Sweet! A new car that actually drives for at least 20 minutes without guzzling a full tank of gas! I can't wait! Where should we go? How about the fucking mall! Huzzah!!!

Uhhh...wait...didn't we used to have a lot of these? Yeah, we did - way back before Homer Simpson came around and fucked things up. Back in 1991, when Homer finds out his brother owns one of America's largest automakers, brother Herb offers Homer any car he wants:

Herb: "OK Homer, pick out any one you want."
Homer: "I'd like a big one, then."
Automotive Engineer: "We don't have a big one."
Homer: "Why not?"
Automotive Engineer: "Because Americans don't want big cars."
Homer: "Well then give me one with lots of pep."
Automotive Engineer: "Sorry our cars don't have pep."
Herb: "Why not?"
Automotive Engineer: "Because American's want good mileage, not pep."
Herb: "Homer, tell the nice man what country you come from."
Homer: "America!"
Herb: "Did you hear that ya moron?!"

Homer goes about supervising the construction of the "car of the nineties." His first request is an "extremely large beverage holder."

Fuel efficiency in consumer vehicles topped out at around 26 mpg in 1988. Since then America has seen a steady (but small) decline, despite technological advances. The fact is, that these fuel efficiency advances have been offset by a 79% increase in horsepower and 21% increase in vehicle weight, on average, since 1981, according to the EPA.

Also, fuel efficiency standards have not been raised by congress in 18 years, despite new technologies and an acknowledged need to decrease reliance on oil consumption - especially from our buddies, the Saudis. Virginia senator George Allen had this to say about a proposed increase in fuel efficiency:

"The last thing I want to do is go down to the Ford F-150 assembly plant in Norfolk, Virginia, and have the 2,000-plus employees line up and say to them: One out of every 10 of you is going to lose a job because of what some officious people in Congress want to impose on America's auto industry and consumers," Allen said.

Allen also said the higher standards would force consumers to drive smaller, lighter cars - a move he said would increase the risk of injury in an accident.

Whatever the case may be, it's extremely odd that in a high-tech industry, magazine ads are trumpeting essentially the same selling points they were making a generation ago - forty-something mpg. Luckily, the growth of larger and larger (and more and more homogeneous) malls has exploded during this time. According to a New York Times article this year, in 1960 there were 3,000 shopping centers in the United States, with four square feet of retail space per shopper. Today there are nearly 40,000 shopping centers in the nation, with19 square feet of space per shopper.

In America, there is no doubt that bigger is still better.