Per https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/61b7e040e90e0... the average UK car MPG is ~50mpg, so even allowing for the difference in US and UK gallons a 22.5mpg vehicle is colloquially a "gas guzzler" by our standards.

> What may be true is that there is a national policy to keep fuel prices as low as possible, for a myriad of reasons, with one side effect of that policy being that it has enabled people to buy larger less fuel-efficient cars.

Yes. Americans have always had cheap fuel and it's shaped the entire society around it.