Dodd proposes 50mpg standard by 2017

[FogerRox]

http://www.youtube.com/v/pLh2udXF1N8


Thats a pretty lofty goal, and would be a great step forward. IIRC the average age of a car in America is 10 yrs old, so it would take ten yrs for new cars sold in 2007 to trickle thru to 2017. Of course 50 mpg cars are currently available, but still, I think this is a fairly ambitious goal, and a necessary one.

Didnt RFK jr. recently say at Live Earth that a 8mpg national increase would eliminate imported oil......

[youngdem]

1. Apparently, Christopher Dodd is high.

That is all I can think of.

FIFTY? In NINE YEARS?

There are almost ZERO fifty mile per gallon cars available. There are 210 MILLION cars in the US. How's that gonna work?

I applaud the goal, but this is just so outrageously impossible (especially given that two of those years will be run by GW) that it gives environmentalists a bad rep of being unrealistic.

Just step it up a set amount each year. The real goal should be electric only cars, and a focus on generating renewable electricity, then use a gasoline engine on board ONLY as a backup system.

[FogerRox]

2. If fleets sold in 2017 average 50 mpg, then in about ten more years 2027

it would be trickled down to the average Joe & Jane. I would say raise the mpg standards and push electric cars. do both.

[frazzled]

3. Zero 50 mpg vehicles? I get 50 mpg today.

C'mon. Our Prius averages 50 mpg, today: not in 17 years, but today. This is not such a lofty goal. I realize Dodd is speaking fleet-wide ... but it is still a very realizable goal.

[youngdem]

6. Yes, if they made200 million Prius', demanded that everyone slow down, and crush all other cars

Then, we could achieve the goal.

That's only 54,794 cars a day every DAY for ten years.

:eyes:

I kinda think that is unrealistic, and I don't think everyone is gonna be ready to throw away every other car currently in existence, either.

I think Mr. Dodd may in fact be high. And, perhaps, he is sharing it.

This is an unrealistic goal, to put it politely. Plus, if you really wanna be responsible, we should go straight to electric cars powered by renewable energy.

Hybrids just spread out the problem, and since our population doubles every forty years or so, we really won't be improving anything by going hybrid. We will just slow it down a little.

[Sanctified]

4. I would like to see a 50 MPG standard for 4 passenger cars

but it would need to be more realistic for 6+ passenger vehicles and trucks.

[FogerRox]

5. IIRC it would be a fleet average, but yes..

My 11 yr old dodge Mini van gets 30 hiway, current Ford Escape SUV Hybrid gets 34 average IIRC. A few gas/only cars get 45+ mpg, hybrids have much more potential, plug ins= 90-100 mpg.

I would like to see some incentive for folks to sell their old cars, if they replace them with new hi mpg cars. We need to get the older 10+ year old vehicles off the road, and recycle the parts and materials. Then these vehicles need to be replaced by new high mpg vehicles, this would increase sales of US made cars and speed the turnover of old to new.