New CAFE standards – less safe, more expensive cars
Hey, who could ask for anything more? Here they come … Obamamotors bringing you smaller fuel efficient cars that you won’t buy unless … well that question gets answered in the video below.
President Obama today announced a landmark tax … errr … fuel efficiency program, one that will set higher CAFE standards for automobile company fleets, as well as nationwide emission standards, California style. The result, says the WSJ, will be higher priced, smaller cars on the road.
By 2016, if the new rules take effect as planned, new passenger cars sold in the U.S. will have to meet an average mileage requirement of 39 mpg, up from 27.5 mpg currently. Light trucks would have to deliver an average of 30 mpg, compared with about 23 mpg today.
and this …
The technology required to make the cars and trucks able to meet the proposed standard could add $1,300 to the average cost of making a vehicle — a significant share of the money Detroit’s auto makers are trying to save by slashing their union retiree health care costs.
But will you actually want to buy these little babies? Well you haven’t wanted to do it yet. This is just a great little piece of video from Fox. It’s an interview with Mike Dushane of Car and Driver. He says the $1300 additional cost is probably low balling because unless people buy them in mass, the price will be higher. And the odds are they won’t buy them at all unless ….
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSe8vaYTE6o
Now … what could possibly make them want to buy these little cars? Ahhhhh, geeeee, shucks.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QY4hv5t7Hg
Vroom,vroom, vroom.
8 Comments
The website's content and articles were migrated to a new framework in October 2023. You may see [shortcodes in brackets] that do not make any sense. Please ignore that stuff. We may fix it at some point, but we do not have the time now.
You'll also note comments migrated over may have misplaced question marks and missing spaces. All comments were migrated, but trackbacks may not show.
The site is not broken.
Buy the teeny-weeny cars and potentially get crushed by an SUV
or
Drive your old car to the ground and get crushed by EPA taxes
Hmmmm…It is a Catch-22
And it's also for the childrun'
(get more mileage with that phrase)
You nailed it, Bro. Increased gasoline taxes are only moments away. So far we've seen increased cigarette taxes. To pay for rotten health care for all, he's proposing a tax on soda, plus increased taxes on alcohol, beer and wine, and making workers pay tax on the "value" of their employer provided health care. To that we add the "tax" to all who use virtually any product, most notably, electricity, under Cap and Trade. Other than taxing the air we breath, there is nothing left to tax. So he'll increase all of the above taxes as time goes on, including gasoline. What ever happened to the "if you are earning less than $250,000 you will not see your taxes increase"?
Do you realize what a pain it is when I get one of those Smart Cars stuck in the wheel well of my Suburban? Or when they go "crunch" under the wheels like a beer can?
The funny (if you like gallows humor) thing is that even in Japan, where they have really tiny cars, the fuel average isn't 40 mpg. So how are we going to do it?
One sure way is to go Diesel, but darn, those enviroweenies just don't like Diesel. A Jetta TDI can break 40 mpg, and usually 50 mpg or more, with ease, and are actually substantial and fun cars to drive, unlike the hybrids, with expensive, impossible to fix (say goodbye, backyard mechanic) engines and battery packs that are more toxic than any gas or Diesel burner around. Heavy metals, anyone?
Remember the last "gem" the EPA and the DOT tried to foist on us: MTBE fuel additive? Oxygenate the fuel, destroy the water supply. Pure, unmitigated liberal genius, that.
I am beginning to feel like I can see into the future …. I see … lawsuits … yep …. what do they call it? Oh, Wrongful Death on the part of the Auto Makers. I see … more bailouts, yep, for the automakers we are bailing out now. Oh…. wait …. yes, I see the Global Warming argument dying out. And … still seeing into the future, we have no more land for the junk yards of SUVs. hehehe …. ok …. i will stop. Sorry, I am making light of some very serious stuff here …. like my sweat, blood and tears lost to make a freakin' dollar for myself.
Smart cars… feh.
Land Rovers and Hummers use them as life-rafts.
I recall my youth when, during a drought, we were implored to conserve water. Shortly thereafter, the utilities got a rate-hike, based on a lack of income based upon declining consumption. This is just so much twaddle.
You have seen the future in Oregon: faced with the loss of gasoline revenues due to increases in the use of small, fuel efficient cars, they are conspiring to tax their citizens on the miles they drive, not the fuel they consume.
The government always gets the money from the citizen, but it is only the citizen that has to sacrifice in the name of liberal "goodness" and "good intentions."
When people get more of the "facts" about these cars, which I call "pregnant roller skates" being not only more expensive as well as not being safe, they will in rebellion "cling" tight to their real cars despite the EPA's effort to blame them for so-called global warming.