[cymbeline]

I'm not in favor of the new MPG requirements but I don't believe increasing the fleet gas mileage necessarily increases the cost of the car. Smaller, lighter cars with smaller engines should actually be cheaper cars. Buyers will sacrifice power and interior room. I remember a GM engineer being asked why not reduce engine size to improve gas mileage. He said buyers would reject the cars. Oh well ... I also remember the American version Suzuki Samuari that was withdrawn from the market because it tipped over too easily. Turns out the car was built for 3rd world countries with a 30 horsepower engine. A big engine was put into the American version. That's what made it tippy. Guess what. The Prius gets MPG going down the highway. It would get even more MPG in that type of driving if they ripped out the battery and electric motors and the fancy little transmission.

[Tallguy]

Smaller, lighter cars with smaller engines should actually be cheaper cars. Buyers will sacrifice power and interior room.

I'm 50 years old, 6-5" tall and weigh 215-lbs. I have the usual lumbar problems from athletics and a work-a-day life. I physically do not fit into these roller skates that they are building now. If CAFE mandates nothing but Prius' & Smart Cars, I'm quite literally in a world of hurt.

[Reeses]

This isn't really about MPG, it's about size envy. MPG is just a socially acceptable excuse that gives leftists plausible deniability about what they are really up to. The nature of envy is not to have what someone else has, but to destroy what they have.

Envy comes from vanity/pride. If leftists were honest about what they were really up to, they would be laughed at, which to the vain is a sentence worse than death. Laugh at leftists at every opportunity because it's like a nuclear blast to them.

[CSM]

“I don’t believe increasing the fleet gas mileage necessarily increases the cost of the car.”

It most certainly does. A parts manufacturer gets hit in 2 ways. First, the lighter commodities (aluminum, magnesium, etc) are more expensive than rolled steel. Second, those materials are more difficult to manipulate in manufacturing while maintaining the same craftmanship or durability. The first drives up their cost per part and the second lowers the number of parts produced hourly, which then increases the allocation of fixed costs per part produced.

Now extrapolate that to a car or truck that consists of 10-12,000 tier 1 parts, then go backwards over 3-4 subtiers in the supply chain.

Don’t worry tho, when the prices go up as a result of the governmented directed policies, then those utopians will just be able to shift the blame to the evil corporations. The ignorant masses will eat it up!