The average cost for Detroit's Big Three automakers to meet the proposed fuel efficiency targets of 31.6 miles per gallon by 2015 has been pegged at $30.6 billion. In contrast, the average cost for the Japanese automakers sits at less than half that amount at "only" $14.85 billion. These numbers come courtesy of a recent study by Global Insight. In a real shocker, General Motors alone is expected to pay out $15 billion alone. Why the disparity? Simple: the Japanese brands already offer more fuel efficient models. With that reasoning, it seems unlikely that the U.S. companies will get much sympathy from the buying public.

Global Insight also predicts that many new technologies which are just beginning to make a dent in sales today will make up a huger percentage of sales by 2015. These new developments include direct injection, turbocharging and diesel engines. Hybrids, the current darling of the fuel efficient crowd, will continue to gain market share, especially as more new models are rolled out which feature the hybrid drivetrain as an option or as standard equipment.

There is a glimmer of hope out there for automakers which are finding it tough to move vehicles in today's troubled climate. Global Insight predicts that there will be a pent-up demand for the replacement of aging models which owners have clung to in the face of high gas prices and a poor U.S. economy sometime around the year 2015.

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req'd]

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has been involved with the ins and outs of the CAFE standards for a long while. This week, following the NHTSA's call for a 31.6 mpg average (35.7 for cars and 28.6 for light trucks) by 2015, Pelosi had some kind word for the President and the NHTSA. So, first the automakers say they're OK with these stricter numbers and now Pelosi lauds Bush? What's going on here? You can try to figure it out for yourself by reading Pelosi's statement in full after the jump, but for a flavor of what she said, check out the opening bit that says, "The Bush Administration should be commended..."

Of course, Pelosi later says that the Administration continues to block progress on climate change legislation by fighting California's efforts to install its own rules. Whew, that's more like it. Thought for a moment there we weren't going to have a bumpy ride to 35 by 2020.

We all know that the Democratic Representative from the Automakers Michigan, John Dingell, is a foe of state-based regulations over the auto industry. Back in February, he tried to revive an excised portion of the energy bill that would have made federal CO₂ limits take precedence over state rules. In an editorial in Automotive News (subs req'd), Edward Lapham writes that it's Dingell who will be of very few lawmakers who "get" why America needs a national fuel economy law instead of allowing states to set their own rules. The three major presidential candidates, Lapham writes, don't get it and neither do many other in Congress. Lapham even equates states setting their own fuel economy rules "would be akin to letting them print their own money." For Lapham and Dingell, the protracted wait between federal increases in the CAFE standard must have looked pretty good. If all the power sits in Washington, then you can slow laws down there and be all set. I mean, if the feds retain control, then Dave McCurdy might be able to stay home more.

[Source: Edward Lapham / Automotive News (subs req'd)]

Now that everyone has had a few days to digest the impact of the new Energy Bill that was signed by President Bush on Wednesday, what do they think? Here's a cheat sheet:

• EDTA: "Applauds" the bill
• National Biodiesel Board: "Praises" the bill
• Jim Press, Chrysler Vice Chairman and President: "Praises" Congress and the President.
• Auto Alliance: "Pleased" with the bill
• Greenpeace: Politicians "responded by legislating on behalf of special interests rather than Americans and the future of the planet."
• GM: "Commends" the politicians
• Ford: says the bill will "provide a significant increase in fuel economy while protecting consumers' choices of cars, SUVs and light trucks"
• The Union of Concerned Scientists: "[The bill] begin[s] our journey to solve global warming and achieve energy independence."

I've pasted the full text of these statements after the jump. I found the statements from GM and Ford not on the companies' official media sites, but at Four Wheel Drift, which also includes this: "No press release can beat the positive PR received by Toyota, when Congress sent the bill to the White House in a Prius - illustrating that American lawmakers couldn't find a true icon of fuel savings locally."

[Source: the organizations listed above. Photo by Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty]

Not that there was any real question, but the 35 mpg CAFE deed is now done. President Bush signed the huge new energy bill into law this morning, and that means that automakers will need to have the average fleet economy of new vehicles reach 35 mpg by 2020. We don't need rehash the history of this repeatedly-weakened bill once again (see previous posts here and here if you need a recap); let's just be thankful that the 35 mpg standard survived all the backing down. And the Detroit News mentions this: "a measure in the bill that will provide at least $90 million annually for battery research to make plug-in hybrids a reality." Somehow I thought the PHEV money had been stricken. Hey, it's nice to be wrong. While the 35 mpg number won't kick in until 2020, the bill mandates changes starting with the 2011 model year. My, that's soon.

[Source: David Shepardson, The Detroit News, Photo by Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty]

U.S. military veterans' groups are getting involved in the Congressional mileage debate. The AP reports that about three dozen veterans from the group New Hampshire for Peace wrote a letter to Congress this week calling for the 35 mpg level in the CAFE standards to remain in the final bill. The reasons are pretty self-explanatory, if you see the broader picture. For example, the veterans say that the 35 mpg level would reduce imports by 1.2 million barrels of oil which is, as the letter says, "more than twice the amount we import daily from Iraq." The letter continues, "Much of the global oil supply is located in unstable and sometimes hostile nations, especially in the Middle East, and the burden on our military to safeguard access to that oil increases daily" and "the wealth we transfer to these regions in oil revenues has been used, and continues to be used, to fund terrorism and extremist, anti-American ideologies."

An October letter sent by Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, USN, Retired, covered similar ground. You can read his letter after the jump and sign on by clicking here.

So, who's going to call out the politicians who put the desires of the automakers over the wishes of (at least some of) the troops?

[Source: AP, Environment Colorado]

Forget MPG, just pull into a gas station with your Tesla Roadster and smile....
(Photo by Jurvetson. CC 2.)

Hm. While Toyota has been pushing for less stringent CAFE standards (and taking a beating for it), a group that Toyota is part of, the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, has told Congress that the stronger 35 mpg is acceptable. The twist is that they want "more time" than is being talked about to meet that goal (so, no 2020 implementation). As AIAM president Mike Stanton told Automotive News, 35 mpg CAFE is coming, so "Why beat your head up against the wall?"

AIAM is for asking the deadline, should it be 35 mpg, to be pushed back by "several years." Automotive News says that the AIAM's call "adds to the likelihood that Congress will pass a tough fuel economy measure this year." The Auto Alliance, which also represents Toyota, is calling for implementation of weaker CAFE standard that would put cars and trucks into two categories and calls for a 32 mpg average by 2022. Talk about covering your bases.

[Source: Harry Stoffer, Automotive News]