I can drive 100 miles on an empty tank of gas. Honestly.

My car is the most inefficient energy-efficient vehicle on the market.  It's kinda awesome, and it kinda sucks.  Sometimes, I get 80 miles to the gallon, and other times I get 0.5 miles to the gallon.  And it all happens at pretty much the same time.

This is how it goes on a typical day:  I start my car, and I see that I have just about 1/2 a tank of gas.  I back out of the driveway, drive less than two blocks to the stop sign, and the whole time the needle on the gas gauge is plummeting towards E.  By the time I turn and start driving down the road, my low fuel light has come on.  So, I drove less than a mile, and I used roughly half a tank of gas.  Not efficient.

But here's the beauty:  I drive ten miles to the grocery store (low fuel light on the entire time), I go in, buy a few items, return to my car.  And guess what?  When I start it up, I have about 1/2 a tank of gas.  Yep, that's right.  My car made it's own gas while I was in the grocery store.  Super energy efficient.

Of course, it's only a matter of minutes, and a few miles down the road, before my low fuel light comes on again.  Man, this car sure does burn through gas.  But that's okay because it makes gas, too.  Fair trade, right?

When I get in the car . . .

Just yesterday, I got in my car, and I had exactly 3/4 of a tank of gas.  Two miles later, I was on E.  Good news?  I didn't have to stop and get gas.  You see, with my low fuel light on, I drove all the way to work and back (including dropping off and picking up Gavin at daycare).  My commute is roughly 100 miles round-trip.  All on an empty tank of gas.  So, yeah, I used 3/4 of a tank going two miles, but then I drove 100 on empty!  It's such a crazy combination of energy-efficiency and inefficiency that I can hardly stand it!

Five minutes later ...

But, really, I can't stand it.  I'm gonna have to get that fixed.

(By the way, GM has generously offered to pay for half of the cost to repair my fuel sensor in my gas tank.  How kind of them because, clearly, this manufacturer's defect is partly my fault.)