandates 34.1mpg-so the 2025 goal would be a massive improvement, however it also still comes with serious issues. This goal is not exclusive to the US, other countries are attempting it too. In fact, the EU is the USs biggest competitor. Not all countries are capable of competing at the same level of course, however as it is now, the US are actually ahead of schedule to reach their 54.5mpg goal.
The second area (next to smaller cars) that is currently not a completely viable alternative option are fully electric cars. Hybrid cars are currently fairly popular and help make massive advances towards the 54.5 goal, however entirely electric cars turned out to be not as popular as they were originally heralded to be. They have their fans, and they are being worked on, however they are no longer considered the be all and end all of modern cars. Their limitations are simply too encompassing for now. The lack of charging stations, (reduced) lack of reach in miles.
Despite all of this, why are all of these advances made? Why does it matter how far one gets with a gallon of fuel? Aside from reducing the cost of fuel for the end user and therefore keep oil/fuel prices low, the main positive outcome is the severe lowering of emissions caused by cars. The more fuel a car needs to run, the more emissions it expels.
It is very much in the government’s interest to keep emissions to a minimum, and so it helps fund research to achieve just that. Higher mileage per gallon, lower emissions, more efficient cars, at first glance they may not be all that similar however they are connected and they are important. Important enough to warrant significant funds and investments.
However, this whole affair depends on one more factor-the consumers. All of this can only be successful if consumers buy into it-this was a major issue with electrical cars as they weren’t as well received as was hoped. However so far consumers approve, models like the new Tesla are highly sought after and are built based on much more mpg efficient technology than more commercial models. This suggests that people approve of and are interested in lightweight car models and are willing to support them, at the very least for now.
References:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/drive.shtml
http://arstechnica.com/features/2012/10/the-road-ahead-how-well-get-to-54-5-mpg-by-2025/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/to-boost-gas-mileage-automakers-explore-lighter-cars/