One of the many important lessons I learned from my father was a healthy disrespect for partisan politics. A self described "pox-on-both-your-houses" independent, the elder Mr Niedermeyer has only ever donated to one political campaign in his entire life: the effort to repeal the federal 55mph speed limit. Though he now seems more interested in hypermiling than high-speed hoonery, it may be time for the paterfamilias to reach for the checkbook once again. The Wall Street Journal reports that Senator John Warner has written the U.S. Energy Secretary and the Government Accountability Office asking them to study the possibility of once again lowering federal speed limits. Though Sen. Warner says he's not necessarily advocating a return to the double-nickel, he wants to bring the issue before congress before the fall election recess. "I am every day trying to work on concepts to achieve some conservation now," Warner says. "I mean N-O-W." In his letter, Warner requests that the feds determine the speeds at which modern vehicles operate most efficiently. It's all a bit moot of course, as NHTSA data shows that three quarters of drivers broke the speed limit within a month of being interviewed. Oh, and Senator Warner retires this fall. And, as the WSJ aptly points out: "The speed limit issue isn't really about any of that. It's a powerful, easily grasped symbol of the freedom, mobility and affluence Americans enjoyed when energy was cheap. Letting go of that sense of freedom won't be easy, even if it is the sensible thing to do." 

PickupTrucks.com reports that Ford's veep for product development, Derrick Kuzak is considering (what's the hurry?) "right-sizing" the F-150's power plant. Ford may stick an EcoBoost four-banger into the base the F-150 pickup truck. And why not? The current V6 F-150 is dead for 2009; the base V8 offers better performance and fuel economy. So FoMoCo needs something smaller and more fuel-efficient underhood to elevate sales from apocalyptic to merely catastrophic. At the same time, FoMoCo needs to satisfy upcoming CAFE regs: 28.6 for light trucks by 2015. Headline: a V6 with the performance of a V8 and the fuel economy of a V6! In the F-150, the 2.5-liter turbocharged direct injection straight four would be good for 260 horses, 300 lb ft of torque and around 28 highway mpgs. This is all just potential product planning (for 2013, no less). With the smaller F100 being planned (and not ten years too soon), the four-banger F-150 would have a kid brother to share engines. Upon hearing this news am I the only person thinking "260 hp EcoBoost Mustang, please" or at least "Mmmm, Compact pickup."

In a move bound to raise howls of protest from the Chevy Volt's cheerleaders, GM (along with nine other manufacturers) has asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to lower the 4.5 percent annual increases in the CAFE standards projected between 2011 and 2015. To justify the request, GM stated they won't have enough Volts and Vue plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) on the road by 2015 to meet the more stringent standards. GM "strongly discouraged" any assumptions that their PHEVs would impact their corporate fleet average. Their NHTSA filing flatly stated "GM's game-changing (extended range electric vehicle) technology should be treated as a low-volume application." (Only GM could use "game changing" and "low volume" in the same sentence.) How low is "low volume"? The Detroit News reports GM plans to build fewer than 200k Volts in the first five years (40k per year average). To make matters worse– for the U.S. PHEV crowd– GM says many of those will be exported. Of course, this all assumes GM will start producing Volt and PHEV Vues in late 2010 as promised. So now, it's put up or shut time. The sad thing is that GM will do neither.

Gentlemen, start your engines. And head out to Nevada. The Shady Lady Ranch, located in a trailer 31 miles north of Beatty, Nevada, is offering a promotional sale. To cover the cost of gas for the 150-mile drive from Las Vegas, if you spend $300 at the legal brothel, they'll throw a $50 gas card your way. Three hundreds bones buys you an hour with one of their shady ladies, including (according to the website) Rio, Electra, and Dakota. In the first week, they gave out $1000 worth of gas cards. The downside: the 40-minute "quick man" special ($200) does not qualify customers for the gas rebate. As we already know, the cost of diesel has been pounding Nevada's brothel industry, especially in respect to truckers' custom. While this "let's keep America, uh, smiling" campaign may not solve the transportation-to-hookers problem, it should at least soften the blow. So to speak.

Scanning the blogs as we do, Frank and I often sense the cold dead hand of automotive PR. Predictable patterns emerge. For example, GM saves bad news for Friday and launches "good" news (new products, restructuring, etc.) ahead of bad (sales figures, losses). This time, unusually, we've detected GM PR man Steve Harris' spinmeisterwerk post-trauma (Black Hole Tuesday). Unless… Anyway, not to diss disinformation, but Harris' handiwork arrives in the form of "here's one [high mileage car] we prepared earlier." Bloomberg doesn't even bother trotting-out the proverbial "unnamed sources" in its lead, preferring to stick with the "m" word. "General Motors Corp., which popularized the 7,800-pound Hummer, may [emphasis added] begin selling a mini-car more than a foot shorter than anything else it markets in the U.S. to win back buyers deterred by record fuel prices." Sure. We believe that. But here's the real story: "GM has reassigned engineers to many of the projects, according to the people familiar with the planning. The company is taking them from SUV and truck programs suspended while awaiting the return of customers. Now, these people said, GM sees no point in waiting." In other words, it's chaos as usual behind the scenes at GM– aside from the PR department.

Want to save the equivalent of 30 cents a gallon on gas? The Detroit News says anyone can realize those savings if they just drive five miles per hour slower than usual. In fact, Department of Energy researcher David Greene estimates you could save $12 by driving 10 mph slower on a 500-mile trip. The tradeoff: it would add one hour to the trip (that you'll never get back). Don't get too overly zealous with your penny-pinching, though. The AAA warns that driving slower than 55 when the rest of the traffic is zooming past at 70 – 75 is "a recipe for a potential crash." Drivers in some states won't have to worry about that, though– Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota and Vermont are in various stages of considering bills to lower the speed limits on highways, in some cases to 55 mph. We're monitoring sales of CB radios…

AutoExpress reports that Ford has prepped a not-so-mean but oh-so-green Fiesta ECOnetic for the British Motor Show. While not officially confirmed for production, odds are it will eventually hit (love tap?) the streets of The Land of Hope and Glory. The ECOnetic Fiesta will have a 1.6-liter turbodiesel powerplant with all of 89hp, as well as loads of aerodynamic mods. Equally important, the UK-market Fiesta will have low enough CO2 emissions to evade London's congestion charge. ECOnetic trim recently debuted on a European Ford Focus, with a claimed 55mpg. As Edward Neidermeyer reported, in real-life testing, the Focus ECOnetic that number dropped to some 37 mpg. If we saw a proportionate drop for the ECOnetic Fiesta, that would mean about 44 real world miles per gallon. That's still very impressive. The new model Fiesta isn't on sale yet, although it is coming to the US with gasoline engines about 12 – 18 months from now. [All numbers are US miles per gallon]

Talk about the right place at the right time. Toyota's Yaris three-door hatchnack– excuse me, three-door liftback— and four-door sedan have been taking numbers and kicking names in the American new car market. Well, duh. First, Yari are fuel-efficient wee beasties (34/40 or fight). Second, despite a whole bunch of piggish SUVs, Toyota is still the small-car manufacturer of the moment. And third, they are cheap ($11,350 and up). So it makes sense that ToMoCo would bring the five-door Yaris– already on sale in Canada and most of the rest of the world– to the US. Americans certainly seem to have warmed-up to hatchbacks. As the basic Yaris is already America-compliant in terms of crash testing and emissions, it's a no brainer. If only the D2.8 were so smart. Lucky? Well-prepared? Prescient? Your choice. 

CAR Magazine is reporting that VW's 2002 concept car– the 1 Liter Car– is headed into production in [The Year of Our Overload] 2010. The name comes from the fact the VW uses 1 liter of gas per 100 kilometers (a standard European fuel economy format). Ferdinand Piech was seen cruising around in this puppy during his final days (or what we thought were his final days) at VW's helm. The crazy car, which looks more like a rolling fighter jet canopy, is mostly carbon fiber. It weighs an estimated 660 lbs. CAR figures it will have a two-cylinder diesel engine. The 1 Liter Car would likely be assembled in VW's prototype shop–  limiting production to 1000 units per year. The price is not yet determined, but reckon somewhere between 20k and 30k Euros. With such a small production run, this sounds more like a glamour and "we can do it" car (reverse halo?) from VW, rather than a true plan to save the world. And it'll still probably breakdown in my driveway.

Like many organizations in these gas-conscious times, Kelley Blue Book (KBB) and the LA Times (LAT) are fascinated by the negative effects of high gas prices on consumer spending. So KBB did a study and the LAT reported it. The two giants in intellectual research found that, in short, $4 to $5 gas has forced people to spend less money on other shit [paraphrasing]. For example, people aren't going to the movies as much, now that they are spending more on gas. [Do you know what a movie theater looks like? Click over to the LA Times, and you can not only read "less money on movies" but see a picture of a real line at a real American movie theater.] Other things people aren't buying as much of: expensive coffee, vacations, clothing, restaurants, carwashes, DVDs and high-quality marijuana. OK, I added that last one. But how do we know that the rising costs of other consumables– most notably food– don't account for the cutbacks?

Last year, France introduced a system known as "bonus-malus." Under the scheme, people who buy gas guzzlers have to pay a €200 – €2600 penalty. Consumers option for something more "environmentally friendly" get a €200 – €1,000 bonus. Automotive News [sub] reports Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo plans to "amplify" the program. Car buyers who purchase "extremely polluting" vehicles will soon pay an additional annual fee. As in carbon tax. Borloo didn't say when he plans to start the extortion new program. But here's the best part: "Borloo has said in the past that the system of penalties and rewards applied to vehicles could be extended to other products such as electronic goods." Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!

Back when fuel was below $3 a gallon, renting a car was like playing Wheel of Fortune. Though you usually got the car you rented, once in awhile, a big prize like an SUV or a Cadillac DeVille came up. ABC News reports that rental customers are now avoiding upgrades to bigger cars and SUVs because of high fuel prices. In turn, they've created a shortage of rental compacts, forcing rental companies to respond with more aggressive tactics to "upgrade" the customer to bigger and more fuel-thirsty options. The oversupply's sending SUVs daily rental rates downward, to the point where renting an SUV is becoming  cheaper than renting a compact. As ABC notes: "an Internet search by ABC News this week found Budget Rent A Car offering a daily rental of an intermediate SUV from Newark airport in New Jersey for $66. An economy vehicle was $76, and a compact car cost $77." [NB: TTAC could not duplicate these deals on AVIS.com or Nationalcar.com.] One frequent renter has a word of advise for rental car companies: deal. "[They] need to anticipate what's coming. If Avis came up tomorrow and said, 'Our vehicles are fuel-efficient vehicles,' they'd see a surge in people wanting to rent from Avis." Oops! Looks like Hertz's Green Collection PR team dropped the ball. 

You want evidence that GM takes TTAC seriously? I got nothing. You want proof that GM should lend us an ear, or another indication that the American automaker's just too damn slow? No problem. Back in April, Edward Niedermeyer flagged the fact that Chevrolet was [all too quietly] selling a higher-mileage Cobalt XFE with re-jigged gearing and low-resistance tires. "These are exactly the kind of common-sense efficiency improvements Chevy (et al) should spread across their lineup," Edward opined. Yes, the Detroit Free Press reports that "thanks to quick action by GM's engineering and marketing teams," the Cobalt's twin-under-the-skin Pontiac G5 also gets the mods and the new badge. Quick? Yes! Quick! "We saw fuel prices rising early this year, and rather than sitting on the sidelines in a Motown hole-in-the-wall knocking-back boilermakers worrying, we did something," Chevrolet spokesman Terry Rhadigan boasts. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like GM's going promote these "new" cars; Lordstown's maxxed out as it is. And GM's hasn't quite committed to the XFE concept. "Chevrolet may apply the strategy — and the XFE badge — to other model lines. Other GM divisions may do the same, although they might not use the same XFE badge." Hey, what's the hurry?

Consumer Reports have a brand-spankety new survey out, and it says that Americans can tell that gas is expensive. Oh yeah, and that they might do something about it. Survey says that four-dollar gas™ has 79 percent of us car-shopping Yanks wanting a "car with better fuel economy," and 74 percent driving less to keep costs down. Even though the respondent-identified $4.32 per gallon "tipping point when drivers would further drastically curtail driving" is only upon those of us on the left coast, a full 80 percent of prospective buyers are considering a "diesel, flex-fuel, or hybrid vehicle." Too bad those numbers aren't broken down between those three very different options. So America has taken notice of pricey gas, but the real question is who do Americans blame? And the answers are as unimaginative as you might expect, with the federal government (77 percent), oil companies (75 percent), foreign oil producers (70 percent), and Middle East conflict (68 percent), taking the rap for pain at the pump. When asked what the feds should do to fix the mess, 90 percent say "increase support for alternative energy development", 84 percent say "negotiate lower prices with oil-exporting nations", 83 percent say "encourage conservation through tax incentives for alternative transportation", while 81 percent want to "allow more drilling in the U.S. and offshore." Interestingly, "Putin-style nationalization of oil firms" and "wholesale invasion of the middle east" weren't polled, suggesting there might not be convenient solutions to scapegoats number two, three and four. 

A widely touted goal of the environmental movement: increasing American's percentage of renewable energy use to 25 percent by 2025. According to a report by the RAND corporation, meeting the so-called "25 by 25" goal without significant consumer cost will require "major technological developments." Green Car Congress reports that 9.5 percent of electricity and 1.6 percent of motor vehicle fuel currently comes from renewable energy sources. The RAND report identifies biomass and wind energy as the two greatest opportunities for meeting the 25 by 25 goal. But it also points out that both require significant improvement to make a low-cost impact on renewable energy usage. For motor vehicles in particular, biomass-based (non-foodstock) "second-gen" biofuels must become significantly cheaper and more prevalent. Reducing renewable fuel goals to 10 or 15 percent by 2025 would also disproportionately reduce consumer expenses. Then again, the higher the cost to consumers, the more competitive renewable fuels become. The preceeding was brought to you by the Energy Future Coalition of UAW Boss Ron Gettelfinger's "Marshall Plan" fame. Over to you, taxpayers.