Re: "One wonders what good that money could do"
despite planes being substantially less efficient than most cars
An excellent point. Its also a factor that most people never realize the importance of whenever you're transporting people and their luggage. Then seat-miles per gallon is the only important number and the mpg value of the vehicle itself is pretty much irrelevant. I worked this out in the late 70s when planning an overland London-Kathmandu return trip and deciding what type of vehicle to use.
For two people, the best answer was a Citroen 2CV van (30 mpg, so 60 seat/mpg), but there were four of us, so that was out. Next up was a VW Combi (21 mpg, 63 seat/mpg with three on board), which was OK with two or possibly three people, but add a 4th person plus gear and it was well known that its mpg fell off a cliff and it got slow, especially on hills. This was important too, because some parts of the London-Kathmandu run are quite high: 5,500ft in eastern Turkey, 7500ft on the southern rim of the Kathmandu valley.
We ended up using a long wheelbase 4 cylinder petrol Series 2 Landrover, which never in its life exceeded 16 mpg (OK, 19 mpg after I fitted electronic ignition) but four up, it hit 64 seat/mpg almost regardless of the weight of camping gear we carried. That was better than any other vehicle we could afford.
But put more people on a different vehicle and the numbers get even better: Encounter Overland ran essentially the same route driving big old RL Bedford trucks with 18 people on board and towing a steel ex-army trailer containing everybody's luggage. The truck normally did around 10 mpg, so call that 8 mpg with a trailer-full of luggage, but this still gives 144 seat/mpg - far beyond the economy anything smaller could manage despite its apparently dire mpg figure.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
