Why Americans Fail At Making Cars

Go read MAKING OF THE FITTEST. It's awesome.

Also, praise everything holy for this change in weather! It's been quite chilly (by Southern California standards) since Sunday. Is really quite fabulous.

I dislike that driving the car that I do makes me somewhat hypocritical on my very vocal Sustainability/Eco-friendly/Green soapbox ramblings. It's not my choice, k? My parents both have super fuel-efficient cars, and I have a small tank that doesn't even fit people comfortably in the back seat. I wanted to know how much HP my car had, and after visiting the Edmunds reviews website, I found out that it has 132.

Then I found out that the Porsche Panamera has a base of 400hp, and gets slightly better gas mileage than my car. Okay what?!

I had to do a bit of a double take when I read the figures. I added everything up in my mind, tried to figure out some logic. Dodge Neon: 132hp/ 18-20mpg, the size of a Pinto. Porsche Panamera: 400 hp/ 20-23mpg av., wider than the Porsche Cayenne, and just 4 inches shy of being as long as a BMW 7series. WHAT?!

The Panamera weighs 3,968lbs.
Dodge Neon: around 2,600 lbs.

Not adding up? Yeah, exactly. The Panamera gets around the same mileage as I do driving as gas-conscious as possible. On the Edmunds website, the Neon was listed at having around a combined MPG or something of 28... !!! 28?! Really?? In what batshit parallel universe does the Neon get 28mpg???? I filled up the other day and I got about 22mpg overall, and MOST of that was highway driving. It increases to about 22.5 at maximum.

The only way that the Neon would get 28mpg would be if it were rolling down a hill with nothing to do with any sort of gas-induced acceleration.

So dear Chrysler: YOU FAIL. Especially compared to the Germans and the Japanese automakers.