Europe vs US

I recently took a trip to Italy and got to drive my rented Fiat Punto on the autostrada. Hooray! lol. So maybe driving a car that has a top speed of 96mph and a 0-60 more worthy of a 14 year old's scooter is a little dull. But I can tell one thing, I only had to fill the 12 gallon tank once, and I drove over 600 miles. The car got about 40-50 MPG. And I wasn't the only one. Everywhere I looked, everyone drove minicars that were run on diesel. Going to Italy's Tuscan wine country, I was let down in that I expected to see Enzo's and Lambo's cruising around at 120+. Instead it was just a bunch of wussy econoboxes that sipped on diesel like it were a fine wine, an 84 Chateau Margeaux possibly. But here's the catch, we are a country obsessed with our cars. They are our second homes, our status symbols, our american contagion. Europeans are far more eco sensitive than Americans, especially when it comes to transportation. All the VW's, Fords, BMWs, Mercs and Chevy's are retrofitted to have little tiny engines that run on diesel and average up to 76mpg. AND THESE ARE NOT HYBRIDS. MPGs are doubled and carbon footprints are cut in half. A perfect example is the new Ford Fiesta. IS the US it gets a 1.6 liter that gets 35mpg and has a Carbon Footprint of 261gram per mile. The UK version gets a 1.6 litre diesel that is capable of 76mpg and a carbon footprint of 157. We need to get our priorities straight. What is more important to us? Performance or Economy? We are too obsessed with getting from A to B quickly. Lets live like italians and relax. Cruise the highways at a safe speed and be courteous to our fellow motorists.Just to give you an idea of how disinterested we currently are with these European cars. Road and Track magazine gives the stats of all the cars it has tested in the back of each issue. There was only one euro-enviro-like vehicle tested. It was the VW Golf TDI with a tested 38.9mpg. Of course the tested some Teslas too. But we need to expand our taste of enviro friendly vehicles beyond the Supercarish Tesla, which is essentially one of its kind right now. Please correct me if Im wrong on that.

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