[Flipside]

http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&in=business&cat=oil_and_gas

[kasperl]

high gas prices?

If that's in the states, they've got something seriously wrong.

[Flipside]

It is, people are having to pay up to $40 for a full tank

That's about £22 (33 Euros) more or less. Remembering that the tanks in American cars are bigger than European ones IIRC

[kasperl]

and really,how much fuel do those cars use per kilometer?

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]A tank IIRC[/color]

[Flipside]

LOL Exactly, it seems to me that car manufacturers might actually have to start coming in line with the rest of the world and designing their cars to be (a) efficient and (b) smaller.

[kasperl]

smaller=bad.

i'm 1,87meters, and i can't even fit in an VW Sharan and quite a lot of other of those van like things. That, and when my dad sits in front of me, either his knees are touching the steering wheel, or my knees are getting squashed against his chair.

but more efficient cars ough to be possible. and you don't need a bloody Hummer to bring the kids to soccer....

[Flipside]

Hmmmm... Well, I think there will always be cars for larger people, after all, average height is increasing anyway. But I think efficiency is the main requirement here, and, as you say, cars that are 'proportionate to their task'... I think that's more accurate than 'smaller'

[StratComm]

I for one am thinking it's about time that we actually paid as much for gas as the rest of the world.  I'm not crazy about it, by any means, since I have to pay it one way or another.  But I do drive a suitably efficient car (30MPG, not sure what that translates to in metric).  It will be nice to see the trend of bigger and bigger things (I can't call them cars, and they aren't utilitarian enough to be trucks) start winding down though, as sharing the road with them can be annoying at best, a bit scary at worst.

[Petrarch of the VBB]

I'm sorry if the road's not wide enough for you, but you'll find that English cars have steering wheels

Basil Fawlty