[StuartDH]

Whether it's the rising cost of fuel or the fact that the environmental message is finally starting to hit home, it seems that Americans have started to drive less than they used to.

The Cambridge energy research associates have recently completed a study which has shown that the average American drove 13,657 miles in 2005, compared to 13,711 miles in 2004.

Does anybody know what the average mileage is for the rest of the world? If I had to guess I would have thought that the average Briton would drive about the same amount of miles as the Americans....the bad news is that Britain isn't even as big as some of the larger US states.

[Time_witch]

I must say I do not know it but something I have found is taht in México lots of outside companies like carrentals.co.uk have settled offices in Mexico. I am not sure if car renting is ecological or not... help?

[mtngoat]

'Fraid I don't know either. But I do know that we've had to cancel a number of road trips because of the growing gas prices. Especially to those lovely parks...

[Pudding4brains]

Hi All,

This page says that Belgians averaged 15,039 kilometers in 2003 (down from 15,039 in 2002). So, if Brits and other Europeans do about the same that would be well under 10.000 miles.

I get a very "iffy" feeling in my stomach with statistics like this though. What did they actually measure? The average mileage driven per person? Per drivers license? The average mileage put on a car? Only privately owned ones, or company cars and lorries included?

Depending on that results would be very different and incomparable between countries (let alone continents) as cultural differences, (tax)laws etc etc would all distort the outcome in various probably not too fair ways. Apples and pears!

So, the only valid comparison would probably indeed be to compare the outcome within one country using exactly the same measuring method over various years. If that tells us people are driving less, then that might a good thing.

Of course, in the States it might just prove that people are slowly resorting back to flying more after a steep decrease of air-miles (and probably increase of road-miles) after 9-11 or so.

Or: The mileage per capita (per drivers license?) has gone down, but at the same time there has been an increase in "heads"/licenses so the net effect is still negative - more miles driven, more polluted.

Or: Maybe they really all traveled less miles per capita, but decided to do so in a car alone more often, or in bigger gas guzzling monsters on average.

Without that sort of secondary info you might as well not know the statistic as it tells you exactly squad. The golden rule of statistics: Never trust a statistic outcome you didn't manipulate yourself

[paul m]

Originally Posted by Pudding4brains

Hi All,

............I get a very "iffy" feeling in my stomach with statistics like this though. What did they actually measure? The average mileage driven per person? Per drivers license? The average mileage put on a car? Only privately owned ones, or company cars and lorries included?
..............

Yes, I've been trying to find some figures and, like you, I think an overview based on 'mileage' alone is rather crude and not very informative.

There are some more useful figures scattered about which break down motoring into:
- type of fuel used - diesel is more energy efficient than petrol, for instance;
- type of motoring - at extremes, the difference between cruising long distances on the flat and stop-start driving in a city;
- nature of the car - small efficient or a big gas guzzler?
- number of people in the vehicle ...

So mileage means very little and, as you say it may be due to more people taking to the air () or to people using public transport ().
Probably the more meaningful measure must be how much fuel is used per head, making allowances for the differing carbon efficiencies of different fuels. There seem to be great differences within Europe for petrol versus diesel usage .....

[paul m]

Originally Posted by Time_witch

I must say I do not know it but something I have found is taht in México lots of outside companies like carrentals.co.uk have settled offices in Mexico. I am not sure if car renting is ecological or not... help?

Fossil fuel car use is an ecologically/environmentally bad thing - full stop ... Unfortunately, however, for many people it's also a necessity so it's necessary to make compromises and take the best of several bad options.

Clearly walking and cycling are best! Not feasible for long journeys nor on all terrains - need to use intermediate transport. Clearly travelling any long distance is best done by 'bus or train (alhough I gather there are no longer any trains in Mexico ).

Hiring a car at a destination is better than driving your own a thousand miles (or whatever)! There are some places where you can hire electric cars, motorbikes &c(not Harleys ) - this seems a good option, always worth seeking out.

[paul m]

Coincidentally, I am currently looking up car hire for southern Italy and am told that Hertz now has a "green fleet". I'm not sure what that means. From this it looks as if these are just more efficient petrol cars rather than something more environmentally friendly:
GreenBiz News | Hertz Launches 'Collection' of Green Vehicles

But I know nothing about cars () so may have this wrong.

Originally Posted by paul m

Hiring a car at a destination is better than driving your own a thousand miles (or whatever)! There are some places where you can hire electric cars, motorbikes &c(not Harleys ) - this seems a good option, always worth seeking out.

[Pudding4brains]

Hi Paul,

Originally Posted by paul m

From this it looks as if these are just more efficient petrol cars rather than something more environmentally friendly

From a quick first glance I get a taste of "Marketing speak" or "Let's ride the environmentally friendly wave". Do the least possible that allows us to scream a "We're green" profile from the rooftops ... that sort of thing. But maybe I'm too sceptical

All I can find is that it seem to be mostly Diesel cars. From the look of it, fairly modern diesels, turbo, some common rail, that sort of thing. The focus in the Marketing Speak is on low CO2 and high mileage - both really quite logical consequences of selecting diesel over petrol. At the same time they totally fail to mention if the cars are even fitted with diesel particulate filters, or what Euro spec they qualify for (Euro-4, Euro-3 or worse?).

No mention of Hybrids, Bi-fuel, LPG, Methanol, Bio-diesel, whatever ...

So, personally I basically read: "We're now also offering diesel rent-a-cars!!" (wow!)

On the bright side: If these are Euro-4 (or even better?) and fitted with a filter it's not all bad and certainly better than having no choice

Sorry for the sceptisism, hope it doesn't spoil your mood/plans
Cheers! Arp

[paul m]

Actually that was quite an old quote and dealt with the USA. This seems more relevant to me:
https://www.hertz.co.uk/rentacar/byr...East,%20Africa

I'll have to see what the other hire chains are up to!

[Pudding4brains]

Hi Paul,
I actually had done some more 'clicking about', but had given up on the Hertz website (hertz.com) itself after first enabling javascript and then still not getting full functinallity (they obviously don't want customers with conservative browser settings, which is fine by me).

Anyway I had found some names/models of cars in the "Green Collection" and those were all diesels.

Originally Posted by paul m

Actually that was quite an old quote and dealt with the USA. This seems more relevant to me:
https://www.hertz.co.uk/rentacar/byr...East,%20Africa

Well actually almost all cars I find (available in Rome) through that link are diesels too. With two exceptions: The Prius - which is a bit "hyped" in terms of env.friendlyness for my taste (not bad, but certainly not the god-like creature it's hyped to be), and secondly a Mercedes A-class that is listed as "Multi-Fuel" (period). No indication whatsoever about what fuels it will take and/or other technical aspects (google didn't readily come up with much useful info on Mercedes multifuel either (except for the DiesOtto which is an interesting concept but to my understanding (A) hardly multifuel and (B) can't imagine it'd be in A-class production cars as we speak).

The real information that Hertz lists about all the cars offered in the Green Collection is virtually none, or nothing to go by if you want to form your own opinion/choice anyway.

But again, it's probably good that they at least do give it some thought, even if in my opinion it's still driven more by 'look at us' Marketing Speak than anything else

P.S. I just realized that I'm probably being very negative, it's just that it always rubs me the wrong way when advertisers are trying to sell us stuff by hyping non-information. In this case they only talk about CO2 and high mileage, which is bull-shit bingo considering that even a 1988 Peugeot 205 diesel (or such - small car, big diesel) would probably have delivered the "specs" they're boasting. Certainly the modern little turbo-diesels with intercooler and possibly computer controlled common rail injection etc etc will do just fine and be a "fair choice" when balancing practicality and environment issues but the way they present it (only presenting the specs that sound good and hardly matter considering a diesel viz environment) just makes me ... well, uhhhm ...