Summary: How Auto Parts Affect Gas Mileage

As the gas price is rising up to 140 cents per litre in Canada, many people switch their vehicle to gasoline-electric hybrid car to gain savings from the better fuel efficiency. Many potential consumers for hybrid vehicle and hybrid vehicle owners think that the hybrid system is worth the extra penny due to better fuel economy. However, the realistic is that it has higher maintenance despite of its outstanding fuel economy figures. In fact, the hybrids cause more environmental damage than conventional petro powered vehicles and there are better alternatives. Therefore, hybrids should not be on consumers’ shopping list due to a numerous negative facts that consumers are unaware of.

The second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States is related to transportation, the burning of oil to produce energy in a combustion motor. The combustion process inside of engines is what produces the carbon matter that is emitted into the air through the exhaust system on gas-powered vehicles. Gas-powered transportation is accountable for 24 percent of the global carbon emissions; this should not come as much of a surprise given the amount of urban sprawl that is being seen in the United States and across the globe. In the past decade, the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States government, and major car manufacturers have been working in conjunction to find ways to provide a “greener” form of transportation (EPA, 2011). This has included testing the use of hydropower, ethanol, natural gas, biodiesel, and electricity as a means of powering vehicles, which has led to the introduction of hybrid vehicles. Hybrid vehicles run on electricity and gasoline, the byproduct of oil that is generally used in the engine combustion process of vehicles (U.S. Department of

Miles Per Gallon (MPG) was used to measure fuel economy on Toyota’s line of vehicles.

Every day, millions of Americans turn on the engines of their cars and drive to school or work. What these people do not realize is that the vehicles they operate greatly pollute the planet. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent website post, “Environmental Impacts from Automobiles”,

Cars and truck account for 20% of all U.S. global warming emissions, where more than 24 pounds per gallon of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases come right out of the car’s tailpipe (“Union of Concerned scientists”). This frightening statistic is part of the reason why the federal government has put in place many policies and incentives such as the Clean Air Act, The National Program for greenhouse gas emissions, Catalytic Converter Federal Laws, and incentives of $12,000 in California to get people to upgrade to more fuel-efficient cars. With such programs and incentives put in places, it is also important that car companies such as Toyota and Ford also take action to further cut pollution rates. They have done so by

Data was collected between from various sizes of motor cars which were randomly selected based on different tire size used, different engine size and different sizes of the car (Sallee & Slemrod, 2012). This information was gathered from the same model of vehicle, and the analysis was done by car experts, who gave reasons, why gas mileage is affected by these variables and their report, is given below. Toyota Company web site and Nissan company website was helpful in this project as most of this information was collected from their website, www.toyota-global.com and www.nissan-global.com. This data was collected from some of the Toyota company customers between 27th January and 5th of February 2016, a total of 50 cars were chosen for the project.

Thesis statement: it is hypothesized that compared with the gas powered vehicles, hybrids offer more benefits in maintenance, are cost-effective, and most importantly environmental-friendly.

While new trucks and cars emit about 90 percent fewer pollutants than they did 30 years ago total annual vehicle miles driven have increased by more than 140 percent since 1970 and are expected to increase another 25 percent by 2010. The emission reductions from individual vehicles have not adequately kept pace with the increase in miles driven. As a result cars and trucks are still the largest single

Similarly government regulations in the United States and Europe are tightening up, consequently requiring cars to be cleaner and more fuel efficient. As a result, the collaboration with BMW is paramount to getting the most fuel efficient vehicles to the market in a timely manner so that GM can harvest a substantial profit. (3) In addition General Motors is working on the next generation of fuel efficient and gasoline free vehicles to help reduce the impact of the vehicle on the environment, while preserving personal mobility, which further indicates its commitment to innovation. (6)

17. Are we ahead of – or behind - China in regard to vehicle fuel efficiency?

The main idea of this article is comparing the Toyota Corolla and the Toyota Prius. The corolla is a conventional combustion engine (ICE) and the Prius is an electrical hybrid. Since the ICE in the Prius turns off and stop signs and stop lights, it helps lower greenhouse gases and tailpipe emissions. They were testing the lifetime of the cars over fourteen years. The first thing they did was go over the prices of the two vehicles prices.

Hybrids are deservingly known for their fuel economy, a 2016 Prius c can get up to 50 MPG (FuelEconomy.gov, US Department of Energy). They are also known for being kind to the environment: Toyota advertises the Prius c, as seen below, as an “everyday eco fun sized for the city” on their website (Toyota, toyota.com/priusc). In Kia’s Super Bowl LI commercial for their new hybrid crossover, the Niro, they use the tagline: “it’s hard to be an eco warrior, but it’s easy to drive like one.” Hybrid owners agree with this; they can be seen driving around with proud smiles on their faces, knowing that they are saving the earth. But they have likely done little research, because

Toyota Prius has been equipped with a monitoring system which helps the driver to know how to run his/her car to have a better function and reduce the fuel usage and save more energy. This helps the driver to feel responsible on his/her driving and to maximize the car fuel efficiency.

With billions of dollars invested and hundreds of thousands of Americans employed (Department of Commerce, n.d.), the automobile industry has a vast influence in the United States. Since the time Henry Ford developed the assembly line production (Statista, n.d.) the industry has grown into a global market with no signs of slowing down. Top car companies are constantly searching for new innovations to set them apart from their competitors. Among those companies is Volkswagen (VW). A company which strides in emissions and fuel efficiency turned, not only to be false, but caused a severe amount of damage (Ewing, 2016).

The natural environment such as our main natural resource for fueling our vehicles, oil, has aided in the increased sales of the Toyota Prius. Since gas prices increased in 2008, a fuel efficient car such as the Prius is economically and environmentally friendly. Toyota created the hybrid that “combines a gas engine with an electric motor” using less gas than the usual sedan. (Kotler & Armstrong, Principles of Marketing, 2010)