How Will American Automakers Meet New Fuel Efficiency Standards?

...short, simple, answer: Yes. Because they could've done it 20-30 years ago, *IF* they'd wanted to...but didn't because the marketing "shirts" didn't believe it was necessary to profit margins.

...for instance, in 1982, GM told the SAE that they could produce a 2-seater that got 60 mpg (to beat the Hondas), but wouldn't because it wasn't a viable market!

Auto manufacturers produce what people want to buy. Now we have the government effectively limiting people's choices. If this is your idea of progress, you must be very happy. I suspect November 2012 will be a referendum on liberty.

a "dual clutch" automatic transmission designed to save fuel because it emulates a stick shift

Somebody help me out here. They are saying, in essence, that using a manual transmission is better for gas mileage than an automatic transmission. This seems wrong to me because people don't generally drive in such a way to save fuel. I would think that this would be more pronounced in a manual transmission vehicle. With modern auto computer systems, I would think that the gear shifting in an automatic transmission would be optimized for fuel economy - maybe not primarily, but in there somewhere. I am not a "car" person. Can anyone explain?

Hi Mikerho, i'm not a "carperson" either, but the dual-clutch transmission has been fitted to Volkswagen Golf and Passat the last 3 years, with Ford's version developed by Cosworth, the tuning department of Ford, in the Focus model the last 2 years.

A dual-clutch design almost have the efficiency of a manual transmission with the benefits of an automatic gearbox. When first gear and clutch is "on", the other clutch is synchronizing with 2. gear, gets synchronized and shifts automatic to 2. gear like an automatic gearbox and so on. It can also be semiautomatic, and have the "kick-down" possibility too. Computerized, of course.

Hopes this clarifies your question. My 1.8 liter gasoline Peugeot goes 12 km/l, but I can get it to go 14 km/l with careful ecominding driving. Its 12 years old. Most newer cars goes 20 km/l easily, but of course with smaller engines. The tax-rules in Denmark prevents me from buying a newer car, as we pay 180 % in tax of the price of the new car. And in a couple of years we can buy electric cars, as a test project.

Regards, moe

I think automatics have inherently high loses due to the fluid flywheel. (Or do I mean torque converter?) being less efficient than a solid coupling.
I reserve the right to be talking complete boll***s here.
Where Bing when ya need him?
I think the automatic box is heavier too.
Del

How ? By funding the media to continue talking about Toyota's accelerator problems !

What they will do is create a one or two seater that gets about 80mpg, which will essentially be a throw away car, the rest of the fleet will be about the same, but the average mpg will meet gov't standards. I wish the gov't would just mandate a Star Trek transporter system and we wouldn't need cars anymore.

Kramarat is probably about right.

It is too bad that we can't be "free" to do as we want, but with 350,000,000 of us in this country and with limited fuel left in the ground, something needs to be done. It is too bad that we can't be free like we used to be before we started drowning in baby crap. It is also too bad that only a fraction of the people are willing to sacrifice to help with national security on energy matters.

Our lives depend directly on oil so we'd best be doing what we can to conserve it. Oil provides essentially everything we have.

I will be voting against the current administration in November due to their attacks on our freedom via their socialist/communist agenda, but efficient use of our limited energy resources is a good thing for America. ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU. ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY. I can drive a fuel efficient car, ride a bike once in a while, turn down the t-stat in winter, build smaller homes with lots of south facing glass, refuse to buy a big screen power-sucking mind-numbing TV, use compact fluorescent light bulbs, etc. Those things help my country AND they save me money.

You may not like the government madating fuel efficiency standards, but you are going to like it a WHOLE lot less when world demand for oil causes the price to go to $10 or more per gallon and half the people are starving because a box of cheerios costs $10. It's coming.