Did Oil Companies Really Buy The Plans For A Fuel Efficient Car and Destroy Them?
Ok I looked on Snopes and Googled this but could not find an answer. I'm hoping someone on here will know.
Since at least the 90s, I've heard the story that in the late 70s or early 80s, a scientist designed a super fuel efficient car engine (like 75 mpg) that runs on regular gas, but the oil companies found out about this and preemptively purchased the "blueprints" and made sure the technology never saw the light of day.
Is this true or an urban legend? And what evidence (or lack thereof) is there either way?
Daniel2012-03-08T10:34:26Z
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I have heard this to and it was actually a joke made up that gullable people (unfortunately like you) fell for. This was the time when oil prices shot up due to new taxs on fuels, so people started making jokes about oil companies, and people fell for it.
So it is actually neither true or an urban legend, just a joke.
Something like that is very easy to build. All the vehicle needs is a small engine, a small and light chassis, and gearing that supports fuel economy over performance.
The problem is that such a car would not sell in big numbers. People want a car with performance and toys/accessories.
If in basic terms it have been that straightforward. authentic the oil agencies has an excellent style of impact interior the provision for a serious product yet manipulating the vehicle industry isn't needed for this form of monopoly. in spite of the fact that if all of us had electric powered automobiles immediately, maximum of the capability could nonetheless be from fossil materials. Oil powers our industry, our financial gadget, this is no longer in basic terms automobiles that it powers. At one ingredient, it became proposed that nutrition be synthesized from crude with a view to handle international starvation. in spite of the fact that if or no longer the automobiles on the industry are gasoline efficient has greater to do with the vehicle industry itself and the buyer. on the inspiration of offering handy utilitarian transportation, the industry could've been lots smaller because of the fact the automobiles could be standardized, simple, designed to artwork on low-value guideways and be automatic such that particularly of being parked an excellent style of the time, the automobiles could actual be serving yet another passenger. this theory of public transit is PRT. As you could think of, this form of variety could in basic terms require the occasional motor vehicle exchange or for gadget boost. however the vehicle like each industries interior the present company variety have a mandate to offer boost for his or her traders so as that they've better many merchandising and marketing recommendations to inspire human beings to purchase automobiles greater generally then strictly needed, they have marketed for the belief of non-public automobiles such that maximum automobiles at the instant are parked an excellent style of the time, they have additionally chanced on that regardless of application automobiles being exempt from safety standards, many individuals have confidence that the greater effective automobiles are safer even although they at the instant are not. in actuality, inefficient automobiles are being made because of the fact they have a lots greater effective earnings margin and are greater actual marketed no longer because of the fact of sinister oil executives in a smoky boardroom.