GM CEO says future gas mileage rules ambitious - Yahoo! Finance I'm posting this not so much about GM but rather I'm irked that the press is confusing the public by not being able to get numbers for fuel economy standards aka the CAFE numbers crossed with those that auto buyers see on window stickers and at places like Side-by-Side Comparison. That above is bull. The numbers for the standards are based upon unadjusted EPA city and highway numbers and are what are used for CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) purposes. The 62 mpg target does NOT exceed what the Prius gets. Per the 2010 data file at Download Fuel Economy Data, the 2010 Prius already gets "70.894 mpg" on the unadjusted (unfudged) numbers which are the same ones that count toward's Toyota's CAFE numbers. Fuel Economy: Doublespeak at its Best covered this long ago. A "35 mpg" CAFE rating == approx. 26 mpg combined on the window sticker right now.
In alternate news, 'Tesla CEO says future gas mileage rules are a joke' ;o) Just joking. I agree though, they need to use the same standard for measurement if they aren't.
CAFE numbers are unadjusted. Prius already met the 2025 goal, 15 years ahead of time and beating it by 11 MPG. That is quite amazing.
So THIS came from the CEO of GM ... whose recently departed leader (LUTZ) said, "bankruptcy is not in our future". (sigh) I guess "ambitious" is a lot better than the company fighting the new mandate. Of course they may do that (again) once the date gets a little closer, like they used to do.
This is the same GM CEO (Knucklehead) who was quoted in the Wall Street Journal saying, "that people don't care about gas mileage, they just fill up their tank when it's empty."
They're ambitious? The guy's an idiot - and the trouble is, most people can see it! Perhaps he should contact his European or Asian subsidiaries who are not far off, or meeting these targets already (and that's taking into account the US/UK gallon discrepancies). Saying that, it might be ambitious (read impossible) to get a GM Suburban to meet the targets!
The irony about GM management now days is that GM plays musical chairs with them ... not to make 'em better ... not to punish the outgoing ones for failure ... but simply so the corporation can say, "hey it ain't this guys fault ... they're new here".
Of course they're ambitious goals for GM if all they have to meet them starts with a $42,000 price tag! How long do they think the fed gov't. will subsidize their efforts? In all seriousness, I think they'll figure it out.
