Yes We Can! Ford to Release 62 mpg Cars...In Europe

An American car company -- Ford -- has stepped up to produce a 62 mpg car that is not even hybrid; just very efficient.  The Ford Focus Econetic will be available next month.

Where can you get one?

Unfortunately, the answer is Europe, reports this article.

How can it be that America's political opponents of progress on clean energy, clean vehicles and climate change warn that bold solutions will wreck the economy, and yet Europe is so far ahead of us on fuel efficiency that it's embarrassing? (they are literally laughing us all the way to the bank, since at just $3/gallon, an average driver would save $660 per year on gas by upgrading from a car that gets 30 mpg to one that gets 62 mpg).

It’s partly to do with differences in regulations making it hard to build those engines to meet US specs, but a large part of it has to do with differences in attitudes towards the climate change crisis we are facing.

The European political landscape has largely signed on to global warming as fact. European laws force European auto makers to adhere to strict low-emissions standards. Low carbon emissions and better mileage are co-related.

Europe has already passed legislation limiting carbon emissions. Engineers swiftly revamped the auto industry over there and achieved the new carbon emissions and mileage standards for their fleets.

So European consumers who want better green choices benefit. Voters over there are presumably similar to us in terms of the average understanding of the environmental issues facing the world, yet they elected politicians who have acted to reduce the environmental impact of living.

As long ago as 2006, polls of Americans showed that we realize that we don’t get what the Europeans do, and wanted an average fuel economy of 40 MPG legislated. Yet we keep supporting those who encourage us to heap contempt on Europe for signing Kyoto and passing climate and energy legislation.

That political battle has only stepped up in these weeks leading up to another potentially world-changing agreement on climate change at Copenhagen. As much as Kyoto changed Europe, Copenhagen could change America.

I sure hope Copenhagen changes America.  It's just mind boggling that our media here in America totes the fossil fuel industry line that solving climate change will be painful and take years, when we can just look over at Europe and they are spanking us black and blue on auto efficiency.

I'm holding off on purchasing my next car until I can get one that's as fuel efficient as I want it to be.  I don't plan on moving to Europe anytime soon, but it sounds like I'd be buying a new, highly efficient car much sooner if I lived over there!

Europe’s Ford buyers are offered a Ford Focus Econetic that is capable of (US) 62 MPG: available next month. Americans are offered a Fiesta getting just 40 MPG, that won’t even be available till 2011.

It's friggin' maddening!  America -- the land of the Humvee and home of the slave (to the fossil fuel industry)...   You and I know that we can do so much better.

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