• Currently, the DOT manages fuel economy, the EPA deals with emissions, and CA can use the Clean Air Act to come up with even more stringent rules. This could create a situation where car makers have to deal with rules from three agencies. The new rule is a national standard that CA will support and the DOT and EPA will both adopt.
• The CAFE standard will increase by five percent each year, building on the 2011 standard, until we get to 2016. This means an Industry standard of 35.5 mpg by 2016, an average increase of eight mpg per vehicle.
• Drivers will recoup the additional cost to buy one of these more-efficient vehicles in three years. Drivers will, over the life of the vehicle, save $2,800, on average, he said.
  
• Obama said the new rule will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the next five years, and is the projected equivalent of taking 58 million vehicles off the road.
• Despite previous disagreements between environmental and industry groups, the national policy has been agreed on and a series of "major lawsuits" will be dropped.

Obama: CAFE increase to unified national standard of 35.5 mpg by 2016 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 19 May 2009 12:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Group sues Obama administration over weak MPG standards

Group sues Obama administration over weak MPG standards originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ward's columnist wonders if Americans can handle the truth about gas taxes originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 27 Dec 2008 18:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Industry sets fuel efficiency record in first half of '08 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Toyota tops big company CAFE ratings for 2007 model year with 29.69 mpg originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

GM responds to new CAFE standards originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Mr. Porsche goes to Washington: Low-volume CAFE classification could save Porsche millions originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Did you hear that? It was the sound of fourteen gauntlets being thrown down by import automakers in the halls of Congress. That's the number of foreign car makers including Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Hyundai that have said they can meet a CAFE standard of 35 MPG -- they just can't do it by 2020 and request "several more years." How many more is several? No one says, but it's a start.

The group in question is the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, which has decided to stop trying to fight the 35 MPG standard that's being proposed. Mike Stanton, president of the group, has called that figure "a pretty sacred number" on Capitol Hill." That group, though, is different than the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which is the Big Three, Toyota, and five others. They say the Association's position isn't at odds with theirs, which makes sense because no one is saying that 35 MPG isn't achievable. Everyone just wants more time to do it, and again, the Association hasn't said how much additional time it wants.

The import makers haven't decided whether they still want to fight the merging of car and truck standards into one single standard for an automaker's entire fleet. It will continue to fight Congress' wish that more cars run on mostly ethanol, and it doesn't want to keep certifying domestically-made and imported cars separately. We would tell you that the debate over federal CAFE standards should come to an end later this year as some analysts claim, but we have little faith a final agreement will be reached.

[Source: Auto News, sub req'd]

Imports tell Congress they can handle a 35 mpg CAFE originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A group of Congressmen and women wrote a letter to the principal -- President Bush -- and told him not to pay attention to what the other students are saying. The sixty-four representatives requested that President Bush choose the house version of the fuel economy bill still being debated in Congress, not the Senate version.

The Senate bill was passed this summer that mandated 35 mpg by 2020 for both cars and trucks (the current CAFE standard is 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.5 mpg for trucks). That bill didn't include the 4% annual increases in CAFE standards after 2020 that senators wanted. The bill being presented in the House is the Terry-Hill bill, which would raise CAFE standards to between 32 and 35 miles per gallon, but keep standards separate for cars and trucks.

The Representatives wrote to Bush because the bill is not following the usual course, so they want to prevent any extra-Congressional agreement between the Senate bill supporters and the President. The Terry-Hill bill has the support of automakers and the UAW. With Senator Carl Levin working in the Senate to get his Big Three constituents taken care of, the final fate of the bill is far from decided.

[Source: Detroit News]

Sixty-four House Reps ask President to favor softer fuel economy bill originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 22 Oct 2007 09:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.