Fuel efficientcy

For those of you that know me I've always been a promoter of fuel efficient vehicles (with the exception of my 7 7 Newyorker, which I hold onto for sentimental reasons). The fact of the matter is most car companies (especially American ones) really arn't answering the call for cheaper running cars. I mean do they think that gas prices are going to go down? Not bloody likely! Have gas prices ever dropped? In 1998 a litre of gas cost around 58.9 cents/litre. and it is now 2005 and gas costs 107.9 cents. That means gas has risen 7 cents per year on average. The Asian market (particularaly China) has openned up which means 1.3 BILLION people are now allowed to own cars. Demand is NOT going to go down.

So here's what you can do to help reduce demand.
-walk more often (I understand that Canada it is bloody cold, and living in a big city doesn't
always make it easy to to this, but if you can walk it makes
an impact. Think of all the time it takes to warm up a car, drive somewhere, and find a parking spot. Sometimes it is cheaper to just walk to a slightly more expensive store than to drive all the way to Wal-Mart for cheaper prices.

-Public transportation: I'm not a big fan of it, because the buses are big stinky diesel burning engines. The only good point is, they will save you money, that you might otherwise pay into insurance, maintenence, payments, and fuel.

-Hyrid Cars: It seems like every company is thinking about Hybrids, but isn't really doing anything about them; with the exception of Toyota, Honda, and Ford (yes Ford believe it or not).

But hybrid cars are expensive. Almost $5000-10 000 more than a regular car.
Their fuel economy is also greatly exaggerated I would venture to guess. The technology is new and there's no telling how long it'll last.

-Used Cars: for those of us who fall into the "Poor" category a good cheap used car is what the doctor ordered. Geo Metros, and Suzuki Swifts are among the best for reliability and fuel economy. My Swift burns about 7.5L/100Km. My dad's Firefly is about 5.25L/100Km. Which is fairly amazing! These cars can be purchased for very reasonable prices.

Those are just some of the options an average Joe can do on the transportation side of things.
Later I'll talk about home improvement ideas.