enlightenment

Are you kidding me? That's nothing. 35 mpg average for their entire fleet by 2020 is not a difficult restriction to meet, especially over a 12 year period. If a car manufacturer can't figure that one out by then, they don't deserve to be in business. The Z06 is getting 16 city/24 highway and that's out of a 7.0L V8 putting out 505 HP. That's pretty efficient for a monster of an engine. Most manufacturers can meet this requirement in 2 years just by introducing and pushing the benefits of diesel engines. Also stop promoting SUV's. Slapping a hybrid sticker on to the side of a nearly 6000 pound vehicle and giving it to a soccer mom is not the best solution.

Chris S

Have mfgs. ever met any CAFE standards? Doesn't EPA just lower the hurdle when they don't?

Regardless, I believe we're at or near a high-water mark for raw hp, and high performance will be more reliant on weight reduction in the future...which could be a net positive for enthusiasts.

rockville

I believe the Japanese, Korean and Domestic manufactures all have always meet the CAFE requirements rather than pay fines. The Europeans I believe have simply just paid the fine. It would be very hard on BMW, MB, Audi etc if the CAFE fines were significantly increased. Then again, while I might not feel bad about say Aston Martin not meeting CAFE, BMW makes enough cars that perhaps we shouldn't let them slide. Or we should dump the crap that is CAFE.

rockville

I think the writer might be a bit alarmist but I don't think he is missing the beat by much. The sad thing is if we really make our cars that much more efficient, the price of gasoline will drop because we won't use as much. Then, like we did in the 90s, we will wonder why the hell we are conserving it and forced to by low power cars when gas is so cheap!

Again, it speaks for why a gas tax vs CAFE is a good idea.

__redruM

This is the type of problem VTEC is made for. Keep the S2000 under 5000rpms, and the milage is great, and CAFE is happy. If you keep the S2000 over 5000rpms, and gas milage sucks.

So as technoligies like variable valve timing and lightweight materials improve, this problem will solve itself.

flag2carrot

thats exactly the point - almost every company is developing technology or has it already available in order to meet these standards. look at what VW is doing back in germany. extremly small (1.2 lt, 1.4 ltr) engines, spooled up by a supercharger at low RPMs which gets supported by a turbo at higher RPMs. if you get a chance to drive it, it's phenomenal - torque, torque, torque, and way better fuel economy due to less internal friction.
Ford and GM are working on similar projects and will have them in the showrooms within a couple of years. VTEC could definitly be optimized for fuel consuption (that said, considering the weight of our toy, the S is a real guzzler though).

the standards that CAFE is proposing for 2020 could probably be met today already; CAFE is not any challenge at all. The other problem is obviously that CAFE penalizes the manufacturers (and yes, indirectly the future owners), whereas all european countries penalize the owners by way of gas tax, and in addition in some countries either by way of additional sales tax (sometimes called luxury-tax) or displacement (in cc) tax.

not to say that we should follow the european example (after all, i left for a reason....) or even going so far to say there is a climate issue (there is not), but better fuel efficiency would no doubt be in our best interest. after all, i want my kids to enjoy the same fun we have today in 15-20 years from now (no, they wont get my then vintage s2 for a sunday drive, no way).

plokivos

it'll make a lot more people happy just to cut California out of USA, and make it an independent country.

plokivos

I could always buy a motorcycle. that gets like 40mpg and still goes like bat out of hell.

Slithr

Even if you believe the folks at MSN and buy into the CO2 causing global warming hysteria, autos, especially new autos, are a small part of the problem.

It amazes me that the same people that demand that we preserve our old growth forests at all costs are the same folks that demand that we stop producing CO2. Young, growing trees utilize many times the amount of CO2 that mature trees do.

The real fun is in controlling what people do. California is full of bureaucrats and do-gooders that know much more than you about how you should live your life. Unfortunately their logic is rarely consistent or on-target as in the example above.

IheartS2ks

Believe it or not some restrictions are able to promote creativity.

For example Hollywood writers tried to get around the censors by being more creative; they used metaphor, double-entendre and euphemisms to describe things like sex and risque situations.

With total freedom you become too literal and in this case you cater to with what people want. And while that isn't a bad thing, car makers improve on certain things, while they neglect others (like fuel economy).

If this limit is imposed it can only be a good thing. I would like our country to get out the middle east and other unstable regions, use less oil (drill here in the US if we have to) while at the same time creating new sources of energy. If we are at the forefront of alternative energy and alternative modes of using that energy, this country will be better off financially as well as providing safety and security for our future.