Planning for the future: good gas mileage

If you think your hybrid gets great gas mileage now, wait until you hear what is planned for the future! Car manufacturers will be required to increase the mileage gained from each gallon to anywhere between 47 to 65 miles per gallon, as stated by the Department of Transportation and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. So far it looks like it will be applied to Sports Utility Vehicles and other cars. This could be great news for everyone looking to save money. Although it sounds great, will it even matter when the year 2025 rolls around? Will it already be too late to change things at that point? How much will we be paying for each gallon of gas in just another five years?

There are a few concerns I want to discuss. First and foremost, will the people of United States still be hooked on gas consumption as much as today? If you have been paying attention, you know there have been oil rig explosions in the past few months. One was a big one, namely the one being operated by British Petroleum. There was another one recently on a much smaller scale.

When events such as oil rig explosions happen, people start paying closer attention to the issues related to fossil fuels. Too many people lost jobs due to reasons directly tied to the rig explosions or indirectly through lost business or customers. Although the general population was already calling for reduction on oil consumption and inventions of alternative energy sources, recent events have accelerated these calls. Who knows, by the time we finally see increased gas mileage, we might be using electric cars or technologies that we have not even thought about yet! With how fast our technology is changing and developing, you never know what is just around the corner.

Current prices of gasoline

Just two years ago, gas prices were hovering at $5 per gallon. Ever since then, the price has come down significantly. The reasons that were used to explain the sky-rocketing crude oil prices were ranging anywhere from increased consumption by other countries such as India and China, to the deliberately reduced production by OPEC. Still to this day, it seems that nobody really gave an actual answer. This leads me to believe that prices could go up again in the near future as soon as the economy picks up. This would be another stepping stone in our quest to abandon the use of fossil fuels. Some people might be upset due to the rise in prices at first, but such spikes in prices play a significant role in helping people change their habits to use less fuel.

Therefore, it might already be too late to wait for 2025 to come around. People might not even care about the increased efficiency in gas mileage by then because they would have stopped using so much fossil fuels.

It seems that the purposed change might take too long to go into effect. There are calls to abandon fossil fuels and invest in alternatives due to recent events. Another reason people might abandon gasoline by the time vehicles with increased efficiency start shipping is due to increases in fuel prices. It is expected that we will be paying a lot more at the pump in the next few years. In the end, the changes being called for car manufacturers might be answered too late by businesses that stand to gain by keeping things just the way they are right now.

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