Wow...sounds good in theory until you look at how great that has worked so far. Gas tax! Gas tax! Gas tax! If the consumer sees it at the pump every time they fill up they are more likely to WANT to buy a more fuel efficient car. If the gas prices are kept low they will continue to buy the car which pleases them most (power, large size, perceived safety, etc). Heck just updating the EPA testing methodology alone would be great (funny thing is I have always BEATEN every EPA estimate for manual transmission vehicles I have ever owned. I usually match or sometimes exceed in auto tranny vehicles).

A potential problem, even with the low CAFE standards that we have now, is that people's response to mandated better gas mileage has been an increase in vehicle miles driven. Raising CAFE standards without a concomitant increase in gas prices will tend to encourage greater miles driven to keep the total outlay the same.

At least the above is a theory I read recently which seems to make some sense. Of course it didn't help to give special lax standards to SUV and trucks, causing the auto companies to emphasize those types of vehicles.

I agree that just raising the standards is a flawed way of addressing the problem. Ration gasoline or raise the taxes or both and consumers will gravitate towards high MPG vehicles in order to survive economically.

The sad reality, however, is that these Senators are on the leading edge of doing something about oil consumption and global warming. In the U.S. Senate, this is as good as it gets and these Senators are part of the radical fringe. This will not pass, nor will anything else that has a meaningful impact on our consumption.

We'll just have to wait until the oil supply takes a nose dive and/or China adds about 50 million more vehicles whichever comes first.

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Thanks
Ann-Marie Fleming

Oh Wow!! 35MPG by 2017. Is Detroit up to the task [/sarcasm]

No the problem is the responce often is buying used cars. I already know a fair number of people who no longerbuy any new cars and only buy used/restored cars.

Raising mpg does not make people drive more. The only 'more driving higher mpg' that I know goes on when a two car family drives the higher mpg car IN PREFERENCE to the lower mpg car.

Someone who was already going to make a longer commute might switch to a car like the Prius but I dont know of anyhone who DECIDED to take a longer commute because of the Prius.

People are making longer commutes partly because that's where all the affordable housing is. Ten years ago the city of Temecula, about halfway between San Diego and Los Angeles, was tiny. But driving past there the past few years have seen an explosion of new houses.

I think that the 35 mpg is a feasible objective. Some countries have already done and surpassed that benchmark without advanced technologies.

If the US would apply a combination of these options:
-Engine downsizing;
-Common rail turbo diesel;
-Turbo technology applied to gasoline engines;
-Hybridization (gas and diesel).
Fuel consumption would go down dramatically without much penalty to performance or satisfaction.

For example, a 535d BMW achieve 35mpg and can offer 272Hp and 560Nm of torque, the Volkswagen 1.4Litre TSI engine offers 170Hp and 280Nm and similar mileage.

[quote]Raising mpg does not make people drive more.[/quote]

Sure it does. It doesn't, however, result in a net fuel consumption of zero like an above poster suggested. This is Econ 101.

There is a marginal cost to driving the car an additional mile. This includes the cost of the gasoline necessary, as well as the tiny fraction of an oil change, new tires, tune up, etc. There's also a marginal benefit to driving the car an additional mile -- you can go do "one more thing".

Here's the caveat: the marginal benefit of driving 200 miles a week is less than half the marginal benefit of driving 100 miles per week. Why? Well, people prioritize, and will do the most important things first. So, driving to/from work and to/from the grocery store have a higher priority than afternoon drives through the countryside. The marginal benefit is higher.

So, if you cut the marginal cost in half, people may take a few more drives through the countryside, but they're consuming less fuel on those drives, as well as every single drive to/from work and to/from the groccer.

The net result:
* More total miles driven
* Fewer gallons of gasoline consumed

This is why increasing CAFE standards is so palatable to taxpayers and their elected officials -- people get more for less, and it's better for the environment/forign poliy/domestic policy.

"Oh Wow!! 35MPG by 2017. Is Detroit up to the task [/sarcasm]"

I LOL'ed. :D

Back in 1979, Datsun made the 210 that would get 35mpg. At the time, US cars were getting around 19mpg. If the US automakers would have started in 1979 adding 1mpg/year to their cars, today the average car would be getting close to 50mpg.

Fuel efficiency should be standard like air bags.

I guess that's the way US auto makers woo the customers. They pay relatively more attention to vehicles' horse power. It is usually achieved at the expense of fuel economy.

Maybe someone with a little more knowledge can answer this for me: Is 35mpg the best we can do?

Maybe someone with a little more knowledge can answer this for me: Is 35mpg the best we can do?

It depends on what you mean. With infinate resources and a dictator, we could (be forced to) do much better. With no regulation in a libertarian society, we'd do much worse.

The idea is to push "just hard enough" -- get improved results without destroying the competitiveness of US companies or driving up the cost of new cars so high that they're no longer affordable to the less affluent. Legislation too extreme would simply be torn up as soon as Congresscritters discovered their chances of reelection hinged on it.

Is it the best we can do? Hard to say. But, in light of the miserable track record Congress and CAFE have had in the past, an increase of 10 MPG without the truck/SUV loophole is a huge advancement from the status quo -- and that's big progress I'm certainly willing to embrace.

Good question, I think we can do much better...

However, instead of the government "mandating" higher milage, I think the demand has to come from the consumers. As American consumers we have a stronger voice then the government, and we have to demand that our Auto companies produce better MPG cars and trucks!

There are many revolutions occuring in the energy frontier, and it is only a matter of time before Toyota or Honda, etc. figures out how to make a decent size car get 100+ mpg...

Unfortunately American consumers are still living in the booming times and just starting to come around to a different way of thinking (sales trends). sites like this are helping educate and spread ideas... why cant we have 50mpg standard? why cant we have clean energy? why cant we have energy that is not dependent on the middle east?

It depends on the car realy. A car made for an older person can ONLY be so small and so low to the ground. Mind you we have an oldsmobile that gets 32 miles per gallon yet its massive. Thats because it doesnt have a particularly powerful engine and because it has a very agressive fuel saving overdrive gear. But its horrid for todays stop and go crap roads. It only workes for us because we still dont get too much traffic around here.

So, are they going to get rid of the E85 loophole at the same time?

Because if not, the Chevy Tahoe SUV is only a hair's breadth away from passing:

Calculating backward from our test Tahoe's window-sticker figures (which are lower than but derived from the unpublished CAFE numbers), we figure the E85 Tahoe's CAFE rating jumped from 20.1 mpg to 33.3 mpg, blowing through the 22.2 mpg mandate and raising GM's average. What's that worth? Well, spread over the roughly 4.5 million vehicles sold in 2005, the maximum 0.9 mpgh benefit allowed by the E85 loophole could have saved GM more than $200 million in fines. That's not chump change, even for the auto giant.

That's the closing paragraph from a box called "Flex Fuel's Big Pay-off" on page 120 of "Car and Driver's" July 2006 issue.

We need to hold congress accountable. What they've done so far is just sick.

This is the Green Car Congress right?
1)No matter what milage they get, can some one explain to me why ALL the gasoline cars being made are not PZEV (SULEV plus ) or the current EPA bin equivilent. bin Laden?
I am talking about pollution per unit miles driven.
2)Why isn't it a requirement to have the Volvo PremAIr catalyst on the radiator?
These are off the shelf "real world" items that work with the current system. No Manhatten project or dictatorship of the masses required.
This is the real indicator the companies do not care and congress has no courage.
Right now with high fuel we are concentrating on milage, but we could lower car pollution significantly if these two items were implimented while waiting for the silver bullets.
For the record, mine is the Serial Plug in highly turboed hybrid running on ethanol, hydrogen or other sustainable fuel.

Congress's hybrid credit law has already kicked in so that Prius's credits will start disappearing soon. This provision was written by the American auto companies. Nice. When Prius's credit disappears, buyers of GM gas guzzler hybrid big trucks will be getting a credit for under 20 mpgs while Prius will buyers will be getting no credit.

At best, Congress gives lip service to conservation, but where the rubber hits the road, or where the campaign contributions hit the pocket, it folds in any attempt to enact real conservation laws.

I am a Democrat, but freely note that Hillary Clinton is not one of the sponsors of the bill, nor will she be.. She is deep in the pockets of GM.

Friedman is right. We need a geo-- green party.

It's too bad we can't throw them all out now and start over.

MPG does not mean anything untill you have a requirement of what you have to be able to do at said mpg.

You can get 35 mpg, make the engine smaller, the vehicle lighter, reduce rolling resistance, reduce drag, reduce the power etc.

That is all fine and good but if the better mpg comes at the cost of performance then ... you haven't really gained anything. If you call it a truck and it gets 35 mpg thats good and all but if it can't do the work that people use a truck for now ... its not really a truck now is it?

The pt cruiser is sold as a light truck ... it is based on the neon chassis.

The honda ridgeline is sold as a full size truck but it has no more towing capacity than my 19 yr old vehicle (and gets no better gas mileage)

There is only so much you can do,
the efficency of the engine is limited by the laws of thermodynamics.
Gasoline has a limited amount of energy per gallon.
You can calculate how much power it takes to move a given mass up a given distance.
There is a lower bound on how much enery it takes to do a given amount of work.

A car from the 70's has more utility than some suv's of today. My parents towed a small camper with our car back in the 80's but today a so called suv rav 4 or crv would not be able to do the same thing.

It is kinda silly
the people that need x capacity will continu driving a vehicle with x capacity. The people that don't will drive whatever. Now there will just be more so called "light trucks" that can not do anything useful and have no more capacity than the cars they are based on but get worse mpg than said cars. How is that a good thing?

1975 people driving vehicles that get 14 mpg
2006 people still driving vehicles that get 14 mpg

Auto manufactures will sell us whatever 1)we will buy, 2) they can make a profit on.

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/cert/mpg/fetrends/420s05001.htm

MPG has been rather flat lately and is down from where it was in the late 80's ... yet people are still buying new cars.

Why are they calling it Ten-in-Ten? It would be 7.5
CAFE in 11.5 years :)

Lying politicians! :)

er, in 10.5 years, but I guess they could delay it's start and it'd be 10 years... but still 27.5 -> 35 is not 10

It's still the right thing to do. You can badmouth CAFE all you want, but other than the loopholes (average speeds on the EPA test are well below current road speeds, E85 loophole) it worked. When they created/raised CAFE, fuel economy got dramatically better over a short period of time. They haven't raised it since then and no surprise, fuel economy has been flat for 20 years. Raising CAFE is the way to increase fuel economy, that is proven by the fact when it was raised, FE went up, when it was left alone, FE stayed the same.

A FAST WAY TO GET STARTED WOULD BE TO FREEZE POWER INCREASES (except for maybe a few specialize models-> corvete, police Impala), AND introduce a) auto AND manual stop light instant engine shutdown and restart b) cut fuel to air ratio at highway cruise (often used on commutes), we need 30-90 hp (traffic& hills, more) at highway cruise not 300-400, but provide the capability to instantly move up to higher power/torque levels when needed. Savings could be in the 5-70% range. Add policy changes in gasoline taxes to full fund the highway system, and add toll HOV lanes+high density automated parking garages (with built in redundacies) to promote mass transit/car pooling. If housing prices are a problem, creative zoning changes in cities and close in burbs to increase living spaces without sacrificing the environment/quality of life/nature of the community.

RJ: speaking of the Honda Ridgeline, you made me go look it up, and compare it to what seems to me to be the nearest Chevy, the Avalanche.

Ridgeline: 16/21 mpg, towing capacity 5000 lbs.
Avalanche: 15/21 mpg (gasoline), towing capacity (2x4) 7200 or 8200 - depending on the axle ratio.

Honda? What do you have to say?

35MPG U.S. of gasoline is 6.7L/100km or 160 g/km CO2. That's roughly where the EU#s carmakers are today across all new LDV registrations, of which almost 50% are diesels. The targets are 140 g/km CO2 by 2008 and 120 g/km CO2 by 2012, but these are currently not legally binding.

Since the emissions regs mean the U.S. isn't ever going to be a really big diesel LDV market, a fleet average target of 35 MPG by 2017 ought to be achievable, even with the updated (i.e. more realistic) EPA test procedures for fuel economy. However, as many other posters have pointed out, there is little value in regulating vehicle fuel economy using CAFE. In due time, industry lobbyists will always find ways to undermine the spirit of the legislation (cp. the E85 loophole).

Besides, the proposed legislation apparently does not include a gas guzzler tax that really bites hard.

If you want carmakers to produce more fuel efficient cars you have to move the goalposts to generate lasting demand for such products. The simplest and most effective way to achieve this is to raise the price of fuel by taxing it more heavily (by energy content or CO2 potential, take your pick). Announce that you will ramp it up by $0.02 a month through 2017 and disburse the extra revenue by way of flat income tax credits for everyone (x2 for those filing jointly). After 120 months, you'd have slapped an additional $2.40 on each gallon of gasoline. Those who use less than the average, for whatever reason, earn themselves a net tax cut.

Long before then, full-size pick-up trucks and SUVs would become rarities on suburban streets. You would find a lot of A-C segment cars with 3 and 4 cylinder engines with 1.2-2.4L displacement, four valves per cylinder, thermal management, turbochargers, gasoline direct injection, cam phasers and integrated starter generators.

Btw, for all you Detroit haters. All three are building gasoline engines with some or all of the above features in Europe today. They could bring these engines to U.S. showrooms within 24 months if that is what customers there wanted. The point is, US customers do not. Gasoline is still way too cheap to make do with fewer of those cubic inches. Too many are still hoping this is just a blip, as many before have been.

Meanwhile, Spitsbergen is recording temperatures 13 deg C above average and its glaciers are melting.

Simple fact. Neither dems nor reps have the power alone to change cafe much because it can and will trigger massive layoffs and a backlash. The ONLY way to get cafe increases above a small amount is CONGRESS and all of congress so both sides take the heat equaly.

So only conngress can manage this hot potatoe.

Now ford and gm actaykly want a cafe increase because then they can fire a bunch of expansive workers and close wasteful plants and move more opf thier operations to far far more profitable areas of the world while pinning all he blame and heat on the morons stupid enough to fall for the trap.

Big oil wants higher milage because the higher the milage the more spendy the gas can be without people getting bitchy about it.

Rafael hit the nail right on the head. The US consumers do NOT want more fuel efficient vehicles. Even in 2003 when a poll (with a somewhat proper statistical sample) was taken the results indicated fuel efficiency was around 7th on the list of priorities for new car shoppers.

Safety, Performance, Reliability, and Aesthetics made up the top four (but not in that particular order).

The Plug-in Hybrid can reach this mileage goal handily, and surpass all other measurements of vehicular advancement, particularly safety, and advance other technologies in energy production and conservation. I'll just keep blowing my Plug-in Hybrid siren until all the other lesser technologies are drowned out.

Plug-in Hybrid! PLUG-IN Hybrid!! PLUG-IN HYBRID!!!
Plug-in HYBRID! Plug-in Hybrid!! PLUG-IN hybrid!!!!
PLUG-IN Hybrid! Plug-in HYBRID!! Plug-in HYBRID!!!!!
Plug-in Hybrid! Plug-in Hybrid!! PLUG-IN HYBRID!!!!!!

What? What? I can't hear you!

I think it's pretty clear that when a Tahoe racks up 33 CAFE MPG that CAFE has failed.

People are bailing on the SUVs because they are ahead of the government, and are adjusting themselves to new market conditions. It's not becaue CAFE pushed them.

This "35MPG CAFE by 2017" plan just means that will continue. We will pretend that we have a CAFE plan, but we are really leaving it to consumers to vote with their feet.

Poeple arnt bailing on suvs for any sane reason. They are mostly bailing on them because they arnt fasionable. Others a small number realy are bailing simply because they were stupid in the first place and got a car they couldnt afford to fuel.

The rest dont give a crap.

How many people understand their own motivations? Experimenters in behavioral economics would tell us that the number is low, I think.

On that, the behavioral aspects of economics, would not surprise me in the least that there are feedback mechanisms between a changing price structure, a changing environmental climate, and what is fashionable.

In my country there is a strong taxation over vehicles. As an example, if you want to buy a 5 Litre car with a base price of $40,000 you would add $43,546 of displacement tax and more 21% of VAT over $83.546, that means plus $17,544. From $40.000 you go up to $101,091.

That is called motivation.

Honda? What do you have to say?

I think they'd probably say, "How do you like our first version of our first truck sold in the US? Motor Trend seems to like it."

That would require going from an income tax to a consumption tax and yes repa sre VERY for that:) Oh and if you realy want to state it the right way to get reps on it also add in a wastefulness penalty. Any car thats needlessly ineffeicent in gas usage gets extra consuption tax added on. Course then you have to define needlessly wasteful.

But it is a truck. I'm sure we all hope that if someone buys a truck that they have the need of a truck for towing or hauling. As far as towing and hauling go, the Chevy Avalanche gets almost the same city mileage, the same highway mileage, yet blows the socks off the Ridgeline for payload. Seems like Chevy's got a better vehicle.

It's interesting to me that Chevy can get virtually the same mileage in a more powerful vehicle than Honda.

Wintermane -

the notion of an extra penalty for wastefulness would be unneccessary moralizing by a nanny state. Just make fuel significantly more expensive (cp. European price levels) and gas guzzler market share will melt away even faster than the snow on Mt. Kilimanjaro.

I'd suggest you disburse the extra revenue by way of flat rate income tax xredits (x2 if filing jointly). That way, not only do the politicians not get any extra money to pour down their favorite drain, you can also ramp up the tax twice as far. By tying the credits to actual fuel sales, owners are forced to keep up with Jones' wrt MPG not just once but every time they buy a car, for the rest of their lives. You also avoid unexpected budget shortfalls.

"we all hope that if someone buys a truck that they have the need of a truck for towing or hauling"

I've given up that hope ;-), too many Avalanches and Escalades used as 1-person commuter cars here in Orange County California.

Seriously, what's the lifetime "percent time hitch connected" or "percent time the bed has 500lbs plus?" We'd be better off with a good easy "truck sharing" plan. Drive a civic to work every day, but pickup a truck whenever you need one.

(I saw a 1-ton pickup on PCH yesterday hauling ... wait for it ... a 15 pound racing bike in the back bed.)

I tire of the "I'm all right. I got mine Jack; all you other slobs... WALK". The movement types here b**ch and p*ss and moan about how other people need to change, and want to change them.

I got news for you, a wise man once said about changing human nature; "...it ain't never happened, an it ain't never gonna happen...".

There is no more wasted effort than getting the government to mandate something. Of all those self bloviating hot air machines you quoted would get up off their asses and sell their limos, and stop[ jetting around in G-IVs, now that would do something. If all those hot air lawyers had buckled down and studied Engineering or business and actually helped make a higher efficiency ground transport happen, it would have done some good.

But the best thing I can think of for the cause of global warming is for those knuckleheads in congress, Chafee, Snowe, Durbin and Feinstein to close their mouths and stop emitting hot air. Feinstein is the only one for the four to have an IQ higher then room temperature, the other three collectively couldn't score that high,and she is almost always wrong.

They could also stop subsidizing 1870's era technology in mass transit; that is also pouring money better used on intelligent highways and 2020 era technology like maglevs then pouring it down a down a rat hole because the transit unions want them to continue.

Never happen.

The quote from Durbin is wrong in every respect. Isn't it amazing that professional politicians consider themselves experts in everything that they have no personal knowledge of at all?
Proposing higher mileage cars as the answer to global warming,energy security and "consumer relief" is so ignorant as to be frightening. It is typical of liberals with damaging agendas to misrepresent everything to further their agenda.
Even if the car companies built all the hybrid cars they possibly could, (and ignoring the devastating environmental damage from the battery mining and manufacturing), and we all gained 30% better mileage, we would be using just as much gas in 10 years, and all the trouble would have been for nothing. The prices and exhaust volume would be just what it is today. He is all wrong about his pollution theory anyway.

The obvious answer is to USE AMERICA'S OIL! If we actively drilled and built new refinery's (always opposed by ignorant liberals like Durbin):

1. The price of oil would be under $40 a barrel, giving us all the consumer reief we need.

2. Iran, Syria, and Lebanon would be out of money and out of the terror business, and we would be out of Iraq. (Understand what that means anti-war idiots - we are in Iraq and fighting terrorism all over the world because liberal Democrat politicians are financing the terrorists with their insane refusal to use our oil and make gasoline in new refineries in the US!

3. The greenhouse gas gag is scientific fantasy. Just out - Ethanol would cause more smog than gasoline!

4. I know Forest Gump, I mean Al Gore says we are all going to die from car exhaust. Study history before you fall for that. 1000 years ago the world was several degrees hotter than it is now. Guess what? It was a good thing! More croplands, less disease, more exploration. Guess what else? Their were no SUV's spewing out CO2!

Drivers of cars with manual transmissions should study the BSFC (brake specific fuel consumption) map for engines like theirs. These maps show that for low horsepower requirements (under about 8 HP) for driving in the city, the engine speed should not exceed about 35% of redline for getting the best fuel economy. Don't worry about 'lugging' the engine, they have microprocessor controlled ignition timing. I have a 2003 Subaru Forester with a manual transmission. I consistently get 38 to 39 mpg summer (34-35 mpg winter) in combined city highway driving, by keeping the engine speed between 1500 and 2000 RPM.
Robert Shafer (Ph.D. Physics)
Los Alamos, NM

This mandate (35 mpg) and another to charge a "road damage/maintenance fee of $10,000" on SUVs which weigh over 4500 pounds should have been enacted 20 years ago.

I love to drive my old Jaguar but I now ride motorcycles (80 mpg and 55 mpg)to work because it's really a necessity.

I don't buy the line "I need a Suburban (or Explorer) to drive my kids to this and that....and because they're safer" from today's moms. Packing less, maybe getting those kids to ride their bikes to soccer practise, etc. and less coddling doesn't require using these gas-guzzling machines. As for being safer, better trained drivers helps make a vehicle safer, not the vehicle.

What will I do about my 1961 Jaguar? Maybe convert it to electric based on the 1981 issue of Mother Earth News hybrid electric conversion.

Just my two bits.

As for motorcycles being safe or unsafe. More and more motorcycles and scooters are appearing on the roads. Drivers need to be made aware of them and localities needs to offer more parking for them. Plus, some new bikes are coming out with automatic transmissions, three-wheelers are coming out in various styles and it's better for one person on two wheels as opposed to one person on four wheels.