Yes we can. See?
Car and Driver weighs in on Obama's desire to hasten the Corporate Average Fuel Economy requirement of 35 mpg by several years.
Senator after senator cites as evidence for the attainability of these standards the vehicles sold in Europe. But car for car, European vehicles aren't meaningfully more efficient. Take the Ford Focus sedan, a car that's comparably sized here and in Europe (although not the same vehicle). In the U.S., the base Focus sedan costs $15,000, has 140 hp, and is rated at 28 mpg combined by the EPA. The base Focus sedan available in Germany costs $20,000 (plus 19-percent tax!), has only 79 hp, and would be rated by the EPA at approximately 30 mpg combined if they were to test it. (Our estimate is based on standard differentials between U.S. and E.U. test numbers.) Paying an extra $5000, Europeans sacrifice 44 percent of their horsepower and gain less than 10 percent in fuel economy.
So why is Europe's fleet so much more efficient overall? The cars people buy there are much smaller. The Focus is one of the tinier mass-market cars sold in the U.S. today, but it's considered a reasonably sized family vehicle in Europe. The average European consumer buys a car a few sizes smaller than a Focus. (This is mainly due to space constraints in cities and smaller roads. If Europeans drove the long distances we do, they likely would drive Hummers, too.) And about half of Europeans buy diesels, which consume around 30-percent less fuel.
(...)Forget radical new technologies for 2016 vehicles. It takes roughly six years to take a proven technology to mass production because of the engineering, validation, and tooling needed to attain the durability required in a motor vehicle. Any new technologies for 2016 vehicles will have to be sewn up by next year to make it to the showroom in any quantity.
All of this means that the anticipated $1300 price increase per vehicle quoted by the Obama administration is absurd. Only if consumers trade down a few vehicle sizes and pay $1300 can the targets be met.
Obama. Typical leftist. Wide-eyed. Open-mouthed. Out of touch with reality. Just a dreamer.
Yes we can? Suuuure we can. We'll see soon enough, pal!
Imbecile. Why listen to Al Gore? Why not use your freakin' brain?
Meanwhile, Obama gets to cruise around in these bitchin' wheels. Wonder how many gallons it takes to get this monster to move a mile?
Do you think Obama would sacrifice this cool ride to provide an example for us to emulate? Me neither. After all, neither Al Gore nor David Suzuki have.
