Obama/Biden 2012

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it would include SUVs.

I don't know how it'll be done, except that cars and trucks are going to have to be lighter (and probably the occupants will have to be lighter, too

Might have to power some vehicles with diesel, LNG, hydrogen, cold fusion, pedals.

Give a year or two and they'll easily meet your target for 2025.

2025 indeed.

aside from which manufacturers claims have to be accurate over here. The exception is commercial vehicles where no claims are made at all.

Your momma's car couldn't do that

. . . that when this goes into effect, the price to fill up a tank will be roughly the same or more as it is now.
Not in any way saying this isn't a great thing, btw, just that the bottom line of the oil companies will continue to increase, even if less gasoline is used.

Or swap outs for batteries much like what I do for my propane tank on my BBQ.

this is a game that oil companies have been playing with us since the 70's. The more efficient cars get the more they cut back on refining plants. They said as much in the 70's when there was an outcry and the government threatened to intervene. Congress went along with this because of oil's contributions to the re-election campaigns of all the members. They still make token attempts at punishing big oil. These bastards do not care how the poor suffer. Just as now they skyrocket the gas prices because of a tropical storm.
They cry about sending dirty oil across the United States even when they had a major spill of this stuff two years ago. The Republicans are the stanches supporters. They are trying to kill green energy and support tar sands. The want to kill nature. I lived in Alaska when the oil companies started the pipelines. Then they said that their pipelines were bullet proof. Investigate and find out how many leaks have happened. By the way, the oil from Alaska was originally sent to Japan. Maybe it has changed by now. I also heard a rummer that the oil sands that will be pumped to Houston will be refined and shipped offshore (I do not know if this is true, but I would not put it past our great American companies. The profit is greater, and greed, one of the seven deadly sins, guide these companies).

Be prepared, the more mileage cars get, the tighter the supply. They do it to us now. Oh, we have to shut a plant down for maintenance, sorry.

thats why i say,

nationalization time!!

to me,
energy .. health... education..
are all a matter of 'national security' as it improves the American people/worker.
as such, shouldnt be in the hands of profiteers..


beyond doing that, i dont know what else can really be done about prices..
i mean, i suppose you could get a HUGE (and i mean HUGE) crowd of people to go to refineries and block ports and roads... thatd take ALOT of people though.. enough to make arresting them not worth the effort...
and even if you can successfully do it, you have to take into consideration how it will hurt gas station owners (they are always the ones hurt when we people do a pump strike, because they buy gas in advance)...

so again, i kinda think just taking it over is the only option... lol

There had been a debate of where to set the ultimate limit. A lower standard could be achieved with turbochargers, advanced transmissions and lightweight materials. If the requirement is quite high, then it means a fleet of hybrids. I have my doubts if all hybrids is a great solution. They have lots of parts and need batteries. Product lives would be shorter, among other problems.

still running on the original battery.

In 1984 (25 years ago), the Chevy Sprint achieved 53/mpg highway. So I don;t think it follows that hybrid tech is a de-facto requirement-- at least not if we can finally do away with the gilded pre-pubescent fantasies of high speeds, high powers, go-anywhere-I-want thought processes.

So I don't think the technological barrier is really there at all. Hybrids are great, but it has more to do with lower horsepower, lower weights, and slower acceleration.

The horsepower race has kind of screwed us all over for the past couple of decades, but its easy enough to get used to going slower.

over here in Europe that get over 50 MPG.

Here's a list from Popular Mechanics: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/fuel-economy/4276559


Here in the Czech Republic, gasoline is over $7.00 or so per gallon, once you do the currency conversion, so a high MPG car is a nice thing to have.

and they're not rated for mpg
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/fuel-economy/top-high-mileage-cars-to-beat-rising-gas-prices#slide-7

that are available in Europe, but that you can't get here for any price. Here are just a few:

http://www.practicalenvironmentalist.com/automobiles/five-cool-diesel-cars-you-cant-buy-in-the-u-s-plus-two-you-might.htm

Doing all that's possible to encourage the introduction of new, high-mileage diesel models into the American market would be a great step for Obama to take.

What will the Hummer driving rethugs do?

Get their sexual organs enlarged surgically?

wordpix!

Drag coefficient of not far off 1, while a Prius is about 0.3.

My bike actually gets better gas mileage with an old Vetter Windjammer fairing on it that's about the size of a barn door than it does naked, mid fifties if I'm not in a hurry.

Any bets that if we sit on our duffs and Obama loses, that will be high on the list of "job killing" regulations to be axed?

as someone who works on cars for a living, i can tell you this will make cars even more complex, and WAY more costly to repair! I welcome this news though, it means more money for me!! There is no magic way to make engines get this kind of mileage, only way to do it is to more precisely control the air / fuel ratio combined with light weight and smaller engines. This means more costly sensors to monitor everything the engine does, under ever conceivable operating condition. Dont get me wrong, im all for getting off the tit of the oil industry, but this will make cars more expensive and more costly to repair until the entire industry goes electric or hybrid.. at least my 2 cents anyway

Thanks for your points, though. But O did work with the industry including UAW to get this deal so they must have thought it was doable.

everything is doable... everything.. if you have enough money. I do see it all going hybrid/ electric.. maybe if that happens battery costs will go down. But right now these batteries have a finite life (like your laptop battery) but when the need replacement, the costs will total the car.. at least right now anyway.

but 54.5 mpg is insanely high as an average. That means every 27mpg vehicle would have to be balanced by one electric vehicle.

If vans, pickups and similar vehicles are excluded, it might have an outside chance. But vans carry more passengers, while pickups are used to haul things, which is extremely common. Of course, if they are excluded from the standard, their sales are going to spike. Similarly with any commercial vehicles not covered by the standard. The CAFE standards need to cover a broader range of vehicles and provide a realistic goal.

2025 is a long time from now. I don't really this give this much of a shot of becoming reality.