36 MPG by 2020? By 2020? I got 54 avg. YESTERDAY! (Rant)

[fwiff]

Senate votes to raise fuel standards.
“The Senate voted Thursday to increase fuel economy standards ..."

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/21/breaking-senate-vot ... /

What’s wrong with these idiots?
What reality are they living in?

Why do ‘leaders’ never lead, and why does no one take a long view on anything?


Um, I hate to tell them this, but there will be more people and more cars by 2020.
How much do they think gas will be a gallon in 13 years? How much CO2 in the atmosphere?

We should be PUSHING innovation and challenges, not providing sycophantic pats on the back and saying, “see what we did!”

I am so SICK of these idiots. I’m sick of my party not standing up for what’s right and calling it ‘compromise’.

The EU, Japan and even China have higher mileage standards (about 40 by 2009), and even though the automakers are pissed, they’re still developing and coming around.

Yet another reason American products lose market share, because THEY don’t keep up! WTF’s wrong with these execs? Don’t they begin to get it?


End Rant.





On impulse yesterday, we took a road trip to the ocean and used about 4.5 gallons of fuel for a 244 mile r/t. We were caught in traffic and did a bunch of local driving as well as highway. AVG: 54 mpg.
Car: VW TDI- it usually avg’s in the low 40’s around town, and well into the 50’s highway. The best ever was about 65 on a long, cruised controlled highway road trip when we didn’t need open windows or a/c. (and I don’t go 55, I just can’t).

[Gabi Hayes]

1. My TDI, w/license plate

[fwiff]

9. Great plate!

I'd love to see some of those reactions when they realize who they are!

[liberaldemocrat7]

12. I get 30 miles per electrical charge on my electric motorcycle.

I get 30 miles per electrical charge on my electric motorcycle.

[AlGore-08.com]

2. "Testify, my brother and/or sister!" says a proud Prius owner

Bought mine in 2005... when I keep off the highways and drive on surface streets I get 55 mpg as well.

[montanacowboy]

4. Yep, I love my Prius

these idiots who keep kissing the asses of the auto industry will just do them in quicker and maybe that's a good thing

just let them kill themselves, soon we will have parking lots of full of gas guzzlers rotting away across the country

[WCGreen]

3. I guess they really want to push Auto manufacturing totally

out of the United States...

Damn, people will start buying all the imports simply because of the soaring costs of gas...

Then in ten years, Detroit will be crying about unfair trade practices

[Radical Activist]

5. Its the first increase in CAFE standards in over 20 years.

Its a GOOD thing! Yes, it could be better but what do you expect with a narrow margin in the Senate and a Republican President. This is progress and with a progressive Democratic President we can do more.

[AlGore-08.com]

11. If we had more than 10 years to stop global warming I would agree with you

But we've got very little time to stop the worst of global warming before we start suffering mass extinctions, coastal flooding, millions of climate refugees, resource wars, plagues, and possibly even the extinction of the human race.

We don't have time for baby steps. We need to be running for our lives.

[fwiff]

13. That's what I was trying to get at. nt

[Radical Activist]

14. So we let the perfect become the enemy of the good?

Do you want to do something good and then work for more, or do nothing, as the Republicans would like?

[TheWraith]

6. How about 130 miles per gallon next year?

That's the estimated efficency equivalent of a wholly electric car like the Tesla Roadster.

[AlGore-08.com]

10. The Tesla is cool but not even close to affordable -- base price $98,000

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php

[TheWraith]

19. Yes, but it's fitted out as a sports car. NT

[papau]

17. 2009 Prius said to hit 100mpg as a plug in :-)

[krispos42]

7. And yesterday the entire US car fleet, on average, got 24 mpg

Or something in that range, at least.

In order for there to be an average, there has to be both more and less.

The fact that you can is a credit to both you and Volkswagon. But not everybody can get a new car that gets such milage and not everybody can make a subcompact Volkswagon work for them.

My beater is a fair bit larger than than I need but I cannot afford a new one. I manage to squeeze 25mpg out of a full-size 18-year-old domestic full-size, though, so I don't feel to bad. In a few months, hopefully, my uncle will decide to buy a new car and sell me his '04 Subaru Forester, which is quite suitable for my needs as a single father in the snow belt.

If the entire combined new US car fleet is getting 36 mpg in 2020, then we are reducing our per-car emissions by damn near 50% for new cars, and since the CAFE standard creeps up starting in 2010, the mpg average for the whole US fleet should be up around 29 or 30. A 20% increase on a fleet of some 260 million vehicles in 13 years is pretty impressive.

[globalvillage]

15. Thank you for putting this in perspective.

It's a good bill. Of course we all wanted better, but it's what we were able to get with our slim majority. It is what we have for now, and I think that's a damn sight better than what we had. The first increase in CAFE standards in 20 years. I think it's significant.

I bought a new car last weekend. Spent a good bit of time searching for something that met my minimum fuel efficiency requirements (35 mpg) and was made in the US, and I found zip.

I had to buy from a foreign maker to get what I was looking for.

Lucky for me, the mini is the coolest thing on wheels.

[mmonk]

8. I'm glad you had an explanation at the end.

I was going to ask if you rode a horse.

[papau]

16. How Bush destroyed the US car industry after Clinton/Gore saved it with the 80 mpg car

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/papau/132

How Bush destroyed the US car industry after Clinton/Gore saved it with the 80 mpg car


Full sized sedan - Ford Taurus - gets 63 mpg in highway/city road test in 2000

[Crunchy Frog]

18. Gotta love that American "can't do" attitude.

I was listening to a program about this on Diane Rehm the other day, listening to all these people whining about how hard it will be to raise fuel efficiency standards to 35 mpg in only 13 years. It astounded me to realize that it took less time than that to go from the Soviet launch of Sputnik to putting a man on the moon.