Excuse me , but how about phasing out large ICE cars and concentrating
on smaller engineed more efficient cars ,with a liberal helping of BEV and
PHEV thrown in to bring the overall tally down.
Why do we have to listen to the B*****KS and the bleating that these
car manufacterers keep coming out with , I am a customer, in the past five
years I have bought two new cars , my next car will be an electric car , when
will they wake up , the answer is probably not until the Chinese come on line
with affordable BEV´s.

120g/km is possible just not economically feasible at the moment. Rising energy costs and the subsequent wars waged to ensure access to cheap sources of energy will enable 120g/km and even better.

PNGV gave us a viable solution over a decade ago:

Diesel-Electric Hybrids

A family should be able to fit into a Phoenix SUV no problem as far as I can see. I am quite optimistic that if production of such vehicles could be ramped up enough by 2012 then they might also be affordable to many families. Also, somehow many European families survive with small cars. How do they do it?

Its economy of scale , here in northern italy most cars on the road
are on the small side , the Fiat range being particually popular, such
cars such as the Panda and the Punto have a real big car feel with
accomadation for four adults and returning 45 mpg overall , however
there are a few large SUV´s appearing , funny though most of these
seem to be piloted by small highly stressed males in their late thirties!

Cervus ,
Tell me how you can manufacture a full road legal four door
BEV with 130 km range and capable of 70 mph with all the luxurys
and safety equipment 4 airbags and the like , in very small quantitys
ie. runs of 25 or so and sell it for around $26000 , because it is being
done here in Italy with no tax credits or grant aid , the factory is just
around the corner from where I live .
Yet still we have the Large car manufacturers telling us that
it cannot be done , here you can go and order this car tomorrow ,not
in 2010 , OK $26000 is a lot of money for a small car , but they are only
making a few at a time , just think what could be done in the tens of
thousands !
This car is based on a Fiat model, and if Fiat so chose to do
they could start up full scale manufacturing within a few months, and
pretty soon the car would be on sale for around $15000 , but they
won´t for purely economic reasons , for a start within a year all the
Fiat agents would start to feel the chill wind , because of the lack
of servicing , plus Fiats big oil partner AGIP would not be happy , the
list goes on with all the reasons economic .
So there you have it there is no technology barrier only
ones put up by the big companies , funny thing is you know, I have
never read anything on the net written by a person who leased one
of the EV1´s or Toyota RAV4 electrics who had anything bad to say
about either of these cars , and they were both launched some ten
years ago now.
I do wonder if in ten years time we will be still debating
this !

andri:

When did I ever say I was against electric vehicles? Geez.

Frankly, when even the Japanese say "it can't be done in the time we have", and they have more experience in creating fuel efficient vehicles than American companies, it's time to take notice.

The average weight of JAMA vehicles increased by 99 kg between 1999 and 2005.
Isn't that about the same as a large man or two medium women? I never heard of anyone complaining that much about gas consumption going down when there's an extra person in the car. Just more crap from the automakers.

I wonder, if the European Comissions restrictions were
met by some company, within the EU, would the Asian
automakers be so adamant about not being able to comply
with their proposal? It comes down to transition costs
that have to come from, inevitably, the consumer. This
legislation will only have impact if the consumer, who
bears the brunt of the expense, will be willing or able
to afford the stepped up cost basis for these measures.
Remember, legislatures have to answer to their constituents
who put them in the driver seat. They don't get paid to
swerve all over the road.

Andrichrose,

Are you referring to the Doblo Electric? The price I've seen for that model is $40,000 (29,500 euro). Your $15,000 high volume price cannot possibly refer to this vehicle, a 43 kWh Li-ion battery pack costs more than that all by itself.

White star and its cheaper sibling will be the high profile proof that EVs can be done. Once they hit the road the big car companies will just look slow and stupid.

Et al:
Please understand that our elected politicians don't run our country; neither The Republicans nor the Democrats. there is really only one Party...Big Industry and that includes Big Oil, Big Auto and Big Pharma because Big Industry pays for the elections and they expect to be rewarded for shelling out.

So when Big Industry says we cannot, or will not, meet an imposed requirement, watch how fast the politicos back off. Do you remember the super low zero-emissions standard California mandated? What happened! The politicians simply cancelled it from the pressure by Big Industry. And so it goes.

I'm afraid it's sad but true, the dirty ICE with its expensive emission systems, will be around for sometime yet.

Having said all this, I believe that in the long term future, BEVs, because of their many positive attributes cannot be denied, even by Big Industry.

(a) JAMA (and its Korean counterpart, KAMA) were not part of ACEA's now-infamous voluntary commitment to reduce fleet average CO2 emissions to 140g/km by MY2008. They did, however, commit to strive toward the same standard a year later.

This was accepted at the time because these manufacturers do not have as much diesel expertise and, because European manufacturers have always been granted an additional year to meet regulatory changes in the Asian markets.

The EU Commission has not yet presented a formal proposal with the details of the (130-10)gCO2/km target that was agreed to in principle a few months back. In particular, it is as yet unclear how the fleet averages will be computed (per brand? per manufacturer? per manufacuters' association?) and if non-EU producers will be given an extra year to comply.

(b) reducing CO2 emissions by regulating cars is an extremely expensive route, compared to e.g. upgrading coal-fired power stations. The auto industry understands and accepts that the 800lb gorilla in the room is really the security of future transportation fuel supplies, given that the world's vehicle fleet is set to double by 2040-2050.

However, if they didn't complain at all, lawmakers would really get ahead of themselves and legislate the totally impossible. A big problem is that in Europe as in the US, politicians are a bunch of cowards. They prefer suitably arcane regulations on supply rather than move the goalposts (e.g. raise fuel taxes) to generate demand for the product characteristics (e.g. fuel economy) they want to see. That leaves manufacturers in a serious lurch, as they have to spend scarce marketing dollars to heavily promote vehicles carrying lower profit margins.

The problem isn't reducing individual car emissions ... its lowering the overall fleet emissions. It may take more time for the pre-existing cars to be phased out of use than would be achievable by 2012.

PS: The current Toyota Prius as demonstrated on the link provided earlier is 104 g/km ... well below the 120 g/km target they wanted by 2012. It might be more efficient to carefully craft incentives to increase the number of SULEV / PZEV / ZEVs on the road today. Be careful though .. we don't want to repeat the California Solar fiasco!