10-03-2010, 01:00 AM
I'd say that the US vehicle fleet could cut fuel use by 1/3 or more with no pain whatsoever. Heck, just switching over to manual transmissions for a lot of vehicles would get you a 5 to 10% savings right there. There are just too many vehicles driving around with unnecessarily large and inefficient engines, and unnecessarily heavy vehicle weights in the US. Look how many Suburbans and giant pickups are being driven around these days by people who never even carry any cargo. Those types of vehicles were never even considered for regular household use here 20 years ago; the only reason they became so common was marketing by the automakers so as to exploit the commercial vehicle loophole in the original CAFE.
The rest of the world gets along quite well with more economical vehicles, including delivery trucks. European vehicles use many innovative technologies that reduce fuel use that have never been marketed here because virtually nobody here cares about gas mileage. It would be simple to simply port those technologies to the american market.
The rest of the world gets along quite well with more economical vehicles, including delivery trucks. European vehicles use many innovative technologies that reduce fuel use that have never been marketed here because virtually nobody here cares about gas mileage. It would be simple to simply port those technologies to the american market.