Could they have made the target any lower? All they need to do is emissions-tweak the turbo-diesels that they already offer in the EU and they'll exceed the requirement.

Nothing ground breaking there. Why won't Detroit launch a game-changer instead of just playing catch-up?

amen, Henrik.
Why spend $25b of taxpayer money to just 'tweek' the crap they're building now.
This money should only go toward new development...perhaps the next generation Volt. Or, to new companies building all-new technology.

Uh-ho, this just in:

http://www.motorauthority.com/house-democrats-push-for-another-25-billion-in-auto-industry-loans.html

Dems are pushing for an ADDITIONAL $25,000,000,000 for Detroit.

For ++$50,000,000,000 we should demand that the US automakers pump out nothing but fossil-fuel-free vehicles!

Sheesh! Where will all this money come from? Is there a new printing press in Washington? Taxpayers, stand-by!

The automakers lawsuits against the government should also be dropped in order to qualify for any money.

Seems to be a lot of $$$ for very little or even less than many manufacturers sell already.

Is this a way to protect the oil industry for a few more decades?

Let's hope that the new administration will revise this program to make it more effective.

Detroit never delivered on PNGV. Why is this any different?

This is probably a good investment for the govt considering that if the companies don't go bankrupt they will get the money back and if they fail the govt will probably be on the hook for massive healthcare and pension costs, and that ignores what the job cuts would do.

Agreed that these proposed mileage figures are sorry excuses for what they ought to be.

@plop
"There are no 60 mpg cars in Europe"

Beester may be refering to the Smart car which does get over 60 mpg but can't be bought as a diesel in the US.
Or he could mean something like the Volkswagen Lupo or Audi A2 1.2 TDI which were built as 3L cars [100km/3litre].

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/ford-econetic-fiesta-diesel-63mpg.php
Here's another over 60mpg car that they make in Europe but don't sell in America.

*We must mandate that all new gasoline-powered passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. must, at minimum, have the ability to burn the common ratios of ethanol (and/or methanol/butanol) and gasoline.

We may have missed a chance to tie this mandate to these huge loans to auto industry. Maybe we can forego the interest on these loans in exchange for the mandate. Whatever it takes.

How much we spend on defense both here and abroad to maintain consistent sources of transportation energy (Oil)?

If we make the mandate described above, we will, in relatively short order, accomplish two extremely important strategic goals:
1. Break the OPEC oil monopoly.
2. Give consumers the ability to choose what fuel they wish to use.

Important notes regarding my convictions:

1. The cost to make this change to the average passenger vehicle in the factory is currently around $100 per vehicle. Any pain to the consumer or manufacturer could be mitigated directly through subsidies or indirectly through tax breaks (either at the corporate or consumer level). As a responsible citizen, I’m willing to pay for that kind of grease to pass the mandate, either through higher taxes, or reduced services – it’s that important.

2. If we mandate this to our domestic auto manufacturers with appropriate subsidies they could enjoy a marketplace advantage over foreign manufacturers. Not only will they have a highly marketable feature that will be desired by the public but they won’t have to cover the cost of that feature. It may prove a nice shot in the arm to lagging demand of domestic vehicles. More grease.

3. The chips (circuitry), fittings and sensors for this change are readily available now and are in commercial use. This is not new technology. It only gets cheaper as volume increases. These chips can be made to easily and dynamically handle any ratio of meth/eth/butanol, and gasoline. The same chip can even handle CNG, though obviously, storage is a different matter.

4. As these cars hit the road the potential demand alone will encourage distributors to install the pumps and upgrade the infrastructure to handle the new formulations. I can foresee some entrepreneurial distributor selling Patriot Petrol in Peoria and another selling Enviroctane in San Francisco.

5. The demand for fuels other than gasoline will promote huge private investment into commercialization of cellulosic alcohol and other technologies we’ve wisely incubated though your representatives yea votes for alternative fuel incentives. Turn them loose. Bring the strengths of capitalism to bear. Our meritocracy tends to reward the entrepreneurial spirit when we allow it. The people and entities that can take smart ideas and turn them into better, faster, cheaper energy will be there if given a chance to compete.

6. We’ve seen price spikes in corn (for example). I’ve heard a number of times that this is caused by the increased demand for ethanol. I must ask (rhetorically) why then did we end up a 1.8 billion+ bushel surplus this year? I’ll tell you why, in reverse order of importance; 1. speculation, 2. cost of fertilizer, and 3. cost of fuel. The third item being the most important and most ironic. It is the price of fuel that is causing the rise of corn prices more than everything else combined. We are extremely lucky to live in a country with an enormous reusable resource of arable land. We haven’t come close to fully utilizing it. We pay farmers to let land go fallow so that crop prices don’t free-fall. So even without new technologies in cellulosic alcohols, we’ve got plenty of headroom. I prefer to put my hard-earned dollars into a farmers pocket rather than send it to some country that has more oil than respect for human rights.

7. If somehow farmers do not respond to the increase in demand and we begin to see higher prices for corn, simply remove the .$54/gallon tariff from imported ethanol. I’d still rather put money in Brazil’s coffers than in some country run by religious extremists. Let the farmers in Brazil share the demand with the farmers in America.

8. Make the blenders tax credits more consistent, extend and increase them to other second-generation biofuels (like cellulosic alcohol or a Fischer-Tropsch-type projects like the one in Mahanony City). I think it’s also important to tie these breaks to the price of gasoline/diesel and phase them out over time. This will tend to stabilize fuel prices and force alternate fuel suppliers to continually become more efficient and competitive.

9. Use drilling in ANWR and off the coasts as the grease to calm the oil lobby. Tie it to this mandate if necessary. I agree that we’ll need to open our domestic oil spigots wider to accomplish energy independence. It won’t be enough though. It will take about the same amount of time to begin reaping benefits of these additional reserves as it will the benefits of consumer fuel choice. The average lifespan of the family car today is 17 years. If we started yesterday it will take 7-10 years before the demand curve for oil is broken. It will take an estimated 7-10 years before continental shelf drilling will bear any fruit at all. All that time, each year, we’re putting hundreds of billions of dollars into the pockets of governments (or more accurately, penny-ante dictators, self-appointed kings and radical religious theocracies) that hate the western culture in general and the United States in particular.

10. This should be an easy sell. To both the right-wing security-conscious and left-wing environment-conscious. The security and environmental aspects of this mandate are numerous and obvious. Tree-huggers and hawks living in harmony…oh my… The farming community is already on-board. Marketing the mandate as a consumer choice issue along with the environment and security aspects will bring along the rest of middle-America. I suspect it would improve the image of congress in the eyes of the average citizen as well.

11. We need a good government acronym for this. O.F.F. or something. Open Flex-Fuel Standard. Market it as “Get OFF oil”… Ok so it’s not “Don’t tread on me”, but you get the idea. I’ll get to work on it right away ;-)

I’m not a proponent of unnecessary government regulation, in fact it galls me when government gets in the way of legitimate commerce and free trade. But history has shown us time and time again that the right regulation applied to a monopoly can be enormously beneficial to the country as a whole and the average citizen in particular.

Now that we’re in the throes of a credit meltdown, I’m sure energy policies will take a short-term back seat. Though I see the Senate version of the ‘bailout’ (now law) had some important energy items tacked on. Good job. Who says pork is always bad? It appears that we’ve all been awakened to the fact that we must become more energy independent if we and our children are to enjoy an ever-increasing quality of life that America offers to anyone willing to work for it. In addition, If we can break the oil monopoly of OPEC we will have made the job of our esteemed government representatives, entrusted with our security, much easier.

@ae_vn - I like the idea of the MPG gauge. Sure, add that in too. It's included in many new cars now (I have it in my van) and the information is available from the engine control systems. They are available in the aftermarket as a plug in module for some models and if you have a geek bent, it's a simple matter to add one of your own creation with programmable IC kits available.

It still doesn't give me the ability to choose what fuel I use though.

It's certainly not enough to get to energy indepenence either.

So we're shipping more than $300 billion a year overseas just for the oil. A big percentage of that is going to countries that simply don't like western culture. So then we add a few hundred billion more to defend ourselves from the radicals that we've bankrolled. How much sense does that make?

Man if we could just put 10% of that back towards renewable fuel development...