Opel/Saturn Astra
Interesting, I just noticed that what is known (and has been for like a decade or so) as the “Opel Astra” in Europe is sold here in the US under the Saturn brand name, making it the Saturn Astra:
Both Saturn and Opel are brands under the hood of General Motors, so there’s no big surprise here. What’s more interesting is that 4-dollars-a-gallon seem to be making American car buyers interested in smaller European-style cars quite a bit more than they used to.
Also, the very same cars (sold under the same or a different brand name, doesn’t matter) are much more affordable over here. The abovementioned Astra can be bought for 18.000 US dollars on this side of the big pond, while you’ll have to cough up 20.000 Euros (that’s about 30.000 dollars) easily for the same car in continental Europe.
The usual excuse for higher car prices in Europe used to be “the European customer wants higher quality than the American one” — when the very same car is concerned though, this argument is hardly convincing.
GM brands even differently in the UK … there they’re called “Vauxhalls”
http://www.vauxhall.co.uk
Das mit Vauxhall wollte ich auch grad schreiben:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_%28Automobilhersteller%29
In England fahren unsere Corsas usw. mit deren Logo rum, da war ich anfangs ganz schön verwirrt!
Saw an Opel GT at the dealership the other day. That looked a lot like the Saturn Sky… And the Opel Antara? That’s basically a Saturn Vue.
Well, gas prices have reached the 1.60 Euro level ($10 per gallon) here in Germany. I think our automotive engineers have to come up with even more fuel efficient cars.
I might be able to buy a fancy car at some point in the future (prices for gasoline driven cars will dramatically drop) but I won’t be able to afford driving it. I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but hey… I’ll say in ten to twenty years, there will only be a handful of people left owning cars. If we don’t come up with a sustainable solution. Flux capacitor, anyone?
*g* just wanted to comment on the vauxhall. As several other did that before, I got to leave something else.
Thank goodness I own a Passat that runs on diesel which only consumes 6l /100km (~39 mpg). An diesel is sooo “cheap” over here (just 0.05€ cheaper the regular).
I kinda remember the times when the gap was much bigger (I recall a 0.2€ gap between regular and diesel)
Maybe i should stop saving fuel and enjoy driving binary as long as i can afford visiting the gas station
Hey Kai, long time no see. Thanks everyone for their comments!
In fact, in the US until recently diesel was easily about a dollar more expensive per gallon than gas, and that became just just about the same price now too.
An interesting link I stumbled across today: Apparently scientists found bacteria that are able to, well, poop crude oil. We’ll see where that leads us! (Besides, obviously, to a world of cars driving on bacteria poo).
I would like a diesel car