Are You Going To Let The Liberals Force YOU Into A 60 MPG Skateboard By 2025?

Well... these laws only effect mass market car brands correct? I believe the cutoff is 100,000 units per year (could easily be wrong on the number though). I guess I'll be limited to limited production marquee's and used cars, unless I find an electric car appealing enough.

I believe that is to determined. But I do feel that we are replacing a fossil fuel dependency with a rare earth metal one. Just look at how little E85 has been produced yet corn prices double.

E85 is a first gen bio fuel... technology is already at 4th gen... second gen promises to provide fuel from waste products such as corn stalks and fecal matter... third gen uses algae to act as highly efficient biofuel solar panel which I think will be what allows us to keep making ice powered vehicles. Fourth gen is something a bit different... it deals with efficiently converting these fuels into something we can use. But, as always, politicians are slow on technology.

I don't think we have to worry about rare earth metals, when they do increase in price economics will force a shit towards a new medium, be it bio fuels, battery technology that doesn't use these metals, or even dare I say it... hydrogen fuel cells provided they can overcome all the massive technology hurdles in regards to storage, energy release and capture efficiencies etc.

*E85 from corn*

Another partisan tripe headline from Autospies, I remember a long time ago when Porsche just made sports cars and Autospies just gave you news about cars. More and more articles are just forum for the editor political rants.

I wonder why I stop by this site sometimes.

The headline may be partisan. However, this will without a doubt have an effect on the automotive industry. Keep stopping by. It make for interesting conversation.

Oh, don't sweat it, guys. The legislation just wants American car makers to be as good in 5 to 10 years as the Asians are today.

Personally, I truly believe in Yankee Ingenuity. Americans have proven they can do amazing things, especially when they have their back against the wall. Remember putting a man on the moon and bringing him safely back, before the decade was out, and on a shoestring budget?

The problem with the US Auto makers is that they got lazy and fat, crying "unfair advantage due to cheap labor in Japan" during the 1970s, and then "unfair advantage due to the cheap yen" in the 1980s, and so on. The US auto makers used to be the world's leaders, until they rested on their laurels, and allowed much of the automotive world to pass them.

When things get bad enough, we'll make changes. We may let the US automotive dinosaurs die, rather than keeping them on tax-payer paid life-support hand-outs. They may restructure into something relevant. Or they may simply start making noteworthy products. (I just think it's hard to build a great new house on rotting foundations).

So take this legislation in stride. Improve, rather than complaining and trying to stay the same old same old. I'll be cheering ya on when it happens, and bowing to your for your accomplishments. Go kick some world-market butt!

I didn't realize that asian manufacturers were getting 37.8mpg averages among all their cars sold and 28.8mpg among their trucks. </sarcasm>

cafe, is averaged fuel economy based on the number of units sold. Please provide a source for your claim, I highly doubt it given they barely sell any cars that even get 35mpg on the highway.

thank you for providing your source, this really makes cafe standards look a lot weaker then they actually are. The only honda cars that get above 36.5mpg are the civic hybrid at 41mpg, and the crz at 37mpg and insight at 41mpg. Yet these vehicles only make up less than 3% of honda's total sales. lol

also, I find it hilarious that you insult me for not knowing things when I asked for a link. How on earth does that negate any of my postings? lol

I totally get that. I was only stating how lax their standards must be. Cafe of 38mpg sounds impressive but in reality it's closer to 30mpg epa average among produced cars. Which doesn't sound impressive.

It’s not very smart to be disrespectful to at least half of your readership - that is the liberals and progressives. Further, I don't think many folks here are interested in political opinions of some redneck. I check out this forum to read about cars, so if you cannot provide that then just shut up and go play with your gun, read your bible, or whatever it is you monkeys do.

I will look for an apology from the editor.

Remember, for the moderators, it's all about page views and click thrus.

Look who's being disrespectful to half the readers. So we (conservatives) are rednecks who play with guns while reading the bible i guess while swinging from trees like a monkey. Saying something tongue in cheek is one thing. Your first sentence sums it up. "It’s not very smart to be disrespectful to at least half of your readership." Lol.

The Liberal headline is only to get you riled up. After you read the story, you realize it's just another article about the automotive industry.

better question is: Are You Going To Let The Conservatives Force YOU Into A 8 MPG behemoth By 2025 by not using new-progressive technology?

Who the hell writes the titles to these articles? If I wanted political opinion I'd turn Fox News. I come here to read about cars, not to listen to rednecks spout their BS. We can get the exact same car news a dozen other places, so why isolate so much of your readership and instead do your job and write about cars, not politics.

how about instead of stupid MPG laws like this we just invest in an alternative fuel like hydrogen. Electricity is still dirty (depending on where you live and your power plants). We freaking own Chrysler and GM why not say, "hey, well invest and put in a single hydrogen pump in every gas station in the US but you have to make a version of your most popular cars run on hydrogen and not cost a huge amount more". There would be a large initial investment, but the research and implementation of the technology would create a lot of jobs while also cutting our addiction to middle east oil.

you do realize where they make hydrogen right? And no it isn't from dirty electricity, it's from dirtier hydrocarbon cracking... i.e. straight from oil...

what are you talking about, they are able to make hydrogen from... water, and the only byproduct is water. You use solar electricity to split the oxygen and hydrogen atoms apart, and recollect the water "exhaust" to be turned back in to hydrogen again

Yes, they can make hydrogen from water. But it is a very energy intensive process, and solar power has coupled with electrolysis would be an extremely expensive and not very efficient endevour. Most of the worlds hydrogen comes from a process called hydrogen cracking. This process emits carbon, and lots of it!
CH4 + H2O ? CO + 3 H2
CO + H2O ? CO2 + H2

*solar power coupled*

and those ? were supposed to be arrows.

There is a company in Denmark (I think that's where it is) who has already perfected the use of Solar energy to separate the hydrogen from the water as you fill your car so that the hydrogen doesn't have to actually be stored. They've found that it is in fact possible to do it efficiently, but this is why I said to do more research in how to efficiently release the bond between hydrogen and oxygen.

oh really? how efficient are you talking? The current world record holder solar panels are only 43% efficiency, and the panel is about the size of your palm... that thing will cost you billions to use in mass production, and will never pay itself back. Current silicon solar cells are a MAX of 23% efficient. The last way, which is the way I think you are thinking of, by refracting light and super heating water... and using that steam power... is only 27% efficient into electricity... beyond all of these is still the inefficiencies in producing hydrogen from electricity, which is a 50-70% process.

GM already has a fleet of hydrogen cars and is in the process of making the technology more affordable for the masses.


http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/chevy-equinox-fuel-cell-suv.htm

gm is also leading the way in hcci combustion technology. Hcci combined with 3rd gen bio fuels and coupled with hybrid technology would be the cheapest way to implement a carbon neutral transportation grid. You would still use the same gas stations, and engines could be designed to last longer since they only operate at peak efficiencies. Hydrogen fuel cells are a fad, most major fuel cell companies like Ballard have switched away from automotive applications to remote power solutions due to storage issues, cost issues, and efficiency issues (i.e. fuel cells needing to be operated at extremely high temperatures to get decent efficiencies like 95%, otherwise they are stuck in the 50-60% efficient range and this is energy recovery which is ignoring the creation inefficiencies).

You guys should change the name of your website to Flamebait.

That's it. I'm done. The editors of this site allow or even encourage Agent009 to play the troll and get more pageviews by riling up half the audience. I'm not playing that game. AutoSpies is off my feed list as of now. I'm guessing there must be other auto news sites that somehow manage to cover the auto industry while avoiding trolling and flamebaiting.

Editors, if you rethink your position on this and put a stop to the political silliness, drop me a line and I'll happily come back.

More people will log in and discuss more Topics if.....

1. leave politics to a minimum.

2. Drop the boos/deboost option to promote more actual discussion and therefore loos the cowards way of disagreeing.

3. Stay objectionable as much as possible about what brands you like/dislike.

How's that hope and change workin' for ya?

A lot better than if she were elected

To quote Moses..."You will take the keys to my 500hp V8 from my cold dead hands !"

this is not a hard goal to accomplish...i use a '96 200sx SE-R as my daily commuter and avg about 33mpg.

i would hope that with today's technology and upcoming advancements, 40mpg avg's should be a walk in the park...even for the lead-foot drivers.

All we're doing is trading one demon for another - Shell and Exxon for Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison (here in Cali).

Do you really think that electricity rates will stay low once demand increases?

You can be sure that these electric companies already have their presentations ready for the California PUC (Public Utilities Commission) justifying rate increases due to increased demand from e-cars.

BUT I will agree that we'll reduce our reliance on foreign oil, stop giving money to crazy Sheiks who hate us, and probably reduce the amount of carbon that we're spewing into the atmosphere (whether that causes global warming is irrelevant, fewer emissions is always good).

But my point is that there is no free ride. We're going to be screwed by some big industry, whether its foreign oil or domestic electricity.