Well, I almost qualify
Driven gently, and I mean very gently!!!! I can squeeze 32mpg out of my E500 so surely with a more intelligent remap of the ECU it could potentially do 35mpg. A fact which clearly makes a mockery of his statement, Sir Mark I mean. We all know the manufacturers map their engines to produce low emissions at tickover so they can pass the MOT but in the midrange this is not the case. How many people drive around on tickover?
Surely what he meant to say was "cars which never do less than 35mpg".
Let's be honest, we all know how economically we can drive our cars, an E270 will do well over 50 MPG driven the same way but in the real world of congestion, inflexible employers insisting everyone commence work at 09.00 and clock off at 17.30, crappy public transport, ridiculous consumer prices on most essential items (housing, fuel, council tax, and food ain't getting any cheaper either) we all do the commute averaging well below the optimum mpg figures for our cars.
Then there's the fuel quality as well. If this Shell and BP premium fuel is so bleedin good and gives more MPG then why is it not compulsory to only sell that grade? This ex-shell bloke needs a good seeing to. If they are so concerned then let's see the colour of their money.
I escaped the ratrace to an extent changing jobs to an employer who actively encourages homeworking. My fuel bill went from £500 a month to about £180. My wife has also started working from home 2 days a week as well saving a commute into central birmingham at a cost of £20 a day roundtrip (parking included). The strange thing is, when we enquired about a season ticket for the trains, we cannot have a 3/5ths season ticket so we end up paying for 2 days she doesn't use. Another fine reason not to use public transport then. Open day returns cost more than the petrol and parking put together. Her car, despite being a pit is still way cleaner than the train, it is reliable and she doesn't have to sit on a grotty seat full of someone else's beer farts.
No, we don't need cars which do 35 mpg, what we need is a sensible all round approach to the problemS - yes, plural, there is more than one problem here.
Get the motorways running again, let's have some proper control on the railways, e.g. more carriages during rush hour and lets actively encourage the shops to stock the more lightly travelled foodstuffs. That might get some wagons off the roads.
Oh and as a final stab at our communist overlords, where the hell are the government laboratories which do all the research into more efficient fuels, engines, public transport, flexible working for those who are able, decentralising the production of food, etc etc??? And I mean scientists doing scientific research, not some idiot with a degree in sociology sitting on some quango.
Nope, until I see some joined up thinking being applied I, for one, am not going to buy a car simply because it fits said idiot's template. And nor will I use that filthy, overpriced, run down system they call public transport either. Latest price for open return from Tamworth to Euston - £131.00 and that's STANDARD CLASS!!! So, £262 for the Mrs and me to go to London for the day. Cheaper to hire a limo
