So, this is from the trend of people moving to larger and less efficient vehicles?
I had been wondering about this:
A 2,015 Forester supposedly gets the same fuel economy as a 1,999 (base) Civic (with an automatic), but most cars are not AWD, so they would not have had the economical disadvantage of a Subaru, and less room for improvement. Still, the Forester improved 35%, while the Civic only increased 22%.
Curiously, the 2,015 has the exact same EPA rating as Chorizo, yet my lifetime is 44 MPG, while I peaked at 27 MPG in Bacon.
Behold the power of the manual transmission!