Senate proposal gives automakers until 2020 to hit 35 mpg

It is possible for most vehicles but what does this mean? No more v12 engines?

guess that means the LS600H gets the last laugh, lol

Will we really be driving cars in 2020? I don't think so.

And yes, no more V12, just V8 hybrid.

35 mpg is a corporate average (pondered mean) for every car manufacturer or group (ie BMW + Mini + Rolls Royce= 1 mean), and it takes into account sale volume, so i did the math for BMW (2006 numbers), ignoring Rolls since there are very few of them only, and interestingly, i found they do 33 mpg worldwide, then i remembered that the mean could be done per country, in which case surely numbers in the US go down, since no diesel, and very few small engines <2.0L are sold there, then again that makes it easier for the numbers to go up when diesel goes public in the US so it shouldn't be hard by 2020 for most european and japanese manufacturers, but that kind'a leaves american carmakers behind, more than they already are! so i can only imagine how hard their lobbies will work on getting more time...

LS600H Last laugh? Now that is laughable...it gets only around 20mpg.... no where near 35 dude...

Have to make sure that SUVs are held to the same exact standards.

i think we should focus more on stricter emissions rather than fuel use. Who cares how much fuel we use, as long as we end global warming.

I propose we use all the fuel in the world, thus forcing automakers to use something else.

i guess you just proved how dumb you are. this is not gratuitous bashing, and i'll prove it!
"Who cares how much fuel we use, as long as we end global warming." LEXUSKINDAGUY12 i guess 12 is your age?!
the more fuel we use, the more CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere, and CO2 being, in the earth's atmosphere, the main player in the greenhouse effect, the more global warming we get...
"Who cares how much fuel we use, as long as we end global warming." WOW!!
simply put, CO2 takes part in two biomass "rotation" cycles, one very long, the other significantly shorter (geologically speaking, of course)... so the problem is not CO2 in itself, it's the amount of it present in the air at one time - in fact we can be thankful to CO2 for regumating the earth's temp, in order for us to live on it...-
so release too much CO2 in the air, in a relatively short period of time, you upset the "fast" cycle, while the "slow" one, working actually like a reserve, can't cope to regulate, then global warming works like dominos in a line...

wow, i dont think you understood what i said. If we keep the emissions clean, then it doesnt matter how much gas we use.

you are hopeless...

key word here.....domestic automakers!

I don't know. VW/Audi wouldn't be in such good shape. Especially since they can't sell their dirty diesels in their best markets: New England, New York and California.

GM and Ford could (please pay attention to the tense) do just as well as Honda, Toyota or Fiat (should they decide to grace us with their cars again) in achieving a 35 mpg fleet average. If mandated, they'd downsize everything and put 90 hp 4 cyl diesel engines in the LaCrosse and Explorer hoping to sucker old people into buying them, but eventually they'd get there by honorable means.

I think they should limit the size of SUV and truck here people. Some of the truck and SUV out there are just ridicously big. If you're in the construction business or something than yeah get the huge truck and SUV.

There were several time where I saw a truck that was ridicously long that it need almost two parking space to park it?????????? Geez!........let me guess how much mpg does this truck get? "NOT much for sure".

They need to get rid of all those ridicously big truck and SUV. I don't care who make them, just get rid of them, or at least limit it size.

I absolutely agree. With these MPG limits, trucks would be 0-60 in like 20 seconds, and sports cars would make a huge comeback. People could still choose big vehicles, but they sure wouldn't be cool anymore.

The Lexus LS600h gets nowhere near that kind of mileage.

This simply means congress is doing something that sounds "green" but is so far out that nobody will be in congress when they vote to push it out another 10 years.

I paid a $4000 gas guzzler tax on my 2003 M5, which pisses me off since I get better gas mileage than most SUVs, and at 1-2 thousand less pounds of weight, I'm not wearing out the pavement as fast as they are. In fact, I'm *re-sealing* the pavement regularly with those $350 Michelins.

Throw away the gas guzzler tax, the luxury taxes, and simply give cars tax credits for more fuel efficient cars to incent people away from.

Also give anyone injured in a tiny econobox fuel efficient car that was hit with an at-fault SUV driver a $5,000 victims tax credit to help them out, and a $50,000 tax credit for each person killed.

Why should you get screwed (killed?) on safety by driving a lighter car, at the business end of a at fault SUV driver?

You're absolutely right. The gas guzzler tax should apply equally--though I still think that you should have paid it on your car. According to the New York Times, SUVs are 80% more likely to kill when they hit someone, than if one had been hit by a car. Ironically the fatality rates, per mile driven, in SUVs (while getting better) isn't yet as good as cars and certainly not as good as yours or mine. (Saab 9-5 and Saab 9-3 have the 2nd & 5th lowest fatality rates of passenger vehicles in the US. The Mercedes E-Class is best. The Chevrolet Blazer is worst.)

indoctrin8ed, this the first I actually agree to what you have says here.

Are you serious? 13 years to slothfully develop cars to run 40% cleaner? The statement 'without hurting domestic auto makers', implies that North American automakers do not want to spend the money into engineering cleaner cars. Since manufacturers are hurting right now, the idea of trying to pour millions into engine development is out of the question because thousands of jobs will be lost, which the senate does not want to hurt an already fledging economy.

detroit is NOT a "fledging" industry/economy. it's been in business for over 100 years now.

maybe you meant "faltering?"

I could get 35mpg by 2020. This is pathetic.

Gonna be hard for them since the EPA has now just incorporated new measures for milage resulting in the milage going DOWN on all vehicles since it is now tuned more to real world and not lab studies. I also think it is not very fair that our COngress hangs this on our auto manufactuers. Why are foreigners excluded? Toyota is #1 in sales now here, let them fund it.... I just think, if you sell cars here, you are also responsible...Sometimes I wonder about our Congress...Our US Automakers are all but extinct, Ford is sucking wind, who knows where Chrysler will be. I think people posting comments are misunderstanding. Rupert it is not a single car getting that milage. It is the average of all the cars you sell. They can have a car get 100mpg, but if it doesn't average out to the rest of the brand, they get penalized. I dunno.... I still think all makers should share this, just not domestic ones.

You cannot penalize businesses into success. Disincentives do not work.

Incentives work.

Necessity is the mother of invention in a free enterprise, capitalistic society.

So what government can, and should do, is to remove the costs (taxes) to the CONSUMER to buy things that inspire big businesses to invest big bucks on research & development, so they can make BIG BUCKS on it. Everyone wins that way and the American (or whichever economy you want to insert here) economy wins too.

Another example of this that is working is the tax benefits of installing wind farms. It's turning into a very profitable business.

At first I sort of was freaked out about this when I heard that Bush was trying to push this threw a few weeks back because I feared this would probably be the death of V8 engines and higher and I was also wondering how this affected companies that rely specifically on high end vehicles (bentley, maserati, etc.)

Let's take your "average" mpg hwy for a V8 (assuming it's an American v8) and you can say safely that hwy is around 18-20mpg if you're in the 360+hp range. A 4% increase basically equates to less than 1mpg extra for the first few years and then going up into slightly over 1mpg extra that has to be added. If you want to simplify things, you can see that they have 13 years to basically increase mpg by 1.3mpg per year assuming you're at 18mpg hwy. Realistically, that's not that bad and if American car companies suck that bad to not be able to get another single mpg every year out of their vehicles then it just goes to show that they deserve to be in the situations they are finding themselves in now (struggling).

Alternative fuel/hybrids is going to be where everything eventually ends up going anyway and I would personally love to have a sports car hybrid... something with v8 power but getting 30mpg... that'd be freaking amazing. Hell, I love v8's and even when i drive lighter cars with high end v6's that have the same 0-60 as a v8 they don't give you the feel and the g-force that the v8 does...but frankly, gas prices are way out of hand and it only seems like it's going to get worse and since I don't have the cash to afford two cars (a daily driver and a weekend vehicle) I need a vehicle that's both sporty - to fit my personal wants - yet practical (good gas mileage and comfortable to be in on a daily basis)...

I was glad to see a few companies showing off coupe and sports car hybrids at the recent shows and I'm personally holding off on buying a new vehicle because I think 2010-2012 is going to have some nice things... at the very least I'll probably have a diesel based engine for my next car... that new Audi Q7 TDI looks kind hot :)

hmm i guess thats why Honda is rated the number 1 auto company with the highest MPG average

Fact: GM sells more cars that get 9 to 11 MPG than any other car company.

The hummer, for starters.

THE REAL REASON WHY YOU DONT SEE HIGHER GAS MILEAGE IS BECAUSE OF THE WAY WE PAY FOR OUR ROADS IT DEPENDS TOO MUCH ON THE MOTOR FUEL TAX THATS WHY YOU DONT SEE THE GOVERNMENT PUSHING TO RAISE CAFE TO 45 MPG LIKE IN THE EU IF THE GAS MILAGE IS TOO HIGH THEY WONT MAKE ANY MONEY OFF THE MOTOR FUEL TAX THEY ARE LOOKING AT FINDING A DIFFERENT WAY OF PAYING FOR OUR ROADS EITHER BY CHARGING A MONTHLY TAX ON OUR CARS OR BY HAVEING US PAY BAISED ON USE OR HAVEING ALL TOLL ROADS UNTIL THIS ISSUE IS RESOLVED YOU WONT SEE THE REAL HIGH GAS MILAGE.