Fuel economy is key when price of gas is high

If you go back over two generations, the average price of gas in 1970 was 36 cents a gallon. Sometimes I would get it for as low as 25 cents a gallon back then.

Now we pay on average around $3.70 depending on where you are in the country. That price is more than 10 times what it was two generations ago. Yet a new report from the University of Michigan finds that Americans much more today drive alone than with other people.

Perhaps that’s because so much has changed culturally. Many of us have ultra-long commutes and there may not be readily available carpoolers where we live even if we wanted to carpool. We also live much further out than we used to, and spend more time in automobiles.

With gas up 10 times over, the one thing you can control is the miles per gallon that your vehicle gets.

I was recently at the Consumer Reports Test Track, and I looked at vehicles lined up by size category. Within each size category, there were big differences from the most fuel efficient to the least fuel efficient.

For example, the new Honda Accord is very roomy, averages 30 mpg, handles well, and is a quiet ride. So it’s possible to have it all because of how efficient some of the new vehicles are!