I liked the way this post was written as it makes the deadline seem an implausibly long way off. And yes, it is all rather ridiculous, especially when you consider how economy outside the US is forging ahead at a pace. According to Green Car Congress, average European passenger car fuel economy broke 40mpg some years ago: that's half as good again as the US currently, and 20% better than its 2020 target.

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And even US automakers used to make 40 MPG cars back after the Arab oil embargo hit us in the late 70's: many people have old US cars doing better than the new ones.

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That's a good way to look at it, keeps things in perspective. But it still doesn't change the fact that it takes many years to develop vehicles and powertrains. At least before the manufacturers will be able to attain 35 mpg, they will be making many efficiency improvements along the way. Every little bit helps, but as you point out, older cars, (today's ones), will still be on the road.
I'm still looking for something that compares energy usage and emissions from producing and shipping a new vehicle versus continuing to run an older vehicle.

The easiest way to lower our fuel usage is to get people to drive more efficiently. Driving habits can have a huge impact on fuel economy, enough to account for differences of 20%+. Perhaps we need to give out tickets for blatantly underinflated tires. We could save millions of gallons of oil in a year just from something like this. Proceeds would go to research on renewable energy. And I hate to say it, but better speed limit enforcement would help as well.

Atul
http://www.thingsivenoticed.com

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Susan,

True, but those vehicles were allowed to produce higher emissions and they were much lighter because safety wasn't as advanced, we didn't require so many luxury features, and we weren't so addicted to the horsepower that we buy today.

Atul

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Looking at European lineups can be instructive. High fuel efficiency there is usually the result of much smaller vehicles and greater use of diesels, both driven by substantially higher fuel prices and taxes. Carmakers in America (including Toyota, etc.) have reason to fear that Americans would not chose such vehicles as long as gas prices stay relatively low. And NOBODY can stay in business building expensive cars that customers don't want.

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The U.S. could improve its absolute fuel consumption 30% over night if we all switched to diesel. However, even the new clean diesel engines that sound and feel like regular gas engines produce more NOx than gas engines. Adjusting for fuel burned per mile, it's not that much, but the emissions cleaning systems that will bring emissions into alignment with gas engines and upcoming regulations in states like California is on the order of several thousand dollars.

We could also probably do 30% by switching entirely to hybrids, they have good NOx emissions out the tailpipe, but then we would be pulling over a million tons of nickel out of the earth each year or a million tons of lithium polymer, which requires mining and oil, and the cost would still be several thousand more per vehicle - not to mention the costs of other goods that use these elements.

We could also all switch to the smallest vehicles possible given family size/work requirements, that would probably save us like 20-30%, but no one will with gas prices fluctuating up and down. A gas tax implemented slowly with a known target price would force people to consider what car they buy for their next purchase. A gas "refund" equivalent to the cost of the gas tax for a year for a car getting 40 mpg might be a good way of helping the disadvantaged. But you can imagine the political firestorm that would create! But here is one solution of government intervention that I might support.

You could have all three I suppose, but then your stripper Civic would run for $25,000 at least - a nice EX would top $30,000! Not everyone would pay that to get 60 (real - not 2007 Prius) mpgs.

Truth be told, if we have hurricanes, if prices spike, if oil production peaks, whatever happens, the markets over the medium to long term will force companies AND consumers to adapt.

From a consumer perspective, we already see this. My neighbors who bought 4Runner after 4Runner finally stopped, despite the fact that they still have two kids, and bought a Fusion. From a car that got 15 to a car that gets 25. They chose something smaller and much more efficient. You see this reflected in sales of SUVs like the Explorer and 4Runner which are down 20-30% this year. If companies rely on vehicles that are inefficient thinking that the market will hold up long-term at numbers currently being sold, they only need to look at what consumers are doing. The ones that don't, will go out of business: GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, Nissan - it doesn't matter. That's economics.

Our government now demands 35, but it probably would have happened to most extent by 2020 anyway because of the demand shift that is occuring (assuming gas prices remain high). The question posed here is how best to do it in the short term, but to be honest, unless we are willing to make our emissions laws equivalent to Europe, our safety laws equivalent to Europe and force ourselves to buy cars equivalent in size as the ones in Europe in the short-term, regardless of economic factors, there is no short term solution on the horizon to get us to Europe level gas consumption.

Short-term shocks create dead-weight losses and dead-weight losses in an economy lead to profit losses, lost jobs and overall economic slowdown. If you don't think a short-term effort by the government would cause this, consider that the yearly new car business in the US is worth over $400 billion and then some for the loans, the used-car market, after-market, car services. Shrink the car business by 10% or perhaps 20% in the short-term and you shock the economy down probably closer to 2-4%, and we're in a recession. Do it long term by forcing consumers to make different decisions, and money will be moved to new areas efficiently: savings, new R&D, new enterprises.

I'm sorry we're worried about how slowly the government is moving, but any faster, and we would face economic instability separate from any effects from oil peaks, hurricanes or other energy-shocks. And that, ultimately, is NOT acceptable.

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