At the 1970s Call-in for Fuel Efficiency, held
Thursday in Carytown, a 1955 Porsche and a 2006
Porsche sat with their silver hoods propped open to
showcase their engines.
One of the cars has better gas mileage, but most
people might be shocked to find out which one – the
1955 model gets more miles to the gallon than the
modern model.
The call-in car show, hosted by the Sierra Club and
the National Environmental Trust, was held to bring
to light lagging fuel-efficiency standards that have not
changed since 1976. Drivers, especially cash-strapped
students, are fed up with the record prices they are
paying at the pump, and many are putting their foot
down.
Rakin Ahmed, a VCU sophomore and international
studies major, said even in his fuel-efficient Honda
Accord, he finds himself spending more and more
for his commute to Prince William, where he is a
volunteer firefighter.
“I use my car a lot, and it eats a lot of fuel,” he
said.
With oil prices approaching $100 a barrel, students
and community members at the event aimed to pressure
Congress to pass a better energy bill that would make
cars go farther on a gallon of gas.
Student volunteers held up signs that read, “We are
the leaders in so much, why not fuel efficiency?” and
“New generation, new fuel standards.”
Students and volunteers stopped people on the street,
urging them to call Sen. John Warner to ask him to
support a policy that would increase fuel efficiency
standards.
In June, the Senate passed a bill that would increase
the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE)
standards. The bill, however, leaves wiggle-room for
automakers to determine their own standards. Fuel
efficiency standards may be set at lower than 35 miles
per gallon if the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration can provide evidence that doing so
will not be cost effective, a report published by the
Sierra Club said.
Activists are pushing for an added CAFE compromise
that would require a fleet-wide fuel-efficiency standard
for all vehicles sold in the United States. It would
require cars to run at 35 mpg by 2020. Congress votes
on the bill this fall.
The students’ efforts paid off as 50 people signed
pledges saying they would call Warner, said Ruth
Morrison, the event’s coordinator and Richmond
representative for NET.
What angers Ken Kneher, the owner of Sportscar
Workshop of Richmond is that the technology is
available to make extremely fuel-efficient cars, but the
United States has yet to embrace advancements.
“New standards are thoroughly within reach,”
Kneher, said. “All we need to do is use technology
that we’ve already got.”
Kneher provided or worked on all of the cars that
were used in the car show, held in the parking lot of
Ben and Jerry’s Carytown.
One of those cars was Turner Smith’s 1964 Citroen
Deux Chevaux, a yellow car equipped with only the
basics (with the exception of its zebra-striped upholstery).
The car gets 50 mpg, while a comparable modern
model, a 2007 Volvo C20, gets only 19 mpg.
“I’ve always been concerned with gas mileage because
I am the one paying for it,” Smith said.
Smith said he was frustrated when he saw cars in
Europe, made by American automakers, that were
much more fuel efficient than cars sold in the United
States by the same companies.
He said the gap in fuel-efficiency standards is a
conspiracy.
Every day, Americans use 282 million gallons of gas,
costing consumers $864 million, a brief published by
the Sierra Club reported.
The passage of the energy bill, H.R. 6, would save
1.2 million barrels of oil per day and $25 billion per
year at gas pumps, and would create more than 170,000
new jobs, according to the same Sierra Club report.