Sunday, January 27, 2008

Chevy Silverado Gas Mileage

I just saw this lame advertisement on TV which intends to convince you (the consumer) that the new Chevy Silverado Gas Mileage is "good" - as they make it a point to emphasize how good a whopping 20 MPG is! How absurd that we live in a country where 20 miles/gallon could be "good" in any way, shape, or form. Gee, at $3.00/gallon and 20MPG, you're ONLY dropping 15 cents/mile (if you happen to get that 20MPG, which is bound to only occur with distance/highway driving anyhow).

So, in the advertisement, the Chevy pickup is driving down the road, and keeps coming across other drivers that are stuck alongside the road with their "other" presumably less efficient pickup trucks (yes, there really are lower mileage ones, but .. ) that have run out of gas, and their drivers are eagerly awaiting a ride while holding their gas cans out. Obviously their trucks just don't go as far, and that must be because of gas-mileage issues (sarcasm galore here!)

I'd say the difference in fuel-tank size would be more likely to blame, since 20mpg is still, quite simply put: SAD. If 20 miles per gallon is good enough to brag about, that says a lot about the state of our American fleet fuel economy as a whole! The fact is, there are pickups out there that get a LOT BETTER THAN 20MPG, if mileage is a selling point. The new Ford Ranger claims 29MPG highway and the Toyota Tacoma claims 28MPG, which is as good as most small cars these days.

So, I don't quite get the Chevrolet commercial. OK, your car (oops - I mean truck) gets 20MPG, but if miles-per-gallon are the selling point, and you attract an audience that cares about MPG, beware that the same audience may do a bit of research and quickly find there are many alternatives that get MUCH better gas mileage (I call this all typical stupidity marketing from the "Big Three", and why they don't make money). It only took me a few seconds on Google Search to get a link to a list of top-10 MPG pickup trucks. I presume others searching for high-mileage pickup truck options will do the same.

1 comment:

The Answer's In The Question said...

Yea, 20 mpg is stupid but it is still hard for some people to give up their V8's. I just bought a 2008 Silverado and the fine print stated the mpg a little south of 20 mpg.