So a Model T was greener than a modern car? No way

Even a gas guzzler could trundle along using less fuel than the 100-year-old Ford, says Andrew Noakes

Andrew Noakes
The Guardian,
Friday October 17 2008

George Monbiot decries loans made by the US government to US car manufacturers to help them develop more environmentally friendly vehicles, and similar loans proposed in Europe (This green subsidy for car makers is just a disguised corporate bail-out, October 7). He says the motor industry has, in the past, deliberately sabotaged new technologies and has missed targets for CO2 output and fuel consumption. These points are worth debating.
But Monbiot then uses preposterous comparisons and dubious "facts". For instance, his assertion that "the average car sold in the States today is less efficient than the 1908 Ford Model T". This is based on a Detroit News report which claims the Model T could achieve 25mpg, and data from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which says the average consumption of 2008 "light duty vehicles" (ie cars and light trucks) in the US is 20.8mpg. A reasonable comparison? Not even close.
In what way is fuel consumption a measure of efficiency? Which of these is more efficient: a bus, carrying 50 people, which consumes fuel at 7.3mpg; or a car, carrying four people, which consumes 20.8mpg? In terms of fuel use per passenger per mile, the bus wins by a wide margin.
The Model T has poor weather equipment, poor brakes, poor road-holding, nonexistent secondary safety and a hopeless lack of reliability - not to mention minimal performance. Give any major car manufacturer the chance to build a car to the same specification and it would trounce the Model T for fuel consumption - and generate far fewer harmful emissions.
Then we have to consider whether the fuel consumption figures for modern cars and the Model T have been arrived at using comparable methods. And there's no evidence that they have. I would guess a Model T would return about 25mpg trundling along - but that's not the same as an EPA real-world estimated figure. Trundle along in a modern car - even a gas-guzzling V8 - and you'd get the same, or better.
Then there's Monbiot's assertion that, "Cars were taxed at £1 per horsepower ... a far higher rate for gas guzzlers than today's." Monbiot cites a report from the UK government's Environmental Audit Committee on vehicle taxation as his source. Indeed the report says: "The tax disc was introduced in 1920, and the tax charged at a graduated rate of £1 per horsepower."
However, cars were rated using the "RAC horsepower" system - which calculates horsepower from a formula taking into account the bore of the engine and the number of cylinders. Because the formula made a number of assumptions about engine performance, it quickly became outdated as engine development progressed. Vauxhall's famous sporting car of the 1930s, the "30/98", had an RAC rating of 30hp but actually produced 98hp. It is misleading, therefore, to suggest that cars were taxed on horsepower without offering further clarification.
Monbiot has some interesting things to say. But he does his arguments no favours by using dubious data.
• Andrew Noakes is a freelance motoring writer and senior lecturer in automotive journalism at Coventry School of Art and Design a.noakes@coventry.ac.uk