Guest Post by Eric Peters
Have you heard about SOL for cars?
It’s like the Standards of Learning for kids – the tests administered by the schools as a way to gauge whether (cue The Chimp) the children is learning. SOLs are widely considered a scam because the kids aren’t learning – just being taught to pass the test.
It’s a game.
Likewise, the government’s miles-per-gallon testing. The car companies build their cars to perform as well as possible on the EPA’s test loop, so they can tout the best-possible city/highway numbers – and not just to entice buyers. These numbers are also used to calculate the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) numbers which the car companies have to deal with. When their “fleet average” – the combined mileage of all the vehicles they sell – dips below whatever Uncle says the mandatory minimum is (it’s currently 35.5 MPG) they get fined and these fines, of course, are passed on to us.
So it’s very important to do well on the tests.
This is why almost all new cars come only with automatic transmissions.
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