| Suddenly, Detroit is can-do on fuel-efficiency |
| Written by Rick Attig. | ||||||
| Sunday, 20 September 2009 | ||||||
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A new president and an auto industry crisis make in the way automakers respond to rules that they make new vehicles far more fuel efficient over the next six years. When the Obama administration rolled out its new rules for vehicle fuel economy and first limits on greenhouse gas emissions last week, there were no loud protests from automakers that meeting the new standards would be impossible, or unsafe, or prohibitively expensive. Yes, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a group of automobile dealers promised to sue the Environmental Protection Agency over the new rules. But notably the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the trade group representing most domestic and foreign car makers, endorsed the new rules. The automakers have always known they could meet tougher standards, which were pioneered by California and followed by Oregon and other states. The higher standards vary by vehicle size, but companies will have to achieve a fleet average of 35.5 miles per gallon in 2016. The current average is 25 mpg. Of course they can meet those standards. They can even do it with existing technology including improvements to engines, transmissions and tires, increased use of hybrids and the commercialization of electric vehicles. It was only a couple years ago that the automakers, backed by the Bush administration, were insisting that such standards demanded by Oregon, California and other states would badly hurt the auto industry, that they couldn't possibly be met without enormous costs. Well, the federal government now projects that the new regulations will raise new car and truck prices by an average of about $1,000, but drivers will save three times that much over the life of a vehicle in fuel bills. It's taken far too long -- more than 30 years -- for the federal government to demand that automakers substantially increase fuel economy. It's happening now largely because the states went their own way, and the automakers prefer one national standard over a grab-bag of rules by states. Whatever their calculus, automakers now say they can easily meet the national standard, which will save nearly 2 billion barrels of oil by 2016.
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