The winds of freemarket are blowing...HARD! I hope all our car companies are taking notice: Either you meet the new 2016 CAFE standards or someone else will! I really hope GM is not expecting the Volt to raise the fleet average all the way all by itself to 35.5 mpg because as long as they are selling 15 mpg SUVs they will have a hard time meeting the goal. I do have a major concern about how the 2016 fleet average will be calculated and this is why:
Let's assume the public buys 100 cars rated at 35.5 mpg from a car company. After driving 15,000 miles each, you would have burned around 1,500,000 miles driven/35.5 mpg = 42,254 gallons of fuel. Now look at what GM is most likely to do:
If the Volt is rated at 100 mpg, GM could sell 36 Volts for every 64 SUVs rated at 15 mpg and still meet the 2016 CAFE standard with 0.5 mpg to spare (36 cars * 100 mpg + 64 cars * 15 mpg)/100 cars = 36 mpg!. If you calculate the effective fleet mpg however, this is what you get: if all cars are driven 15,000 miles, 36 Volts (100 mpg) will consume 5,400 gallons while the 64 SUVs (15 mpg) will consume 64,000 gallons. Then the effective fleet mpg average is = (15,000 miles/car * 100 cars)/(64,000 gallons + 5,400 gallons) = 21.61 mpg!
This loophole could be the size of a barnyard. I hope the federal government clarifies the calculation so that we don't have to endure lawsuits from car companies because they won't be able to meet the 2016 CAFE standards when calculated the right way.

The winds of the free market will, I hope be blowing hard soon
- this is a concept car.

Freddy T

Yes, lobbies will be called to find and/or create loop holes in the 2016 CAFE, they always did.

They will find a way to exclude most gas guzzlers and the remaining few imported smaller cars will reach 40+/mpg by 2016. Qualified CAFE standards will be exceeded and everybody will be happy in the land of .....

TT:

If one cannot compete in the world market building common sense high efficiency cars, it should be allowed to fold. That is the first law of free market.

It has already happened with many other products like radios, TVs, telephones, cell phones, computers, printers, cameras, buses, locomotives, rail cars, subway cars, ships, air planes, trucks, loaders, tractors, tools, hardware, plumbing equipment, cables, solar cells, e-motors, batteries, boats, lawn mowers, snow blowers, garden tools, cloths, shoes, boots, toys, books, games, audio systems, lamps, lights, glass, mirrors, furniture, wood flooring, ceramic tiles, paints, brushes, rollers, etc.

In the long run, can public money keep non-efficient manufacturing activities going?

How long can a large country prosper without an important manufacturing base?

USA (and many other manufacturing industrial countries) are faced with this dilemma. More of the same may not be suffisant to reverse the trend. Will the country find and follow the leader (s) with the appropriate solutions? A major long lasting recession may be required to make people realize and accept that major changes are required.

From creativforce

"This is what the Volt should have been."

This is a concept car and has doors that are not a reasonable real world solution. Also in my opinion, the Volt serial hybrid powertrain is a much better concept. The Kia concept car incorporates a CVT transmission. All CVT transmissions use friction which implies wear and efficiency loss. CVT transmissions are an outmoded concept. The dual clutch transmissions are more efficient. Yes, they have friction clutches but the clutches are only used during shifting and not continuously. The GM 2-mode hybrid transmission is also a much better concept than the outmoded CVT.

"uaw high milage small cars simply arnt profitable."

Germany has one of the strongest auto workers unions in the world and their car makers are doing fine.

It's a concept car.

And Ford, Chrysler and GM all had independent management but 4 things in common:
* The American market (with low gas prices)
* The ability to make BIG profits on big cars
* Inability to make money on small cars
* The UAW

Freddie

Your calculations are useless because you didn't read the CAFE` laws. outside of larger SUVs and trucks you would be hard pressed or find a single GM ca that doe snot meet CAFE right now.

Please disabuse yourself of the idea that CAFE measurements have anything to do with the arbitrary and constantly changed EPA window stickers, we are all familiar with. Unlike them CAFE has a standard unchanged since 1973 but with a single rewell documented recalculation, that allows cars of different eras to be measured.

DID you know or care that the Achieved CAFE for the domestic automakers was in model year 2009? The government actually calculates that figure and produces a sales weighted figure for each manufacturer.

The domestic automaker's cars actually achieved 33.47 mpg in the 2009 model year. Say it again, 33.47 mpg was what the domestic 2009 cars collectively obtained and achieved when measured by the CAFE laboratory measures.

Their truck ratings are obviously lower. On a cars only basis, they actually beat the imports by about a quarter of a mile per gallon. Terrible mileage from all those antiquated, gas guzzling, CAFE-fine paying, German Mercedes, BMWs, and Lexuses did the imports in.

You just didn't use the right ruler, and measuring stick.

It is entirely possible that no one will meet the truck rating beyond 28 mpg that was originally negotiated, when CAFE was raised. The Clueless One's cloacal cavities, know nothing, and figure if a Corolla can meet CAFE, why can't a Peterbilt or Kenworth Class 8 tractor do the same?

I know they TRIED to raise truck mileage to the same 35 mpg but I'm uncertain that ever became law, or just 'a goal', more verbal diarrhea to demagogue their juvenile, pseudo-intellectual followers, who carefully made sure they can't count either.

All had succeeded in graduating from college without ever taking any course that requires logic or counting beyond the rustle clink of coinage. Such is the carefully tailored coursework prescribed for Basket weavers, Finger painters, environmentalists, journalists, and tort lawyers.

The large expense for GM is retiree health care that keeps doubling every 10 years. Instead of Medicare for these people it is self insured, in other countries they have national health care. I remember the word "competitiveness" coming up from time to time, this is it.

@Stan
No one here is advocating a rise in oil prices. Freddy was talking about "fuel" prices; the gasoline and diesel you buy at the pump with the help of the America taxpayer who keeps the price low for you.

Gas should be bought and paid for at the pump by the driver, not paid for by non-drivers through the IRS.