Speed Sells

I recall having read that one of the design specs of the Chevy Volt, when it arrives, is that its 0-60 acceleration must fall between 7-9 seconds.

Speed sells. They know no one will buy this car unless it's got ummph, regardless of how efficient it might be. And the issue for me, for the Franklin Monologues, is that this damn car would probably already be on the market if they could just relax that design criteria.

But they can't relax it, because this moronic nation has demanded faster and faster acceleration and performance for the past thirty years. Ever since we started making more fuel efficient vehicles 35 years ago, every shred of efficiency was squandered by recycling that efficiency into faster acceleration and 'performance.' This is another example of what I mean when I say that efficiencies have come, but demand has risen apace.

Consider the penultimate classic car -- the 1981 Plymouth Reliant. This thing had a 14 second 0-60 time, and it also got nearly 35 mpg. Thirty five. I can't even get 35 with my 2001 Honda Civic, twenty years later...why? Because we demand acceleration. I can't tell you how many cars excessively accelerate off the stop light. I see it more than most people on my bike because I'm more often right at the intersection to see it. I'll claim that 60-70% of all drivers jump on it when they have the pole position, just because they can. These cretins have no clue how detrimental this is to their fuel efficiency.

This is just one more symptom of our inbred NASCAR populace...the thinking that their suburban collector roads are just like the Texas Motor Speedway, and that every trip to the market is a race against others to the closest parking spot in front of the store.