White House Floats Proposal Requiring Auto Makers to Double Fuel Efficiency - WSJ.com

The Obama administration may require auto makers to roughly double the average fuel economy of their car and light truck fleets from current levels to 56.2 miles per gallon by 2025.

White House officials outlined the plan to auto industry officials last week, said two people familiar with the matter, setting off a fight among auto makers, environmentalists and others.

Car makers say the proposal would effectively require most new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be battery-powered by 2025 and raise prices by thousands of dollars. Makers of electric vehicle technology say declining costs for lithium batteries will allow the auto industry to make big gains in fuel efficiency without stoking sticker shock.

Environmental groups, meanwhile, said they were generally pleased with the Obama proposal; they had sought a 62-miles-per-gallon standard.

 

Classic eco-hippie mentality - "we'll make whatever changes we have to in order to reach some imaginary goal, whether realistic or not, and we'll force the general population to pay for it, whether they can or not".

You guys have it better though, Europe has to reach those levels by 2012!

 

What's funny though is that in the US all of those eco-hippies are so adamantly against diesel engines. With the diesel technology available in Europe, it would be significantly easier to reach those goals without pricing these cars out of the reach of the average consumer. Meanwhile, battery technology may help lower fuel economy but the production of such batteries is far, far worse for the environment than gasoline or diesel engines would be.

It's simply moronic.

 

what's funny is that everyone was against this stuff in the 70s & 80s too - and now we have computer-controlled cars that are *INSANELY* faster than before with *MUCH* better gas mileage.

- chuck