Obama's 35.5-m.p.g. deal may be a game-changer - Detroit Free Press »
Posted By gamahuche 6 months, 2 weeks ago in News
President Obama will announce Tuesday a breakthrough compromise to set tough standards of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016 for new cars and trucks in return for California backing off its push for more stringent rules on automakers.
The rules could radically reshape the U.S. automotive industry by forcing automakers to push higher levels of technology such as hybrid-electric drives into vehicles faster than once planned. The deal fulfills Obama’s campaign promise to push Detroit and other automakers toward more fuel-stingy vehicles, but will also sharply raise the industry's costs for meeting regulations.
Under the pact, new federal rules would increase current mileage standards 5% annually to 39 m.p.g. for cars and 30 m.p.g. for light trucks in model year 2016, said a senior administration official. Current standards require new cars to average 27.5 m.p.g. and new trucks to get 23.1 m.p.g.
Detroit and foreign automakers have long fought the California standards as too stringent, complicated and expensive, saying they could lead to a patchwork of state-level fuel economy standards.
Automakers agreed to the plan to win a national standard giving them targets for the next eight years, rather than setting short-term goals. California, the nation’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, will defer its rules through 2016.
Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, called it “the single biggest step” ever to curb global warming."
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Submitted By:
gamahuche
"I would rather be a square peg than fit in a pigeon hole" -
an essay which won me the "Lamb Essay Prize" at the Religious ...
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gamahuche6 months, 2 weeks ago
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mcgrievysr6 months, 2 weeks ago
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capecoralMComment removed: Retracted by user2 Replies
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hyperbola6 months, 2 weeks ago
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Actually it might be essential to US automakers being able to compete with the rest of the world.
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U.S. vehicles rank bottom in world fuel efficiency
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States ranks at the bottom of industrialized countries in vehicle fuel-economy standards....
...U.S. fuel-efficiency requirements for passenger cars have been stuck at 27.5 miles per gallon since 1985, while the standard for pickups, minivans and other light trucks will increase from 20.7 mpg in 2004 to 24 mpg in 2011.
That puts the United States behind Canada, South Korea, Australia, China, Europe Union and Japan in vehicle fuel economy, according to the report from the International Council on Clean Transportation....
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN302495...
Apart from that, our devotion to ugly, boring suburbs where people drive for hours every day is probably the biggest handicup we have imposed on ourselves in competing with other countries. Sure do miss efficient european public transport systems! -
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Endoscopy6 months, 2 weeks ago
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This is a very stupid idea. Global warming has been debunked and these people still have not heard the news. Mars and the Moon are tracking the temperature of the earth. So that is not a reason for this. Reducing dependence on oil is a nice idea but at what cost. They have cars like this in Europe. They also have the problems associated with the smaller cars. Higher mortality in crashes. How many dead people are you willing to accept to acheive these gas mileages?
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gamahuche6 months, 2 weeks ago
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I was able to get the heads-up on this story out to groups, through the usual propeller "Share Story" feature, but not to individuals. I tried a couple of times, restarting the computer in between, but got an incomprehensible "Internal Server Error" both times..
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SO I'd be glad if you like this story if you could pass it on to a few friends.
Thanks, g -
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Natureboy6 months, 2 weeks ago
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Why can't cars be made with no emissions????
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Electric cars shouldn't have significant emissions. But the power plants that produce the energy to charge them do, and many of those plants burn coal. Oops. Same problem with the "clean" hydrogen-burning car.
Any vehicle powered by combustion will have emissions - you put something in, like gasoline, you have to get something out. Unless you are living in a Star Trek screenplay and are converting matter directly to energy.
Volkswagon make a prototype two-seater, street-legal passenger vehicle in 2003 that got over 250 MPG on diesel and cruised at 70 mph. They never took it into production, claiming there was no consumer interest.
As far back as the early '80s, the Japanese were selling passenger cars, vans and SUVs which got over 50 mpg.
http://www.japanoid.com/
So Obama's fuel efficiency requirements are not only do-able, but laughably so. Still, the petroleum industry owns us, so watch this get shot down.
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FrankHummel6 months, 2 weeks ago
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I suspect the gambit to require ever higher fuel efficiencies is really a (very ADMIRABLE!) "back door" approach to actually COMPELLING people to do what they really SHOULD have done LONG AGO NOW ALREADY.!
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CONTRARY to the notion that has been propagandistically cultivated among the hugely techologically IGNORANT preponderance of the "body politic" --- which has evidently been beguiled into believing that any meaningful change is predicated on hypothetical "exotic, futuristic" NEW developments "in the laboratory" over, say, the next fifty years or so --- it would LONG AGO NOW ALREADY have been possible to adopt an alternative-technology drive paradigm of the automobile that could actually ELIMINATE "our" abject, addictive dependency on foreign oil! The many people who may not yet be aware of the fact that the means for ACCOMPLISHING that ARE in fact (and have in fact LONG BEEN!) in hand need to wise up and be informed about some basic technological realities:
The truth of the matter is that by the mere application of very OLD technological concepts --- applying to the mere AUTOMOBILE things worked out MANY YEARS AGO NOW ALREADY in much HEAVIER-DUTY systems --- "we" could LONG AGO now already have easily FLAT-OUT ELIMINATED by now about THREE-FOURTHS of oil importation to refine into gasoline to fuel "our" automotive vehicular fleet --- had “we” but had the wit and the wisdom to do so!! And “we” would have thereby simply AVOIDED the huge waste of an entire WAR that has now crashed “our” whole economy!
However OUTRAGEOUS and OUTLANDISH that assertion may sound to many, make no mistake about it: PRECISELY THAT genuinely, simply IS the implication of the “new” ELECTRIC / I.C.E. "chimera" automotive architectural concept --- exemplified by the imminently forthcoming (really much belated!) Chevy VOLT --- or if not THAT, then by its now slightly-FURTHER-advanced EUROPEAN counterpart (jovially dubbed the AMPERE), soon to be followed, no doubt, by still other entries into the “development derby” coming from all those clever folks over in ASIA.
The idea involves BATTERY POWER carrying the car a number of miles (in the case of the VOLT, FORTY), with an internal combustion engine then kicking in if (and only if) the battery runs down. But FULLY THREE-FOURTHS of all personal auto usage "fits" within a forty-mile power budget! You go to the store, bank, doctor, etc., and you come back home AND PLUG THE CAR BACK INTO THE WALL. MOST OF THE TIME THE PETROLEUM-POWERED ENGINE NEVER RUNS!-
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FrankHummel6 months, 2 weeks ago
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Actually, BOTH components of the "chimera" are VERY OLD technology. ELECTRIC cars have been around since the EARLIEST days of the automobile. (And by the way, the speed record for ELECTRIC-powered cars these days out at the Bonneville Salt Flats now stands IN EXCESS OF FOUR HUNDRED MILES AN HOUR. So how’s THAT for speed and power?) And the I.C.E "fallback" component, involving a petroleum-powered engine that is coupled NOT to an elaborate, troublesome, expensive TRANSMISSION / DRIVE TRAIN but, rather, merely to a GENERATOR that supplies the ELECTRIC drive motors (which had been powered by the BATTERY until it ran down) --- is a paradigm implemented on a much larger scale on the RAILROADS and also in the BIGGEST SHIPS on the high seas! (Anybody ever hear of the DIESEL-ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE??)
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The truth is, really BIG-MUSCLE machines have LONG relied on relatively simple, UNbreakable MAGNETIC-force drive elements rather than on complex, fallible mechanical ones --- because “we” simply couldn’t BEGIN to engineer a viable CLUTCH to couple internal combustion engines (which by their basic nature CANNOT operate all the way down to zero RPM as ELECTRIC motors can) to really HEAVY loads!
I submit that all the folks who now dither and blather about the "meltdown" in the "financial sector" are in reality BEING DIVERTED AWAY from what really should be the MAIN object of their exasperation --- which is actually the FAILURE of "our" past MISguided (or maybe more like MISBEGOTTEN!) MIS"leadership" (both “political” and also “corporate”!) to fulfill their ACTUAL obligations to the membership of this society (and others) --- which WOULD have been to OPTIMIZE BOTH THE CHARACTER AND THE QUALITY OF "OUR" PRODUCTS, rather than to merely MAXIMIZE ”THEIR” MONEY!
Now I wonder just how THAT sort of technological / economic realization must now weigh on all the folks who long sponsored and bankrolled the likes of a Saddam Hussein (by buying so much of what he "had to sell"), and who (or whose kids and grandkids) have subsequently been lured off into fighting a dirty little "OIL war" over in Iraq, making "us" lots of enemies the world over and in some cases even coming back dead or permanently damaged "our"selves --- or who may have LOST LOVED ONES or friends therein?? Surely it is a very UGLY, HATEFUL reality to which to have to face up. But would it somehow be any "better" for people to now just meekly try to erect a "psychological defensive barrier of DENIAL", letting their RIGHTFUL wrath and ire be "harmlessly" diverted over to and dissipated on mere practitioners of artificial hocus-pocus involving "our" mere "financial system"??! Would not THAT actually merely COMPOUND the REAL fraud that has been foisted off on the REALLY aggrieved victims??!
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Natureboy6 months, 2 weeks ago
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Begin with this premise -
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We are running out of oil.
We can have more, maybe, if we stop clearcutting the forests and let them decay into more goo. We should have the oil reserves back in 150 million years or so, that's how long it took the first time around.
So, how will you/I/we live without oil? It is academic whether you get 15 or 35 or 180 miles per gallon on a fuel that no longer exists.
How will you/I/we live without oil? How will our children live? -
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TheNewsseeker6 months, 2 weeks ago
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This is a great idea, because it forces the US-automakers to create fuel-saving cars, a trend that has already started in Europe and will surely go on. The main reason for the situation of GM and Chrysler is their ignorance of the growing importance of the economic aspect, when people buy a new car. I think, with business as usual, the US-car-industry won´t stand the crisis!
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dgoodii6 months, 2 weeks ago
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Now Californian emissions policies will not be able to choke out diesel powered vehicles. The two stroke may be able to come back as well. If they are actually going to just set standards and allow the makers to meet them however they and the consumer choose to.
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Most foreign makers have few vehicles for large families that travel or tow on a regular basis. Most only market those to government and industry if they make any.
Europe and Asia have no comparison to the USA on what families and people need for transportation. Besides none of them are truly free as we in America are, choose for your self, allow others to have what they need and choose for themselves, it is not your money.
Those who choose to live in the city kennels of the world should not dictate to the rest how they must get around. Set a standard on emissions and then allow the people to make vehicles that meet them, no matter huge or micro sized.
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capecoralMComment removed: Retracted by user
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BB646 months, 2 weeks ago
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So not only is his messiahship taking over the auto industry, he's not recreating physics. There are only so many ways to increase mileage and decrease emissions without decreasing safety standards. Great, battery powered Nerf cars. Wow, a win win for Obama's trial attorneys. Death traps with tons of law suits. Product liabilities, accident claims. What a joke our president has become.
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DarkWizard6 months, 2 weeks ago
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BB646 months, 2 weeks ago
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You talk about climate issues, please explain. The earth is cooling, at least over the last 10 years. We have more than enough oil, coal and natural gas so why are we wasting huge resources and buying into very unreliable concepts.
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getreal16 months, 2 weeks ago
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A half way step in the right direction is better than no step at all. Problem is, who in this country can afford to buy them? Gas prices are up and going again, along with every thing else. Something is going on and I don't like the looks of it. There are a few people running around in their old heavy metal cars right now and they are not using gas. I think it cost them 800.00 dollars to turn their car into an electric car without an exhaust system. Whats wrong with that? I would if I knew how to do it.
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BB646 months, 2 weeks ago
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I would love for you to explain how you are converting an older car to electric for only $ 800.00. The batteries alone would run several times that.
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If you want better control over your fuel, drill here in the USA. If you're afraid of bothering the wildlife, then convert coal to gasoline. You crush the coal into a slurry and process. Minus the crusher/mixer, it uses the same refineries currently available. This could be up and running within 18 months. Estimated costs would be equal to $40/barrel crude. If you used all US based coal, you would have all of the profits staying here. American workers, mining American coal, being processed by American refineries. But I guess this concept isn't possible for the liberals. This would provide jobs for thousands and reduce welfare rolls across the nation. The DNC can't survive without them.
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simonsez6 months, 2 weeks ago
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I'll keep my full sized car thank you.
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If Obama gives the UAW 55% ownership of Chrysler, I'll make sure nobody in our family ever buys a Chrysler product again.
Also, if an accident is imminent, I will instruct them to pick one of these little cars to hit so they won't be hurt.
Thanks Obama for taking such good care of me ...-
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BB646 months, 2 weeks ago
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I agree. One other question. If the UAW owns the company, who will represent the actual workers? The UAW is a business and treats their members like cash machines. At least at the Kenosha plant. Does this mean the union workers will have to start a new union to fight against the UAW?
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BB646 months, 2 weeks ago
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Why? The batteries you guys seem to want to use are going to be a much larger problem. Lithium Ion and NiCads are all hazardous waste and require special handling. I can't wait to see you guys explain why we have to spend billions to clean up your batteries. Once again, a knee jerk reaction that will cost us trillions. And you guys are supposed to be the ones caring about the planet. Yea right.
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BOOWAH6 months, 2 weeks ago
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It won't work & they know it. People won't go the additional cost for an already overpriced car and will seek out low mileage, pristine used cars like I already have. Four years ago I bought an estate sale 89 Caprice Classic, loaded with options and only 30k on the clock. Paid only $5,000 for a car that rides and performs like a dream. I just had it repainted and all of the door dings taken out. Now it really is a brand new car and I'm still under 10k. I just hope that Obama doesn't listen to that damn fool Congressman that wanted to make the tailpipe emissions test so stringent that no used vehicle would pass and we'ed be forced to by a new "piece of junk" car whether we could afford one or not!
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HOUSEMD6 months, 2 weeks ago
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GAME CHANGER!!!!!! ha ha ha . this is the shoe that we have been waiting to drop. this will kill the auto industry OR give obama the reason to take control of the industry completely. the costs to retool for this will be astrnomical and the companies are in a lot of trouble now. AND WILL YOU BE SATISFIED DRIVING THE EQUAL TO A YUGO????????/
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undrgrndgirl6 months, 2 weeks ago
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omg! 35.5 mpg...please, apparently there aren't enough of us here who know that cars manufactured in the 80s and early 90s were capable of 35.5 and MORE...why this is considered some kind of milestone is embarrassing...had the car companies stayed on the trajectory they were on in the 80s and early 90s we'd have cars RIGHT NOW that would get 50+ mpg (and i ain't talking hybrid)...
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rick19686 months, 2 weeks ago
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You are right - my 1985 Chevette Scooter got 35 MPG easy but, you have to remember that the EMISSION STANDARDS are much higher now and to lower emissions unfortunately you lose efficiency of the motor ie: lower emission worse gas milage.....
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Patrick
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trmnatr26 months, 2 weeks ago
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THE PROBLEM WITH THE AUTO COMPANIES HAS BEEN THAT THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATIONS ALLOWED THEM TO PUT OFF THE MILAGE STANDARDS THAT THEY AGREED TO YEARS AGO.NOW,THEY HAVE A PRESIDENT WHO REALLY WANTS TO MAKE PROGRESS IN THIS ENDEAVOR AND THEY ARE STILL COMPLAINING.I HOPE THAT THEY WONT BE ABLE TO STOP HIM OR THE NEXT PRESIDENT FROM ENACTING THESE STANDARDS BUT I WONT BE SURPRISED IF THEY DO.IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR US,THE CONSUMERS AND EVEN FOR THEM IF THEY GOT THE JOB DONE .THE AUTO COMPANY THAT LOWERS THE FUEL USAGE FOR US WILL BE ULTRA SUCCESSFUL,WHETHER IT BE FORIEGN OR DOMESTIC.
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trmnatr26 months, 2 weeks ago
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OIL IS DONE, ACCEPT IT.AS SOON AS THE ECONOMY PICKS UP ,IT WILL BE $6.00 TO $10.00 A GALLON. HAVENT YOU NOTICED ,EVERY TIME A BIT OF GOOD ECONOMIC NEWS COMES OUT ,OIL GOES UP IN PRICE.THE OIL COMPANIES ARE ONLY HOLDING BACK UNTIL THEN.DONT BE DUMB AND BUY A GAS GUZZLER BECAUSE THEY ARE CHEAPER NOW.
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Goppy6 months, 2 weeks ago
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I must say, I have been so impressed with President Obama's energy.
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It's simply amazing all the issues he is pushing along. Very Impressive.
I mean, just think, by this time in his first term, George W. Bush had already taken long vacations ... and the rest of the time ... he was busy figuring out how many Liberty University grads he could hire, and planning his Iraq invasion.
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Icantwait6 months, 2 weeks ago
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My Fellow Americans: Well, the Con Artist is at it again. Global warming again surfaces as the number 1 Con of the Century. This is the coolest summer on record in history. The Earth is cooling down so better come up with something better than that Con Job. So, he is going to force his new Companies to make some new electric roller skates for everyone even those who don't want them. They will have a Battery that can't be disposed of and actually will not last more than about a year. Where will we get the Electricity to charge them up? Oh, the big fans, yah they can barely charge up your toaster. So, we won't use coal to create the electricity, and we won't use oil to create the electricity, and I guess wood is out. I believe that leaves Solar Panels, I guess we will cover the whole planet with them so we can provide enough electricity for Bumble Bee, Arizona. Pure Genius. By the way I am going to keep my Huge Truck and since I, the real genius, transposed it to get 77 miles to the Gallon without hardly any emissions looks like those little Kiddy Cars are going to have to really work hard to catch up with me. People you will not have a choice to buy what you want you will have to drive what he wants you to drive. He says you have to pay more but in the end you will save money. Remember, once you get the death trap and if, I say if, it can perform like he says it will and you actually start saving money. Time for some more taxes. What a guy this Obama. Don't you just love him? Yes, all the Liberals think that he's the Man. The Real American
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