Snippet: Today, four U.S...
senators -- two Democrats and two Republicans -- plan to introduce a bill dubbed "10 by 10" -- which would force automakers to raise the average fuel economy of all vehicles from 25.4 miles per gallon to 35 mpg by the 2017 model year. The bill is the most aggressive call to increase fuel economy in recent years.
jerrywimer says:
05:18 AM, 06/21/06
I like my trucks and SUVs, but I welcome the push for better efficiency. For years now all the improvements have gone toward increasing power while maintaining the economy status quo (not necessarily a bad thing in some cases). So surely it's possible to maintain the power status quo while increasing efficiency levels for a change?
ahightower says:
05:30 AM, 06/21/06
How about we propose that Congress mandate an increase in our domestic oil production capacity by 10% a year instead?
harvey44 says:
06:13 AM, 06/21/06
I hope the price of gas goes up.
ateixeira says:
11:20 AM, 06/21/06
The problem here is unintended consequences - the only thing CAFE has accomplished is to force consumers into buying trucks instead of cars, due to all the loopholes.
I say kill that loophole, bring all vehicles to the same standard, or perhaps use a graduated system according to payload or length.
Cars like that will only make even more people buy trucks.
joepublic says:
12:59 PM, 06/21/06
IMO, this is a step in the right direction. It seems unlikely to pass in its current form though because, if I understand correctly, the 35 MPG standard will include all cars, trucks, and SUVs:
http://durbin.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=257447
I'm sure full-size SUV makers will complain (and rightly so) that this is unfair to manufacturers that produce lots of large trucks and SUVs. It would make more sense to me to stick with a tiered/graduated system, and raise ALL of the tiers by some reasonable percentage over 10 years.
mirth says:
09:16 AM, 06/22/06
To those of you who own and use trucks - sorry, Congress just decided that your vehicles should no longer be produced. Oh, and that having a domestic auto manufacturing capability is no longer necessary.
Gas prices and the market will get us where we need to be better than some numbers that a senator pulled out of his...
rsholland says:
10:34 AM, 06/22/06
Or, they could start making trucks like the do in Europe, like the Ford Transit shown here.
http://www.ford.co.uk/Safari/one_stop/-/-/-/-/-/-
All these trucks use diesels, and get very good fuel mileage. They also perform work tasks very well too.
rsholland says:
10:38 AM, 06/22/06
Not sure if the link works...
Hopefully this one will:
http://www.ford.co.uk/ns7/onestop/tos_overview/tos_tipper/-/-/-/-
joepublic says:
12:41 PM, 06/22/06
I agree that CAFE isn't really the right solution... IMO, there should be higher gas taxes to get people's purchasing incentives in line with the true social and environmental cost of gasoline. Then, as mirth pointed out, the market will get us to where we want to be automatically. But gas taxes are very politically unpopular, and CAFE is one of the less inflammatory options available to us.
Unfortunately, with gas still cheap, the automakers will then complain that they can't make what the public wants and that it's CAFE's fault (which is true). Having higher gas prices seems to me like a better solution.
mirth says:
09:17 AM, 06/23/06
The Transit is nice (as are many of the Ford Europe vehicles that should be sold here), but it's far from a heavy duty, or even a medium duty, truck.
rsholland says:
10:10 AM, 06/23/06
They sell trucks of all sizes in Europe, as they do here. The Transit and other like-engineered trucks are offered in HD versions, with dual rear wheels.
In fact, I have a Transit brochure from 10 years ago when I was in the UK on vacation. It shows dual-rear wheel HD versions. All the measurements and weights are metric, but I believe they compare to our domestic 1-ton trucks in terms of payloads.
No, they probably won't tow like domestics, but I bet the payloads are in the same ballpark
rsholland says:
10:13 AM, 06/23/06
The Dodge/Freighliner Sprinter is offered in chassis-cab model with dual rear wheels here. I believe the GVW is 10K, maybe more. I'd like to see more of that type of vehicle offered here.