Carfanatic

Wonder how this will affect the future development of the pony car or performance cars in general?

Detroit News: http://detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...712020352/1148

Detroit Free Press: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...712020621/1014

Colorado_Mustang

Easy. Hybrids are becoming more commonplace, and they'll easily pull up the averages. SUV's and trucks are exempted by the bill, so that also makes a difference.

Basing "clean" on fuel economy is ignorant at best. The fuel economy of a vehicle has little or nothing to do with how clean it is. Motorcycles get 40mpg, but are still dirtier that trucks that get 10mpg. When CAFE decides to finally rate cars based on emissions instead of fuel economy, they'll be much less of a joke.

67mustang302

CAFE has been around for a while, and goes up. Though, there has been a trend lately towards overzelous expectations on some things. A 40% increase over the next 12-13 years in average fuel economy certainly seems feasable though, there's currently a surge in automotive technology leading to better fuel economy. Opel recently built a 1.3L turbo deisel race car that got around 110+mpg at an average racing speed of 140mph. And no, that wasn't a typo. Cleaner burning high mileage deisels are prolly gonna have a large surge in the next decade or so, along with continued development of hybrid and fuel cell technology. The German Navy currently operates one of the world's quietest submarines, it uses hydrogen fuel cells for battery power. The technology is starting to make it's way towards practical use applications.

Colorado_Mustang

The number one way to improve fuel economy would be to decrease the weight. Cars have grown to be quite heavy compared to just a few years ago. Still doesn't fix the real issues, however.