You've never known what a lemon really is unless, like me, you have owned a Renault Dauphine. Engine blew up three times and the transmission fell apart before it had covered 42,000 miles. It only weighed 1,300 pounds and would have been inevitable fatal in any kind of small crash, with no engine in the front. And though it hardly had more metal in it than a motorcycle, it only got 35 miles to the gallon, about the same as our current Saturn, which is immeasureably more reliable, comfortable, more powerful, and safe.
I have a niece whose husband just bought one of those Toyota semi-electric--Prius, I guess it is. I didn't ride in it, but the instruments are like a Space Shuttle. I am afraid that out on the highway the Prius, which costs something like $23,000, gets only about 55 mpg, whereas my Tercel, for which I paid $8,000 second hand, gets about 40 mpg. Still, if the Prius turns out to be reliable, it would be fun to own, just to watch the gadgets that tell you how much electricity you are recovering from regenerative braking, etc.
But advanced diesels seem to be where it's at. If we really wanted to, we could grow oil crops and run diesels off of them. Somebody not long ago was running a diesel car with discarded cooking oil from MacDonalds. |
