Automakers and consumers have been, shall we say, inconsistent in their quest for better fuel economy. When gas prices spike, fuel efficiency becomes a national priority. Politicians make speeches, carmakers trumpet their vehicles' mpg ratings instead of horsepower output and consumers flock to fuel-sipping compacts rather than gas-guzzling SUVs. But when gas gets cheap again, many people go back to their gluttonous ways. It's a vicious cycle.
There is a silver lining, though. The spikes in gas prices seem to bring about genuine bursts of innovation when it comes to fuel efficiency. As gas prices rose throughout the 2000s and then skyrocketed in 2007-2008, fuel-sippers such as the Toyota Prius went from marginal to mainstream, and automakers quickly shifted from developing one SUV after another to creating more efficient smaller cars, crossovers and hybrid vehicles.
As a result, today there is a wide selection of vehicles that deliver stellar mileage figures, ranging from the all-electric Nissan LEAF to the dual-mode hybrid Chevy Volt to the Chevy Cruze Eco, which has no hybrid system at all but manages to squeeze 42 mpg highway from a normal gasoline engine, thanks to some creative turbocharging. And even more of these misers are in the pipeline.
But before we give automakers a pat on the back for their efforts to deliver the most out of every drop of fuel their vehicles consume, it is worth looking back at the history of automobiles and asking ourselves, "Are today's cars really more fuel-efficient than they used to be?" The answer is more complicated than you might think.
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