History of Gas Mileage

Why is it that our cars seem to be come more and more advanced (Here is an article about new advanced tech going into newer cars, one of them being a GPS linked temperature control where the GPS senses the position of the sun relative to the car to keep you nice and cool) but the gas mileage just seems to stay the same. That’s because the auto industry compliments the oil industry as the two can’t exist without each other. If cars got 250 mpg (which they did more than half a century ago which I will go into soon) then the oil industry would suffer massive revenue losses and eventually go bankrupt. Mr. Rockefeller wouldn’t like that very much now would he?

So enter in the documentary Gashole. A brilliant piece of exposé about the history of the oil/auto industry relationship. There was a gentleman who invented a carburetor that allowed for a further vaporization of gasoline. With this invention he achieved a remarkable 250 mpg. Now the oil companies noticed this and said to him hey now that’s a nifty invention you got there, we will buy it from you but if we do that, you agree not to build another one of these. Needless to say he sold out and they made him a millionaire. The patents were buried and even today you can’t find them. All of this information and investigation is documented in the film.

Now mind you, the cars of the time were extremely heavy. But nevertheless they were capable of going great distances with very little fuel. Unlike the Bugatti Veyron which, even with today’s technology, gets a magnificent 10 mpg. This topic could easily drift off into other relevant tangents such as planned obsolescence and information suppression but for now i’m just gonna stick to this subject.

I remember when gas hit $4+/gallon. That’s not as bad as other places in the world where they pay by the liter. Some European countries were/are paying $9+ USD for a gallon of gas. We are definitely spoiled compared to them.

Whenever I hear or see an auto ad about a new cutting-edge 2015-2016 vehicle that gets a whopping 40 mpg, I just laugh and think to myself ‘the guy that’s announcing this and those who are listening have no idea that we have had the technology to achieve limitless gas mileage for decades. *Sigh*

Now when I learned all of this, it pissed me off lol. I mean here I am planning a roadtrip and I have to allocate 300$ of my budget to gas. 300$ that could go towards staying in a nicer place, or going out to eat at different places or visit different attractions. But no, it goes directly into the pockets of those who already have billions and probably trillions of buckaroos. But remember that their time is coming and we will see technology that we could only dream of.

Thanks for reading, I love you all!

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