Recently the White House released a bevy of new fuel efficiency standards that appear to be hit goals 4 years ahead of the last administration’s time line.
Many are praising the bold attempts by the new president to help the United States oil consumer break their addictions to foreign oil. The stark reality, however is that most of these “new” standards could have been reached at least 10 years ago.
The biggest challenge to U.S. auto manufacturers comes not in the form of technology or engineering capability to make better vehicles. Actually, little has changed with respect to the techonlogical landscape recently. Instead, car makers have opted to go the route of making and selling larger, heavier SUV’s.
And since light trucks and sport utility vehicles have a much larger profit margin, their sales have gotten most of the focus. Add to this equation the fact that the heavier vehicles require much more torque and horsepower, and you begin to “understand” what has happened to our declining vehicle fuel standards in this country.
With the new decree for higher miles per gallon to be achieved by 2016 instead of 2020, most analysts and experts are hoping to see innovation return to the U.S. auto industry.
