Highest gas mileage? List shows today's cars can't match old ones
15.06.10
It was only a combine of years ago that gasoline prices peaked at more than $4 a gallon. Even though prices receded, few vacillate that high-priced gas could eventually be with us again. In light of that, you'd think that the landscape would be filled today with 40-mile-per-gallon cars. Well, it isn't.
The surprise comes from a tabulation the Environmental Protection Agency put together of the most fuel-efficient vehicles in the past 25 years. Few are from today. Most are from many years ago. For all the talk today about hybrids, electrics and greater stimulus efficiency from conventional engines, the list underscores how little progress we've actually made toward weaning ourselves off oil.
No astonishment that hyper-milers like Louis Hudgin of Gilbert, Ariz., pictured above with his decade-old Honda Judgement hybrid, were driving old cars like Hudgin's 2001 Honda Insight when we interviewed them a duo years ago. Modern cars didn't get as much mileage as the older ones, a big problem for those who squeeze as many mpgs out of every gallon of gas as Hudgin's does. Hudgin was routinely getting more than 100 mpg.
Source: USA Today