http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=21606




Oh boy. Another blow to the V8's. Sigh...

 

All this is a moot point, with the cost of fuel the MPG wars between the automakers have been raging for the last few years anyway.

The industry's quest for economy has largely been consumer driven, not government driven - which is the way it should be.

 

Thats fine and dandy and I agree with you, but the 1000's of leaches at the EPA have to justify their jobs somehow and will pass these dumb laws anyhow. I think all the automotive companies should use their muscle and tell the EPA to go F itself. No way in hell can they shut down the whole industry.

 

automakers can squeak out higher hp each and every year while at the same time increasing fuel economy. so i don't see how focusing on fuel economy alone will be so hard to achieve

bout time our infrastructure can stop relying on foreign countries that hate us

 

Who says anything about the EPA? This is a way to get ahead of an oil crisis. We couldn't handle $10 gas if that was the price today. If the average car is getting 50mpg then we will be more likely to weather that kind of storm.

 

Thats a bit of an exaggeration, the EPA might be gung-ho about cleaning up the environment, but they still serve a useful purpose.

As an example, a guy working for my company at another location used to (that being the operative phrase until the EPA busted his a$$) take the crap sucked up by the floor scrubber and dump it down a storm drain., which you know would eventually make its way to the Chesapeke Bay (yummy... nothing like a blue crab or oyster spiked with god knows what) in my AO. Either somebody reported him or testing revealed the source of the pollution and they stopped it.

China and India are certainly very good examples of countries where they are in dire need of an EPA like agency and what the US would be like without one.

Just some food for thought.

 

The EPA has it's uses but given too much power and this could happen all over again

 

^^^ That's one big twinkie

 

It's the NHTSA, not the EPA.

The issue is and always was National Security. We simply import far too much oil leaving us venerable to any coordinated effort to raise oil prices. That's why Bush started the ball rolling by mandating a new fuel economy standard by 2020 (the Bush adminstration set the goal, and left it to the Obama adminstration to fill in the blanks).

Here's the choices:

1. Increase the gas tax.

2. Restrict what you buy.

3. Raise CAFE.

One of those choices HAVE to be done.

The first choice you wind up with certain loud freeloaders screaming that ANY tax is bad tax, yet they have no problem forking over money going into oil companies record profits and still expect prisons, police, highways, their kids college and mom and dad's social security coverage to be funded.

The second choice acrually IS big brother telling you what to buy, and that goes against the free market which the United States represents.

So, we're stuck with CAFE.

Keep in mind that the United States of America itself is one of the planet's top 5 oil producing nations. yet, if we took every bit of oil the middle east produces and kept every drop for ourselves, we wouldn't come close to meeting our demands. I posted the actual numbers here some trime ago in another thread, but the amount of oil we consume versus what each country produces is nothing short of horrifying.

Paying for oil imports alone is pretty much the lions share of our trade deficit. The cost of oil had a direct part in our economy and even our debt. Money that's going to oil is money that's not being spent in other areas of the economy. It also impacts everything in the goverenment from the cost of fueling federal car fleets to the cost of fueling a Navy Aegis Cruiser.

Bottom line is that if you want your honking big SUV that you don't need, your gonna pay for it. Instead of making OPEC rich and causing the US to borrow from China, it's forcing car makers to get more fuel economy out of them.... and you're gonna pay extra for the technology.

Besides, being that cars today are sporting 300+ horsepower almost across the board while getting 30+ MPG (the EPA rates cars for CAFE far more generously that the rating they put on the window sticker) despite weighting over 1 3/4 tons, then there is far more room to meet higher fuel economy standards with little or no change in performance than there was back in the 70s and 80s.

Consider that most of the economy cars with high fuel economy ratings in the 80s were getting just about 28-30 mpg (using post 2004 EPA formulas) while barely getting 120 horsepower.

Here we are 25 years later, and we have 320 horse Camaros (2013MY) and Ford Mustangs that put a slapdown on original Boss Mustangs let alone the quickest exotics of the era that get 30+ mpg.

Just 15 years ago, Corvettes had no more horses than the base Camaro and were getting fuel economy comparible to SRT8 Chargers.

Sure 62mpg in 15 years is farfetched (unless fuel hits, say, $10 a gallon). But with automakers cars averaging 32+mpg by CAFE standards already, 42 mpg in a decade is nowhere near as hard (let alone the apocalyptic arrmegeddon) that some are making it out to be.

 

is there anything that actually gets 62mpg (other than hybrids)?

 

super efficient diesels, and cars that run on glycerin.

 

LMAO, Ghostbusters reference

Yeah, that guy did represent how an over zealous dude with to much political ambition could be a problem.

 

The 2012 Ford Focus with the optional diesel gets 67mpg over in Europe. Other makes also have high efficetcy diesels.

The 62mpg standard though is to compensate for electric vehicles. The Volt is currently rated 93mpg in EV mode. Remember CAFE is an average. Your 2025 Chevy SUV will not need to get 62mpg, Chevy will need to average 62, which is one 100mpg EV for every 25mpg SUV.

 

I wonder if the govt just knows someting that we don't about oil reserves, maybe the Saudi's told them they only have about 15 years worth of oil left. Just too many people in the world trying to get at the same resource. Probably twice as many people now as there were 30 years ago. We definitely need more nuclear power plants if we are gonna have to drive electric cars.

 

US Military is expecting oil shortages by as early as 2015 = http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...duction-supply

This might not be all about a physical shortage, it could also be about the end of the petrodollar system. If OPEC and other exporting nations start trading in a currency other than the US dollar the dollar's value will drop dramatically. That means imported oil prices will go through the roof for Americans.