Obama tells EPA to reconsider fuel emissions.

wow!! don t have to read this thread to know that i am standing in a long line of replies to this statement...

granted... it is true that Obama in his week of power has not been able to undo 8 years of complete idiocy that bush provided.

granted... Obama has only had a few good moves once again, in only a week, but bush did not do anything right. his tax rebates was stupid, useless, cost us billions and did not do one single iota of good.

his tax rebate for Hybrids penalized success and is the worst piece of legislation that was... OH WAIT!@!! forgot about the Patriot Act ALSO DONE ON bush's watch... so the the hybrid tax credit was the 2nd dumbest piece of legislation EVER...

 

Yes but in his defense he was neither smart enough nor strong enough to resist becoming a sock puppet.

 

very true...no one could have made that many mistakes without a lot of help

 

As in Europe, fuel must be $10 gal. The "extra" supports universal health care, light and high speed rail, and photovoltaics. Germany is leading the way. The US does not need to reinvent the wheel, just follow the successful examples of Europe.

 

so we should raise prices?

here is a pic taken TODAY jan 29th, 2009 at a Texaco in West Olympia. granted this sign was sitting in front of station and not on its display... but could this be on the horizon??

**edit**

since i saw this sign when driving my Zenn, i have to say, i am not bothered by it...

 

In reality, giving states their freedom to set their own standards will strangle the auto industry as a whole. The federal standards are there for a reason, a set standard that all car manufacturers world wide must meet to be able to sell a car. Now if you have 9 states that have their own standards, that is 10 different designs for one car line that the auto industry must have.

Lets face it, even with high gas prices, people still drove large vehicles, and will continue to because that is just how they are. I myself own an F350 Dually Diesel crew cab, a monster of a truck, but I only drive it when I need it, and I love to drive that monster, but even with fuel @ $2.09 a gallon, I have it parked in my garage. I drive my Camry more than any other car, mainly because it gives me what I want, it is a safe car, it is nice to drive, and fits my needs. I prefer to drive my Veracruz, but it is not practical to drive a 7 passenger car when I am only hauling 4 people.

But not everyone thinks like me, they prefer to drive the big SUV because it fits their EGO, and believe me we have the biggest EGO's around especially some here on this board! It is the classic US vs Them, with some of us like me right in the middle.

The Big 3 got their nice person in a bind because for the longest time, they built and sold what people wanted, and that was big SUV's. People dont want domestic cars due to the reputation they earned over the past 30 years. If a person wanted a car, they would go to foreign markets for them, so the big 3 basically put them to the side and built what they can sell.

Now to meet new standards that are going to be put out, they have to make small cars that, simply put, people will not want. The only one that may fair well in this would be Ford with their Fusion, only time will tell.

If you look at the overall range of vehicles being sold today, they already are meeting the strict emissions standards, some are getting good MPGs. OTOH what about all the cars that are already on the road that do not meet those standards? What are the new emissions standards going to do with those? What good is having tough EPA regs if no one wants to purchase the new cars because they are too small, and continue to drive what they already have? How can you cut emissions by 50% if no one buys new cars and continues driving what they already have? Just some things to thnk about.

 

Please stop perpetuating this myth.

There are only two standards allowed in the USA:

Federal and CARB.

That's it. 2. Not up to 50. Each state can choose whether to adhere to Federal emissions or CARB standards. Heck, since CARB standards are stricter, manufacturers could just build all their cars to CARB standards and be done with it!

Instead, they find that it's cheaper to sell multiple versions of the same car, Federal and CARB compliant. Why? Who knows.

The whole argument that supporting multiple (in this case, 2) emissions/fuel economy standards is expensive and will put the manufactures out of business is a red herring.

 

I was reading earlier today that the only reason California is permitted to derogate and set their own standards is that they had emissions regulations on the statute book before the Clean Air Act was passed. The CAA permits states to follow the federal rules, or California's rules, but it does not permit them to set their own rules.

In addition to that it appears that the EPA's bins are aligned with California's LEV II rules, meaning they currently only have to meet one standard, or, rather, pick which bin or LEV category they'd like to achieve. Toyota have gone for AT-PZEV for the Prius, which is why the current car has the bladder fuel tank - it reduces the evaporative emissions to practically zero.

In any case, there are many other emissions standards in the world than California's and the EPA's. The Prius appears to be virtually identical between the EU and Japan, and the North America model is again identical barring the addition of the coolant thermos and bladder gas tank, and removal of the EV switch - presumably Toyota couldn't get type approval for this.

If I'm reading the numbers right, the current model (2004-2009, NHW20) already qualifies for Euro 5, by a very long way. All emissions are less than one fifth of the limit prescribed. I would expect that the only reason it doesn't appear as a Euro 5 vehicle is that the test results, as submitted for type approval, date from December 2003.

 

Nobody is forcing Detroit to make a car that they are incapable of doing. They just have to do it if they want to sell in California.

Tesla is working on replacing those smog buckets Detroit favors.