New Car MPG Politics

[Kyle2k]

Originally Posted by radz282003

I don't think pointing fingers at this administration is relavent. Also, please tread lighly regarding pollitical comments. Those discussions will be scrutinized closely.

Respectfully...

I was just quoting bits a pieces of the article to ease the panic.

[RyanG]

Originally Posted by rolnslo

Why do people keep missing the point that this is the average fleet fuel economy number?

Take an SS @ 21mpg avg, pair it with two Cobalt XFEs @ 31mpg avg and your overall fleet average is 27.6mpg. Throw in a Volt and you're way over the target mpg.

As long as small cars outsell less fuel efficient V8 sports cars, GM won't have any problem meeting this new target.

rolnslo was right on the money with his statement.

Here is a good article on CNN that uses the language that put my Camaro obsessed mind at ease. When I first saw the headlines I was screaming, "I got to buy the new Camaro today!" But after reading this now I can wait the year I need to. They use words like "average" and "overall". Take a look.

Here is the link to the CNN article.
Tougher fuel economy rules announced

My favorite quotes are:

Under the rules, carmakers will be given individual fuel economy requirements based on their particular mix of models and vehicle sizes. Manufacturers that exceed the requirements will earn credits that would allow them to fall short of requirements in future years.

and better yet:

Since the requirements are based on averages, manufactures that sell more hybrid or electric vehicles could use those to offset sales of less-efficient vehicles.

I hope this helps put everyone's mind at ease. It sure did me.

~Ryan

[arozar]

MGP is lower with ethanol, if you look where you get gas most state 10% ethanol blend. My mileage is always lower with the blend.

[radz28]

Originally Posted by Kyle2k

I was just quoting bits a pieces of the article to ease the panic.

You know what: I think that was my bad. I'm sorry about that. I think I was looking at something else and allowed myself to get distracted. Again - my deepest apologies

[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by arozar

MGP is lower with ethanol, if you look where you get gas most state 10% ethanol blend. My mileage is always lower with the blend.

Right. But Ethanol has vastly lower emissions than gasoline; which is the point to the fuel economy standards in the first place: they want to lower emissions, and the easiest way to do that is burn less fuel. If Ethanol was used as a substitute, the goal would be achieved and "mpg" wouldn't be an issue at all.

[MrIcky]

Algae as a fuel source is a good point too, that's interesting and so simple relatively speaking. It takes so many of the down-sides away.

It may even be a net positive to pollution. For instance, the algae can be used to clean other sources of dirty water from organics (an algae farm can be put downstream of a livestock operation and the algae farm may use 10% of the water, but it will take out 90% of the nitrates). And it's theoretically extremely compact.

The fringes will always find something to bitch about, but it would be nice to have a new whipping boy.

[AZCamaroFan]

on the subject of California---a legislator there has introduced a Bill to limit the sales of black cars. Yep. Because black makes the air conditioning work harder.

You get what you elect.

[terndude]

Set up a still and brew your own ethanol from food waste and yard scraps. It can be done...though it isn't cheap!

My suggestion for all of the folks in the Desert South-West and California:

1) Put solar collectors / Photo voltaic everywhere you can
2) Use some of the solar electricity to split water via electrolysis into Hydrogen and Oxygen
3) Compress the Hydrogen using solar energy
4) Run your car on Hydrogen and dump the 02 back into the air

After substantial setup costs...which you could probably get some killer tax breaks for...you're using free energy from the sun, not paying a huge mark-up to any massive foreign oil corporations, and contributing zero atmospheric carbon with no pollution.
Of course, if you burn the hydrogen instead of using it in a fuel-cell battery, it can be pretty dangerous, but still has no net effect and produces nothing but water vapor.

Electricity is cheap up here in the NW because of all our Hydro and Wind. If I could have a fully electric "third" or "fourth" car at a good price, I would totally add it to my daily driver slot. If I could run it on solar and wind, even better. Then I'll go nutz in the Camaro on weekends!

Basically, as far as CO2 is concerned, I love it in my beer , but I think throwing 27 billion metric tons of anything into the atmosphere each year is a pretty bad idea.