Of course it’s feasible. Quite well within the realm of possibility. Americans just need to learn the difference between need and want. You don’t NEED a 350 horsepower SUV to shuffle the kids to school and back. You don’t NEED a 280HP sedan to shuffle yourself to work and back, alone.
Raise the gas tax to something similar to European levels and watch Civic and Fit-sized hatchbacks become very very popular very very quickly. Sure, Ford, GM and Chrysler will be driven out of business but they deserve to die anyway for making such obnoxious gross polluters–huge trucks and SUVs that dump greenhouse gas into the air and suck oil like a 5 year old on a McDonald’s “shake”. Americans shouldn’t be allowed to buy more car than they need. You should have to prove you need what you say you need before you can buy it.
I disagree with rebeldevil about forbidding Americans to buy large cars. That’s decidedly undemocratic. Just spent 4 weeks in Britain, and the average car there is small, but I did see a number of Rolls Royces, Range Rovers, 12 cylinder Jaguars, and even some large US SUVs.
What I did not see much of was pickup trucks; Brits are sensible enough to only buy these if they have an actual need for them, such as farmers and business owners.
The people who buy these gas guzzlers can afford them, pay a hideous gas guzzler tax, and a hefty annual road tax, in addition buying $4/gallon gas. But they are democratically allowed to own these cars. In Holland a Jeep Grand Cherokee costs about $100,000 while a Volkswagen Golf with a diesel costs less than in the US. It’s all about taxing high fuel consumption and rewarding frugal beaviour.
Car ownership in both Britain and Holland is very high, even though these countries have very good public transportation. People just drive less.
I think they can do it.
It’s silly to think that americans should give up their muscle cars. It’s an american way, I am not saying you should drive to work in a 450 hp camaro, but those cars should NEVER go away. I have to say that for putting around town or whatever, it is sensable to have a nice 29 + mpg car.
America can produce enough oil, but enviro people don’t want to let oil companys drill.
There are two arguements that I have to say for performance of larger cars and trucks. If you have ever driven a 3 cyl geo metro, they don’t get up to highway speed fast enough to merge correctly into 60mph traffic. Not to mention that until all roads have the same sized cars on them you are putting yourself at risk driving such a small car.
Boston just finished up the “Big Dig”. Cost was in the Billions. The ORIGINAL design had a provision to drastically increase the surrounding public transportation system. It was scrapped because it would have cost well over $2Billion for just the Boston Sub-burbs (Inside the Rt 128 belt). Now multiply that across the country to have good public transportation everywhere here in the US…Can you say “hundreds of Trillions”. It’ll make the Financial and Auto Bailout look trivial.
What has come of the imposition of the CAFE standards to date? More fuel consumption! Greater fuel economy inexorably leads to more vehicles and more miles driven. Oh, unless you either depopulate the nation or impose a horrendous tax on fuel.
Maybe you like the idea of having politicians and bureaucrats decide your needs, restrict your choices, and dictate your behavior by punitively squeezing your hard-earned cash from your pocket or purse. Maybe you earnestly believe “our leaders” spend all the tax monies we pay wisely and for the betterment of all. If so, I really think you need to wise up before it’s too late.
Perhaps it is already be too late for those of us who truly value our liberties.
Great idea! Government deciding what’s best for me. And what’s next–will they tell me what size fridge to buy, what size house I need for the size of my family, how large my family should be, what city I must live in, how often and where I can take a vacation, what job and education I must pursue? This was tried (to a point) in Eastern Europe before the walls came down and it failed. I value the freedom to make these decisions for myself and feel I can make these personal decisions better than a committee can.
I think acceleration, and handling are how *everyone* defines performance. Performance is performance, gas mileage is gas mileage (or fuel economy.) It'll be good to de-emphasize the acceleration of the car (as long as it's decent) and emphasize economy more though, but I don't think anyone's going to change definitions.
I think this 35.5MPG goal is achievable. There are two important factors in this:
1) The MPG rating is using "old MPG". The old MPG rating can be quite a bit higher than what's put on the sticker... A car that meets the 35.5MPG rating might only average like 27-29MPG on the sticker. This will make it easier than it at first seems.
2) The problem I've always had with economical cars is tied in with the obsession with 0-60, and car companies compromising the overall gearing in the effort to get a low 0-60 time. My 1985 Chevy Celebrity was pretty slow, the rated 0-60 was 12 seconds. I drove another car after that that was rated at 0-60 in 10. The Celebrity seemed faster and was easier to drive on the highway. Why? The 0-60 in 10 car was geared JUST to get a "good" 0-60, it would get to like 61MPH, drop in a steep cruising gear and have nothing left. The Celebrity made no effort to gear for a good 0-60, it's acceleration was consistent from about 5 to about 80MPH. Even though the Celebrity was "slower" I'd be going 75 at the end of the ramp, the "faster" car wouldn't even make it to 65 in that distance. (The Celebrity also had better mileage than the "faster" car.) It's important for lower-powered cars to be acceptable to more people, they have close enough gears (or a constantly variable transmission) so there are not these big cliff-like dropoffs and dead spots in the acceleration curve. Basically, getting back on track, if car cos DO drop the obsession with 0-60 time they may end up with more driveable cars.
3) I think with the newer CVT (constantly variable transmissions) or 6 (or more) speed autos, the variable valve timing and direct injection available, reaching a 35.5MPG average may not even be that difficult, and I don't think it's going to be the 80's all over again (dog-slow cars that threaten to stall at the drop of a hat...), I think the current technologies will keep cars *reasonably* performing while getting much improved gas mileage. If the car companies wanted to (note Lexus is already doing this) they can make some V8-acceleration vehicles with much more economical engines, since the electric motors can put out full torque from a dead stop.. so people who DO want more acceleration can still get it.
Americans like to be lulled into the feeling they have something very special. The Cuisinart food processor is called th “Robot Coupe” in France! Cuisinart appliances sell for nearly double what the regular Oster, Black & Decker, Sunbeam , etc. sell for. If they were only twice as good!
Many Americans who see lawyers and doctors drive expensive Mercedes cars in the US are surprised that the taxi they get into at a German airport is a—“Mercedes C or E Class”!
Honda, Nissan and Toyota wisely decided that the only way to sell luxury cars in the US was to set up special luxury divisions, with luxury prices, potted palm trees in marble-floored lobbies, etc.
Land Rover could have scored the ultimate marketing succes by selling a poorly engineered machine (Range Rover)for nearly $100,000 just because the queen and many British aristcrats drive these things. A friend in Kuwait who runs an oil service company calls his an expensive toy and would not let anyone go out into the desert with it.
The C in CAFE stands for corporate, not consumer. The government is not telling you what you must buy. It is telling corporates what they must sell. The governments ordered seat belts, dual circuit brakes, air bags, OBDII, and TPMS. Later on, cars shall have yaw controls and the entire fleet of cars should get 35 mpg on average. What you want to buy is up to you.
Alot of boost means compromised reliability. Also you can just as easily slap a turbo on a V8 as well. My car eats Evos and STi’s for lunch, even on a track with gasp turns.
I drive a 1997 VW Jetta. It has a 1.8L diesel engine and a 5 speed manual transmission. Nice family car, seating 4 comfortably and has a huge trunk. Over the 170K miles I’ve owned the car it has averaged 50+ mpg (us gallons, Midwestern climate). Nothing revolutionary about its technology or engineering. It was not an expensive car. We can make 35 mpg CAFE standards in a walk if we put cars like this in the showroom.
True. But Rebeldevil is suggesting that “…Americans shouldn’t be allowed to buy more car than they need. You should have to prove you need what you say you need before you can buy it.” I was responding to his ideas.
Your Jetta also produces all of 74 horsepower. That wasn’t much in 1997 and it’s even less by today’s standards. The new TDIs are better, but I don’t see the U.S. embracing diesel like Europe has any time soon. I wouldn’t want one. I drove a co-worker’s 2005 TDI Jetta to lunch a while back. I was not impressed. It had good initial grunt. But at 3000-3400 RPM the engine fell flat on its face and was producing far more noise than power. The narrow powerband means you really have to row through the gears to keep the engine in optimum range. I’ll take a gas engine every time.
Hey, Tom and Ray, you guys have engineering degrees! Assume a vehicle that weighs about 3000 pounds; how many kilojoules to accelerate it to a reasonable speed at a reasonable rate and keep it running there? How many kilojoules are available in a gallon of gas? Either the numbers match or they don’t!
The trick is figuring out what are a reasonable speed and a reasonable acceleration. So run the numbers at several. Start at 0 to 60 in six seconds for the power-crazed, down to 0 to 35 in 12 seconds for the soccer mom with passengers, cargo, and three cars in front of her…what do the numbers look like?
I had a 1986 Ford Taurus MT5 that did 25 mpg city, 40 mpg highway. Big, comfy car. The only thing it would pass was a gas station. If I could buy it all over again, I would!