What's a mere $2,000 more per automobile if you're pleasing tree huggers

Every time that fool signs his name he causes more grief for Americans

http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/16/o...to-car-prices-cost-157b-agencies-say/?print=1


Obama’s new fuel standards to add $2,000 to car prices
By C.J. Ciaramella 11:38 PM 11/16/2011


The Obama administration’s new proposal to double the fuel efficiency of cars by 2025 may cost up to $157 billion and add $2,000 to the price of passenger automobiles, according to two federal agencies.

In the proposed rule posted on their websites, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency predict the administration’s new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards would add an average of $2,000 to the price of each new passenger vehicle sold by 2025.

The NHTSA attributes the increased consumer costs to the price of developing new fuel-saving technology. However, the highway agency predicts the costs of the new standards would be offset by benefits of $419 billion to $515 billion.

President Obama said the rule, negotiated by the administration and a number of automakers in July, was a successful effort to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

The proposed rule would go into effect in 2017 and requires annual fuel-economy increases of five percent for cars. Ultimately, the rule would require automakers to reach an average of 55.4 miles per gallon for passenger cars by 2025. The current CAFE standard for 2011 is 30.2 mpg.

Light trucks like pickups and sport utility vehicles would only be required to raise fuel economy by 3.5 percent the first five years the rule would be in effect. After that, trucks would also be required to increase fuel economy by five percent a year.

Semi-trucks from model years 2014-2018 would have to achieve an approximate 20 percent reduction in fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, saving up to four gallons of fuel for every 100 miles traveled.

The White House says the fuel standards will save 12 billion barrels of oil, reduce oil consumption by 2.2 million barrels a day — about one-fourth of the oil the country imports — and save consumers more than $8,000 a vehicle in fuel costs by 2025.

However, the rules have worried several automobile trade groups, including the National Automobile Dealers Association and Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

“The proposed regulations present aggressive targets, and the administration must consider that technology break-throughs will be required and consumers will need to buy our most energy-efficient technologies in very large numbers to meet the goals,” Mitch Bainwol, chief executive officer of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said in a statement to Bloomberg.

Republicans, too, have panned the proposed standards.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has launched an investigation into how the standards were crafted. California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, who chairs the oversight committee, has questioned whether the rules were rushed and could jeopardize safety by reducing the weight of cars.

“Beyond jobs that would be lost as a result of this rule, there are concerns that these new regulations were crafted in a manner inconsistent with laws and basic standards of transparency that had the effect of hiding special interest agendas,” Issa said in a statement Wednesday. “The Oversight Committee will continue to conduct its investigation into the process that developed these standards and will continue to press the administration for answers on the impact this rule will have on jobs and vehicle safety.”

In July, when the rules were first drafted, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s spokesman wrote on Cantor’s blog that such rules “further tie the hands of job creators and add yet another hurdle to getting the economy up and running.”

“The result of these regulations means increased costs for businesses and families, and fewer jobs for workers,” the spokesman wrote. “Rather than placing additional burdens on working families and small businesses, Washington should be focused on removing barriers to growth and fostering an environment for job creation

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/16/o...-prices-cost-157b-agencies-say/#ixzz1e049SGJT

 

I know how dare we drive more fuel efficient cars! (*)(*)(*)(*) communists!!

 

Obama and his bright ideas.

he just raised taxes on anyone who wants to buy a new car.

 

buy them if you want. Once again we get the incompetent one signing an order which will have long and stinging results of the bonehead move

 

What's the cost of not regulating this?

Yeah, I know, **********s can't think that far ahead.

 

Who were these "number of automakers"? GM and Chrysler?

They're attempting to force us to buy green crap or walk. So very Progressive.

 

It isn't the matter of fuel efficiency, it is the fact that we are going to be forced to pay for this.

Would you be happy if the government caused every car's price to go up $2,000 to subsidize oil companies?

 

I can't think of one directive this guy has done which hasn't hurt Americans

 

In 15 years..........

 

then I guess Obama is just the gift which keeps giving?

How could anyone be so thick to not think they would affect pricing with more regulations?

 

Meme meme baggememembagger..........

There is no cost of not regulating .......

Hey, how much does it cost if you don't go to the grocery store? LOL

 

I take it that you'll never complain about gas prices again, right?

 

please explain to me how adding $2k to the cost per vehicle has anything to do with fuel price

 

lol no matter, ill just keep buying used and rebuild them when needed.

 

How bogus!

Every time there is a fuel standard proposed, the domestic car companies cry about the BILLIONS of dollars it will cost, and how each car is "going to cost a fortune."

Then, at the last minute, the car companies make some higher mileage cars that STILL don't get as good a mileage as the cheapo cars in foreign countries but do better, and end up making more sales because they FINALLY make something efficient the public wants to buy!

Does the Right even begin to believe these crocodile tears from these whiny "pseudo-capitalists" who have to be FORCED to be competitive?

 

None of that would have been necessary had Obama not taken away that billion or so money Bush set aside for hydrogen vehicles. Hydrogen is ready to go and could be massed produced in less than 4 years if we had refueling stations to fuel them. Hydrogen is clean burning, so it would clean the air. fight global warming and save on oil. All the things Obama wants to do now. But he took that money and used it for battery vehicles, that has a limited selling potential.

Now Germany and Japan saw ahead and are both building 1,000 refueling stations in their country. As usual, we bring up the rear. Big blunder on Obama's part. It would also have been a big shot in the arm to the auto industry.

 

Given current gas prices and an average MPG vehicle now and then, you'll make up that 2 grand in 2 years.

Keep trying.

 

Bull. Hydrogen is not ready for mass use. It simply does not have the storage technology required. I, for one, do not want to be sitting on a highly explosive tank of highly flammable gas in a vehicle which can go over 80 miles per hour. That sounds to me like sitting on a pipe bomb, because, well, it is sitting on a pipe bomb.

Never mind that using current production techniques, it requires either massive amounts of electricity or massive amounts of gasoline to generate that hydrogen. Better off just using the electricity to power the cars instead of using the electricity to make hydrogen to power cars.

 

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, whose mandate includes getting more fuel-efficient cars on U.S. roads, is disregarding advisers in his own department and seeking to cut almost half the federal funding for hydrogen-powered autos.

A Nobel Prize-winning physicist who also researched advanced biofuels, Chu says hydrogen fuel-cell technology developed by carmakers such as General Motors Co. (GM), Daimler AG (DAI) and Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) isn’t yet practical. Auto companies and members of a government panel say he’s wrong and that they will be ready to market such cars by 2015.

“Secretary Chu has firmly set his mind against hydrogen as a passenger-car fuel,” Mary Nichols, chairwoman of California’s Air Resources Board, said in an interview with Bloomberg Government. Her agency’s regulations affect more drivers than any other state’s. “Frankly, his explanations don’t make sense to me. They are not based on the facts as we know them.”

The Obama administration’s fading support for hydrogen is a challenge for carmakers who say advanced gasoline engines, batteries, biofuels and fuel cells are all needed to curb U.S. oil consumption and carbon emissions. Chu’s proposed budget, which cuts funds for hydrogen stations, creates roadblocks for retail sales of fuel-cell cars, the companies say.

Chu is “hostile to hydrogen,” Robert Walker, a former member of the Energy Department’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technical Advisory Committee, said in an interview. Walker, executive chairman of Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates, a Washington lobbying firm, and a former Republican House member from Pennsylvania, resigned from the panel in April over the budget proposal.

‘More Likely’ Options

Chu, 63, has advocated battery cars and biofuels as options more likely to meet U.S. energy and environmental goals in the near term. Discounting hydrogen means the U.S. risks falling behind Japan, Germany and South Korea in the technology because those nations are moving ahead with plans for extensive fuel- station networks to serve buyers of the cars.

“The secretary believes that we should fund fuel-cell research and development as part of a diverse energy portfolio, including both stationary and mobile applications -- and we are,” said Stephanie Mueller, an Energy Department spokeswoman.

Chu, who said in 2009 that the Obama administration was “going to be moving away from hydrogen-fuel cells for vehicles,” declined a request for an interview.

$4 a Gallon

Consumer interest in alternative-fuel vehicles has grown this year as gasoline neared $4 a gallon. U.S. drivers bought about 275,000 gasoline-electric hybrids last year, led by Toyota’s Prius, and GM and Nissan Motor Co. are boosting sales of rechargeable Volt and Leaf vehicles.

“Fuel-cell technology is viable and ready for the mass market,” Chris Hostetter, Toyota’s U.S. group vice president for advanced planning, said in a May 10 interview at the opening of a hydrogen filling station in Torrance, California. “Building an extensive hydrogen refueling infrastructure is the critical next step in bringing these products to market.”

Automotive fuel cells are layers of platinum-coated plastic film sandwiched between metal plates that create electricity from the chemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen. Vehicles use the same type of electric motors and controls as battery-only models, and neither emits tailpipe pollutants.

$10 Billion Bet

Toyota plans to sell a fuel-cell car in the U.S. and other markets by 2015 or sooner, Hostetter said. Japan’s largest automaker has said the model may sell for about $50,000, without elaborating.

Honda Motor Co. and Daimler offer a limited number of fuel- cell vehicles for lease in the U.S. Honda reported 17 leases last year, none yet this year. Daimler reports four leases through May this year. Automakers estimated the cost of fuel- cell vehicles was about $1 million each as recently as five years ago.

Globally, automakers have poured an estimated $10 billion into fuel-cell vehicle research, saying hydrogen provides range and rapid fueling that is comparable to gasoline and superior to plug-in electrics.

The Energy Department cut hydrogen funding to make way for biofuels, battery vehicles and increased fuel-efficiency standards, Steven Chalk, deputy assistant secretary for renewable energy, said in an interview.

‘Folks Are Frustrated’

“If folks are frustrated with that position, I understand that,” Chalk said. In a time of budget constraints, “we’re trying to focus on the things that are going to make the impact in the time frame that matters, which is in the next five years.”

The $100 million the department is requesting for hydrogen, down from $177 million provided in the 2010 fiscal year, “is still quite an investment, and we think we can be competitive,” he said.

President George W. Bush announced a $720 million research and development effort for hydrogen-powered cars in his 2003 State of the Union address. Congress in 2005 created the advisory committee that Walker ran, which tracks progress by fuel-cell manufacturers, automakers and energy companies pushing to commercialize hydrogen technology.

During his two years on the job, Chu hasn’t met with the committee, according to Walker and Chalk.

Chu told the Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee on May 18 that hydrogen tanks for fuel- cell vehicles are inadequate and that the technology contributes to carbon emissions, linked to climate change, because natural gas is the main source of industrial hydrogen.

Carbon Emissions

Toyota, Honda, GM, Daimler and Hyundai Motor Co. (005380) all say the hydrogen tanks on fuel-cell vehicles they’re testing in California and elsewhere provide the same range of 250 miles (402 kilometers) to 400 miles as gasoline autos.

Vehicles powered by hydrogen made from natural gas produce at least 50 percent fewer carbon emissions than the cleanest gasoline autos, according to Energy Department estimates.

Natural gas “will have to be significantly more abundant and less costly,” to make hydrogen affordable, Chu said at the Senate hearing.

Natural gas prices have fallen 66 percent since July 3, 2008, when it reached $13.577 per million British thermal units. The price for July delivery declined to $4.646 per million BTUs yesterday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

“Why is it that the secretary can’t look at the data, look at the facts, and arrive at the same conclusion that his own advisory committee has reached?” Robert Shaw, who is chairman of the 18-member advisory panel, said in an interview. Shaw is president of Arete Corp., a venture capital-fund manager based in Center Harbor, New Hampshire.

Taxpayer Funds

“It’s just not a good use of taxpayer funds,” Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said in an interview. Romm’s duties as an Energy Department official during the Clinton administration included supervising the hydrogen program.

Without an adequate refueling infrastructure, few consumers are going to buy hydrogen vehicles, he said. Without knowing whether the autos will be a success, there’s little incentive to build stations.

The U.S. has 58 hydrogen fueling stations, according to the Energy Department.

Germany, Japan

In 2009, Germany announced plans for 1,000 hydrogen stations. In January, Japan said it will have 100 hydrogen stations in place by 2015, and South Korea may have 50 by the end of next year and more than 100 by the end of the decade.

Electric vehicles can plug directly into wall outlets. They have the highest “bang for the buck,” Romm said.

Making hydrogen from natural gas costs $3 to $4 per kilogram, or the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, Shaw said in a March letter to Chu, and fuel-cell vehicles are twice as efficient as gasoline autos.

Air Products & Chemicals Inc. (APD), the second-biggest U.S. industrial-gas producer, estimates it can sell hydrogen from natural gas for about $5 per kilogram, Ed Kiczek, the company’s senior business development manager, said in an interview.

The company, based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, plans to install hydrogen fuel pumps at 10 or more Southern California gasoline stations in the next two years, he said.

California expects automakers to sell at least 53,000 hydrogen vehicles in the state to comply with emissions rules in 2015 through 2017, Nichols, head of the state air board, said, citing her agency’s surveys of automakers. Those saying hydrogen vehicles won’t be ready haven’t been keeping pace with advances made by automakers, she said.

“The conventional view is always a few years out of date, unfortunately,” Nichols said. “There’s also just a wrong premise that these different fuels have to compete with other, and one has to be a winner. We need all of them.”


http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/20...el-failure-conceded-by-chu-paring-budget-cars

 

Sooooo

then you opposed the auto union bailouts done by the liberals?

 

The Saudis dropped 10 million dollars on Caltech, MIT and Stanfor each to research reducing fuel emissions and increasing fuel efficiency about 3 years ago. US consumption of petroleum will go down or remain at present levels..

I think that is a good long range plan because I don't think the US can produce another 9 million barrels a day in domestic oil.

Many countries plan in advance.. 5 years out, ten years out... even 20 years out.

 

genius is where you find it. you can't legislate it. if PACCAR, Volvo, Cummings or Detroit Diesel could make a more efficient engine while meeting just the existing emission standards, they'd sell their children to do it.

Cat couldn't see the profit in it, so it got out of the on-highway business in 2009. God, oh my God, i miss the C-15.

 

Make cars smaller and lower the speed limit. That will save gas and lives and lots of money since the crash rate will drop. We don't need any new expensive technology.

 

making cars smaller does not save lives, and all you are going to do by forcing me to buy a tiny (*)(*)(*)(*)box is (*)(*)(*)(*) me off. i like comfort and space, i like knowing the power is there when i need it and i also like a strong built vehicle.

remember it only take 30mph for a wreck to be deadly, the speed limits as they sit are not the problem. the problem is morons who dont comply with the speed limit whether they are doing 10mph over or 10mph under the speed limit, either one is equally deadly.

also alot of people need to realize turn signals are not a decoration, not using those simply puts people in danger and its one of my pet peeves. put down the cellphones while the car is in motion,stop putting on makeup or read a (*)(*)(*)(*)ing newspaper while driving.

speed limit and car size is not the problem, its everything else these dumb asses behind the wheel do that make the roads deadly.

 

A cost of $157 billion nets benefits of $4-500 billion.

What's the problem? Sounds like a no-brainer.