Earth-Safe Dashboard

[Wizzo]

Governments of the world would have us believe that an ordinary car is one of the greatest threats to the environment. Clearly, all automotive companies need to be thinking about Mother Earth the next time they roll their next model off the assembly line.

I suppose this is why Ford has come up with a new dashboard that literally shows you how earth-safe your driving is. Part of it has to do with measuring your fuel efficiency, which is not gauged by a meter or a number, but a picture of a vine.

Apparently, if your driving is fuel-efficient, the vine will start budding and blooming until it is healthy. However, if you are wasting gas, you will be forced to watch that vine shrivel up and die. Yes, it is odd to have a visual cue instead of an exact scientific reading, but I guess we consumers have been trained to react to pictures instead of raw data.

Whatever next?

[Willy]

Ah yes, Ford that paragon of earth conscious vehicles.
What a load of crap.

These are the same morons that, along with the other two idiots have been building planned obselesence vehicles the past 40 years while the European auto makers have been making cars that last in the hopes that you will love the car so much you will convince your kids and friends to buy a Volkswagen, or Merc, or Volvo, BMW etc.

The US automakers have still not offered a car with an earth friendly diesel engine. While people are clamoring to get their hands on the new Volkswagen TDI diesel that has been voted the cleanest engine on the planet.

Stats show that if every car was a diesel, we would not be talking about global warming.

Wake up Ford, GM and Chrysler. If you actually made a vehicle that was worth a sh*t. You would not be crying to the governments for a bailout right now.

[cosworth151]

US manufacturers don't make diesels for the same reason the Europeans don't sell many of them over here. US consumers hate them. You'd have a hard time giving a diesel car away. Also, US tax structure assumes that diesels are commercial vehicles. The tax on diesel is much higher. On the way in this morning, gas was $1.75 / gal, auto diesel was $2.45 / gal.

[John S]

There is a price differential in Britain with deisel more expensive than petrol, but apparently this is not taxation but market forces, there is a glut of petrol refining capacity as so many cars have switched to deisel which results in a premium on it.

This is helps the oil companies in a double hit since deisel is cheaper to produce than petrol and it's a hell of a lot safer to store and transport. The price difference has bitten into the gains from fuel economy with deisel and has started people looking again at petrol cars.

[Dare]

Diesel's never took off here in the US,part of
the blame was the early American diesel care
were a piece of crap