New Emissions standards

[Mike DC]

The govt wouldn't be keeping those crash standards so high if the public weren't so bonkers over the issue.  

 
The lack of truck MPG rules was a loophole around the intent of the existing CAFE laws.  This was obvious 20 years ago.  No decent company builds their entire profit margin on an unsustainable thing like that.  

    

[flyinlow]

Oil is a renewable energy if you can wait 200 million years for the next batch.

The universe runs on nuclear energy. Make  electricity and you can reshuffle the existing chemicals into any fuels you want. Alcohol, hydrogen,methane,diesel.

Fusion energy , I think is the long term solution. But until that technology is fully developed we need to use fission.

Conservation will of course be part of the answer, but every BTU of energy on this planet comes from the stars.

I do get feed up with the hysteria and power broking Al Gores in the system.

Look at the way we addapt and improvise our 40 year old cars and we are just hobbyist.

Good old Yankee engineering can solve the problems if we let it.    .

[LaOtto70Charger]

In Europe those cars were probably turbo diesels.  Try and find one in the states relatively cheap and not in a large truck.  There the VW and some Mercedes but still not common.  Bringing up safety standards try and find a vehicle that will take 3 car seats/booster seats in the backseat.  Minivans can do it but even those not necessarily in a row.  That and than you buy the seat on the width to make it happen. 

As for nuclear energy in whose backyard are you going to build the reactor and store the spent rods thousands of years?

I think they can make the new standards only because they the companies well throw every engineer at it.  Check into all the work the diesel industry has done to meet the 2007 and 2010 standards.  The cost increase though is huge.

[Troy]

You still can't run everything on diesel - it's a byproduct of refining oil into gasoline.

I'm all for improving fuel economy and emissions. I was just wondering if it's a case of too much, too fast? Since the general trend (in consumers) is to save money (and some "save the planet") I'd think the manufacturers would be trying their hardest to build cars they can market to that audience. I'm always hearing commercials touting the overall mileage/efficiency of a brand. Companies will spend money on the technology if its a financially sound plan (ie we won't see jet engines or flux capacitors in them any time soon). I like the new direct injection technology and I can see that as the next big step. I don't think the cost is a major deterrent and the benefits seem pretty big.

Troy