I know a lot FSAE alums went to work in the auto industry. I am not full time, I work in metal stamping and participated at Michigan Tech. I have had a few uneducated discussions and read the news about this, but I want to get an honest to goodness engineering opinion, is the strict legislation possible? 4%+ per year? Are product engineers making those kind of fuel enconomy concessions on current models? Do we have that kind of technology in the pipeline (without losing your job by telling me) to see those kind of increases without trading off emissions or reliability? How close are these engines to limits, and how much of this is political swaggering? Bob Lutz seems to think that this will add $6-7k per car, essentially mandating that all cars are hybrids.

For what it's worth, I don't think the environmentalists from the coasts have any idea what they are talking about (I am sure they hired experts though) simply because of the nature of this legislation. I am believer in the free market, and requiring the oems to meet fuel economy will not change consumer preferences and oems have to satisfy those at end of each quarter. Seems to me that if you want to make cars get better gas mileage, raise the price of gas and thus the cost of ownership of those vehicles. People will naturally buy cars that make the most sense for that person, leading to small cars beginning to make more money, yadda yadda yadda. If only we had a case study maybe 12- 18 months of recent history to demonstrate this most accurately. Hmm, I really wonder......

[Steps off soapbox]

Greg Ehlert