For some reason this reminded me of where I've read most millionaires live in modest homes, drive later model vehicles, and live rather unassuming lifestyles. From what I've seen, more often than not, its those who can least afford the lifestyle who pretend to have wealth.

You haven't seen any of the new diesels then. (Or maybe you have and you just didn't notice they were diesel.) Mercedes, VW, Jeep, you can't even tell they're diesels. No more noise than a regular gas engine and very little diesel smell. Even the new diesel engines in the large pickups are leaps and bounds better than the last generation as far as refinement.

As far as the fuel costing more, a diesel gets 30% or better mileage than a similar gas engine. With gas at $3.00, diesel would have to be $3.90+ just to break even. Generally, the only time the difference is almost that large is in winter [when home heating oil purchases drive up the cost of diesel fuel]. Most of the year diesel sits at slightly above regular. Either way, cost per mile is often much lower with diesel, even with fuel itself generally costing more. Over time it ends up saving you money.

If you really want to save money you could run biodiesel (legal) or untaxed dyed diesel (illegal), both cost well under what diesel costs and even under what regular gas costs.

The other thing I like about diesel is the safety factor. It isn't as volatile as gas, so you can store it with little explosion risk. There is also little risk of fire or explosion in a crash compared to a gas vehicle. For our construction business we buy diesel when the price is low and store it for the rest of the year in 10,000 gallon tanks. It ends up saving us even more money than when we would buy at the pump, and we have a large stock of fuel on hand in case of an emergency (like a fuel shortage).

ALFA ROMEO 159 1.9 16V JTDM

I wouldn't call the Alfa Romeo 159 an unrefined car, It gets 49 mpg on the freeway and a combined 39.2 mpg. Its just you can't get cars like this in the US.

or how about the Diesel powered Alfa Romeo Brera 2.4 JTDM



Alfa Romeo Brera 2.4 JTDM - Freeway 43.5 mpg and combined 34.6 mpg.

And there are plenty more cars like this unavailable to the US consumer.

Interesting thread, nice to have some non-US perspectives. I've read that diesel-powered autos will soon, if not already, be outselling gasline cars in Europe. Might note that diesel-powered Audi P1 cars have won the last two 24 hours of Le Mans in part because of the better mileage, even at 180 mph.

The SMART car, diesel or not, is not for me. I drive mostly highway miles and no way am I winning the laws of physics battle between me and a Freightliner in that car. Might have a chance in my Volvo (I do get 28 mpg in that car).

One thing that separates Europeans and North Americans is the understanding of distance. I lived in Paris (France) for a while and it struck me that Parisians had no idea how big the USA is. I could drive from one end of France to the other in about the same amount of time it would take me to drive from Philly to South Bend. I think that distance does color the way we look at the cars we drive. In Paris I would walk to my office in about 20 minutes. I've never had a job in the US where I could drive to my office in 20 minutes. We're big and spread out and except for those few folks, relativelty speaking, who live in cities with public transport, we all drive, probably everyday. That's not as true in Europe, at least from my limited experience.

SMART cars, great idea in the right situation, just don't fit my requirements.

dead on.

we are a consumer nation.

we are told what we need and what to buy. we need those trucks! cheap for the manufacturers and high profit margins.

i laugh as i drive by the beach here. the sand blows across the curbs and sometimes a few feet into the street. do you think the trucks and suvs park on the 5" of sand next to the unseen curb? nah. guess they don't want any sand on their tires. so they park out into the roadway..

No one with a family will buy such a thing.

Diesel fuel is likely to become cheaper than gas in the future due to refining capacity issues. There have been no new refineries built in the US in over a generation and only one or two in the works going forward. All new refining capacity in Europe (which supplies much of the refined produce for the US North East) is diesel with no new gas refining capacity planned. Elsewhere in the world diesel is the likely target of new refining capacity available for US shipment. It's supply & demand from there.

Most of Europe has a much higher population density than any part of the US except some parts of New England etc. I can't recall ever seeing statistics on how far the average European lives from work, but I do know that Americans change jobs more frequently so are likely to not prioritize buying a house near work as highly since they aren't as likely to stay there forever. Most middle-class Americans give first priority to quality of schools in choosing home location and are willing to sacrifice a lot of commute if there is a big difference in school quality.

What is the mileage with air conditioning on? Claims of stellar mileage if I would just leave the A/C off carry little weight when the temperature exceeds 110F.

Personally I'm not interested in owning one, but a great source of information on the cars is: http://smartusa.com/index.aspx

No. Looks like a deathtrap to me, and for that size, it should get 100 mpg. I'd either go with a Honda Civic, or a diesel, if I wanted high MPG. Personally, I'm more interested in safety than mileage, and lean towards heavy rather than light.

The Smart car looks positively huge compared to this car,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mio5fTKqWgM

I'm affraid its all relative when it comes to size.

There have been car research prototypes, which can achieve 100 mpg and these prototypes were developed nearly 30 years ago. There really is nothing smart about the Smart Car.
Today it is completely possible using advanced technology to produce a production family car which can attain the goal of 100 mpg.


The British Austin AR6 protoype dating from 1982 was constructed from lightweight Aluminium and composite materials and had a high efficiency 3 Cylinder Diesel engine developed from the K series engine line.

A similar car could be produced using similar recyclable materials and together with improvements in aerodynamics (Giugiaros Ital styling) and electronic regenerative braking and modern computer controlled fuel injection control systems, 100 mpg is easily achievable. To see the future, you sometimes have to look back in to the past.