While our own drive to drastically improve car efficiency changes gears, there are of course plenty of other people trying to get the message across. One such group, Mundo Cars, isn't the new line of Slovakian automobiles it might appear to be, but a collaborative effort by several organisations working on transport issues.
With groups like Friends of the Earth Europe and the Alliance against Urban 4x4s involved, the Mundo car has been paraded around Brussels to get the attention of MEPs who, in a few months, will be voting on the issue. But the car itself isn't real, it's an imaginary car brand designed to get people wondering why it seems so difficult to have minimum fuel efficiency standards for all cars.
With rising fuel costs and general economic gloom, you'd think car makers would be falling over themselves to have the most efficient car around, but nothing could be further from the truth. It's certainly not technical know-how that's in short supply, and a lot of fearsome lobbying of MEPs on the part of the car manufacturers means there's a danger that the legislation up for debate in the autumn won't deliver the kind of rigorous standards required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars.
More than a tenth of those emissions in the EU come from cars and while fuel efficiency is only part of the answer in lowering them, there's a lot of room for improvement.
It's even more bizarre when you watch the Mundo Cars video featuring interviews with car drivers from across Europe, who all say the same thing: cars should use less fuel, a lot less. If you agree, look to the Mundo Cars website and our own international site for action you can take right now.
