|
|
|
|
Have Your Cake
Tue Aug 19, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton, with The Weather Notebook's weekly segment on Global Climate
Change.
If you drive an SUV, it is probably because you like the size, apparent safety, and the view
from up there. But those benefits come at the price of fuel efficiency, and the 20 pounds of
carbon per gallon of gas dumped into the air. Are SUV drivers proud of that? Not according to
Dr William Moomaw, a professor at Tufts University.
Moomaw: The auto companies say that people aren't asking for it, but in surveys over and over
again, the vast majority of SUV and pickup truck drivers all say they would love to have a
vehicle that got twice the fuel economy of the one they have.
Bryan If it were still an SUV?
Moomaw If it were still an SUV. And in fact, that's doable. MIT cover story 2 issues ago in
Technology Review, the headline was "40 mile per gallon SUV." And that's without making it
lighter, smaller, less powerful, or anything else. It's just changing the transmissions,
changing the starter motor, changing a whole range of things that would make it far more fuel
efficient than what it is today.
Bryan Adding pedals?
Moomaw No, you don't even have to add pedals. And, if you went all the way to, say, the hybrid
electric technology, which I know that the Lexus SUV is coming out with, that will
automatically give you a 50 % boost in efficiency, and greater torque. You can actually pull
more, you can accelerate faster; and it's actually a better drive train than the one you have.
And it uses a lot less fuel.
Our series on Climate Change is funded by the New England Science Center Collaborative and the
Roy A. Hunt Foundation.
|
|
