Smart Car a solution?

[mandiees]

The mpg is very, very disappointing for this car, and I have also read awful reviews regarding the handling of the vehicle. Just does not seem like a very good option to me.

I live in Canada and the Smarts have been here for about 5 years. I have the diesel and get about 75 miles per gallon. We used to have a Camry as well but sold it because we preferred to use the Smart. I can't believe the misinformation about it. The car buying public has really been brainwashed into being paranoid. Quit watching the Ford commercials and go try one..sheeesh.

The Smart Car comes from France. This shows how much fuel is used to shipped it the United States.
This is usually measured in pounds of fuel per horsepower per hour. Roughly speaking, 0.25 lbs/hp/hr is considered to be pretty good, and 100,000 hp is a low-side estimate of an average container ship's horsepower. This then works out to 25,000 pounds of marine diesel fuel per hour. Marine diesel weighs about 7lbs/gallon, which gets us about 3600 gallons per burned per hour. A common cruise speed is 25 knots or 28.75mph. To make the math easier, let's call it 30mph. What this means is that for a container ship to travel 30 miles, it'll burn through 3600 gallons, which is the same as burning 120 gallons to go one mile . There are 5280 feet in a mile, so if 120 gallons is good for 5280 feet, then one gallon is burned every 44 feet!!

While this is useful information, then just think how much fuel is burnt transporting cars that take up twice as much space on a container ship from japan/korea.