Consumer Union Reveals Humbug Fuel Poll - Take The Auto Channel Energy and Fuel Poll Instead

It's a crying shame, but sometimes you just have to laugh.

By Marc J. Rauch
Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher
THE AUTO CHANNEL

Yesterday, Consumer Union (Consumer Reports) issued a press release about a new fuel efficiency survey they recently conducted. Guess what the results were? People want better fuel efficiency from their vehicles. WOW! What a shocking result!

Here's my take: A series of questions were asked that elicited a predicable and irrelevant reply. The survey was like asking a panel of people who love ice cream if they would like to eat more ice cream; and if they would like their ice cream to have exactly the same taste but contain fewer calories? And the press release was like announcing the amazing results that people want more ice cream and they want their ice cream to have fewer calories while retaining all the taste.

If gasoline cost 20 cents a gallon, and if burning gasoline didn't pollute the atmosphere and poison all animal life, and if gasoline wasn't produced from a substance (petroleum oil) that has been the root cause of almost all wars in the last 100 years, no one would care about fuel economy or any of the other issues related to gasoline.

The problems related to gasoline (cost, mpg efficiency, health, environment, global social unrest, etc.) are not going to be solved by the government demanding that automakers make new engines 5% more fuel efficient.

The answer is to have a fuel that is cheaper, safer, more efficient, healthier, and not likely to start a new international war. And we do have such a fuel, no kidding, we do. But to make sure that this is the fuel that America should rely on, we have crafted our own poll that we would like you to take. Here it is:

Please hit the "VOTE" button on each question after you select your choice

So, you may be asking yourself, what is the fuel that can do all these great things? It's ethanol, of course.