Who’s ready for some politics? With the presidential election still over 14 months away, recent Iowa straw poll winner Michelle Bachmann is upping the campaign promise ante by telling a Greenville, SC crowd

The day that the president became president gasoline was $1.79 a gallon. Look at what it is today. Under President Bachmann, you will see gasoline come down below $2 a gallon again. That will happen.

Without even taking a side in the muck of presidential politics, it’s plain to see how ridiculous this statement is. As Politico helpfully notes:

Bachmann didn’t detail how she would cut the price of gasoline, which is tied to the global price of oil. [Emphasis added]

Personally, I think gas should probably be taxed to a point where Americans pay about what the rest of the world does, in order to pay for the externalities of oil consumption. Most auto execs agree, arguing that America’s artificially low gas prices play hell with product planning. But even (or is that especially) if you’re a hard-core anti-tax free-market fundamentalist, Bachmann’s statement should be treated with scorn. After all, markets, not presidents, should be setting oil prices. But what’s principle (or even good practice) when compared to the need for political pandering?

Rattle off a list of the buzzworthy EV makers that seem likely to achieve the “holy grail of EV development,” a multi-gear electric car, and chances are that firms like Tesla, Fisker, Th!nk or even a major OEM like Nissan will make the cut. You probably wouldn’t consider the ultra-conservative British sportscar maker Morgan to be in the running, as they still build body substructures out of wood… surely the brand that’s most stuck in the early 20th Century seems an unlikely candidate for EV technical leadership. Think again…
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Munich, Germany, to St. Moritz, Switzerland. It can be a scenic afternoon ride. The nicest route, shown here would take you very leisurely four hours these days. Before the car was invented, it would have taken a few days and a lot of real horses. How about with pure plug-ins?  31 participants embarked on a plug-in rally from Munich to St. Moritz. It started on August 1. It ended on August 5^th. Yep, five days. When I was young, I did that in two easy days on a bicycle. The electric cars took the better part of the week. (Read More…)

With US gas prices at some of the lowest levels in the world, it’s not too surprising that US consumers aren’t overly anxious to go electric, but what about in Germany, where gas prices are near double the US’s? According to Thilo Koslowski of Gartner Research, interest in EVs remains low there as well, and the big gainer in recent years has been hybrid technology… at the expense of the once-ubiquitous diesel, demand for which has “peaked” according to Koslowski’s research. Says the man who coined the term “the trough of disappointment,”

Although the majority of German consumers continue to see EVs’ benefits in environmental and socioeconomic implications, broad adoption of EVs will remain low as long as current offerings don’t meet drivers’ practical usability and cost-saving requirements. To expand from early to mainstream EV adopters in Germany, automotive companies must focus on technology innovations, offer pricing strategies that are aligned with established premiums for diesel and hybrid powertrain options and develop diverse EV model mixes targeted at younger consumer segments that have higher EV interest levels than older demographics… E-mobility will become a viable addition to future transportation scenarios in Germany, but automotive companies and the German Government must address marketability requirements of EVs, prioritise technology investments and continue to promote cross-industry collaboration. Future mobility concepts will consist of diverse powertrain choices and business models that will leverage technology to satisfy consumers’ transportation needs while challenging traditional car ownership.

Steampunks and Atomic Age nuts rejoice! WardsAuto reports that Connecticut-based Laser Power Systems is “getting closer” to developing a prototype electric car which develops its power using the radioactive heavy metal Thorium. According to LPS’s CEO,

when thorium is heated by an external source, it becomes so dense its molecules give off considerable heat. Small blocks of thorium generate heat surges that are configured as a thorium-based laser… These create steam from water within mini-turbines, generating electricity to drive a car. A 250 MW unit weighing about 500 lbs. (227 kg) would be small and light enough to drop under the hood of a car… Because thorium is so dense, similar to uranium, it stores considerable potential energy: 1 gm of thorium equals the energy of 7,500 gallons (28,391 L) of gasoline. Prototype systems generate electricity within 30 seconds of firing a laser. This can feed power into a car, without the need for storage.

What about radioactivity? (Read More…)

Imagine what would have happened if someone would have done an “Imported from Detroit” persiflage as blatant as the one above. A horde of screeching lawyers waving court orders and threats of unspecified punitive damages would have descended on the authors. What did Volkswagen do? Volkswagen invited the creators of the movie to Wolfsburg for a chat over coffee and PowerPoints.

Greenpeace says Volkswagen is not doing enough to save the planet. Volkswagen on the other hand thinks the company is the epitome of environmental responsibility. Greenpeace wanted to discuss Volkswagen’s environmental record. The environmentalists received an invitation to Wolfsburg to see themselves. After they left, the attacks escalated, Volkswagen’s plant in Wolfsburg was picketed and the video went viral. And that’s just the beginning of a sordid story that has the pungent smell of a different kind of green … (Read More…)

With BMW breaking new eco-friendly premium ground with its “i”-branded concepts, it seems Audi does not want to be out-greened… or out-weirded. This “Audi e-tron Urban Concept” was seen in Berlin’s Potsdammer Platz, ahead of its introduction at the forthcoming Frankfurt Auto Show, where we’ll doubtless learn more about why this is the future for environmentally correct urban dwellers. For now though, all we know is that it’s heavily Messerschmitt Kabinenroller-inspired, as Autobild reports that it features tandem seating and a slide-back canopy along with its modern carbon fiber construction and electric drivetrain. From the look of this video though, the most surprising part of this car (to Berliners, anyway) appears to the Audi badge. What a strange new world we live in…

God bless the internet: nothing escapes its notice. Autosavant is a relatively small blog, operated as a labor of love by a bunch of passionate car guys who take time off from their “real jobs” to review cars, comment on auto news and, in this case, catch companies making sloppy mistakes in their advertising. Autosavant’s Editor-in-Chief, occasional TTAC commenter and all-round nice guy Chris Haak did just that with a new Chrysler 300 ad in Automobile Magazine, finding that the Wieden + Kennedy spot shows a 300 displaying 7.9 MPG on its trip computer. Haak writes

Now take a look at the closeup of just the dash below. From the angle of the tach needle, it’s clear that the car is idling (and in reality, had probably been doing so for quite some time during the photo shoot). On the right side, you’ll see the fuel gauge, which is a small circular inset at the bottom of the speedometer. It’s shown at a bad angle in the photo, but it appears to be marking somewhere above three quarters of a tank of gas. Then look at the DIC between the gauges. The trip computer is clearly displaying the fuel economy, and it’s showing a 7.9 MPG average, and a DTE of 60 miles…

Of course the car was idling for a while to get such poor mileage It’s just that it’s kind of a shame that the agency that did such a great job with the “Imported from Detroit” Super Bowl commercial for the 200 could have easily figured out a way to display something other than an embarrassingly low average fuel economy number on the display, or at the very least, photoshop a “1″ or “2″ in front of the 7 so that it showed 17.9 or 27.9.

You know what rated at about 7.9 MPG? A Bugatti Veyron on the EPA’s city cycle. Usually we take issue with advertisements that stretch the truth, but as Haak points out, in this case a lie would have been more accurate.

A final rule for 2017-2025 CAFE standards won’t be published until September, but a pre-publication notice by the EPA [PDF here] reveals some of the key details we’ve been looking for. The broad strokes, which we are already well aware of are shaping up as follows:

NHTSA currently intends to propose standards that would be projected to require, on an average industry fleet wide basis, 40.9 mpg in model year 2021, and 49.6 mpg in model year 2025.  For passenger cars, the annual increase in stringency between model years 2017 to 2021 is expected to average 4.1 percent, and to average 4.3 percent between model years 2017 and 2025. Like EPA, in recognition of the utility requirements of full-size pick-up trucks and the unique challenges to improving fuel economy compared to other light-duty trucks and passenger cars, NHTSA intends to propose a lower annual rate of improvement for light-duty trucks in the early years of the program. For light-duty trucks, the proposed overall annual rate of fuel economy improvement in model years 2017 through 2021 would be 2.9 percent per year.  NHTSA expects to change the slopes of the fuel economy footprint curves for light-duty trucks from those in the 2012-2016 rule, which would effectively make the annual rate of improvement for smaller light-duty trucks in model years 2017 through 2021 higher than 2.9 percent, and the annual rate of improvement for larger light-duty trucks over the same time period lower than 2.9 percent.  For model years 2022 through 2025, NHTSA expects to propose conditional standards with an overall annual rate of fuel economy improvement for light-duty trucks of 4.7 percent per year

We had heard that trucks would improve their efficiency at a rate of 3.5% rather than 2.9% for the 2017-2021, and a 2022-2025 growth rate of 5% rather than 4.7%. But then, cars were supposed to improve by 5% in the 2017-2025 period, so both truck and car standards seem likely to end up lower than what the president’s report seemed to promise. But that’s not the only bad news for anyone hoping for tough fuel efficiency standards (or, good news for truck-dependent automakers)… with the release of this notice, we have an initial sense of the loopholes that will be included, and they appear to be of the hefty variety.

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In an extended interview with Fareed Zakaria this weekend, GM CEO Dan Akerson repudiated a lot of GM’s previous optimism about hydrogen fuel cell cars, saying

We’re looking at hydrogen fuel cells, which have no carbon emissions, zero. They’re very expensive now, but we’ve, just in the last two years, reduced the price of that technology by $100,000. The car is still too expensive and probably won’t be practical until the 2020-plus period, I don’t know. And then there’s the issue of infrastructure

The DetN points out that GM had previously said that it would have anywhere from 1,000 to “hundreds of thousands” of fuel cell cars on the road by 2010, and most recently said (in 2009) that the technology would be “commercialized” by 2015 and “cost-competitive” by 2020. So, if hydrogen is moving to the back burner, what’s moving up? Akerson revealed that

soon we’ll be introducing “bi-fuel” engines which can burn both compressed natural gas and liquid gasoline.

We’ve seen GM take early steps towards bringing a natural gas-powered car to the road, but this is the first sign from a top executive that a dual-fuel car is a certainty in GM’s near future. By talking down hugely expensive hydrogen cars and talking up cheap natural gas powerplants, Akerson sends a strong message that GM’s green car efforts are moving in a more pragmatic direction. Hit the jump for part two of the interview, in which Akerson talks gas tax and green cars.
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Today’s wild-ass rumor of the day really lives up to its wild-ass billing, combining equal parts conspiracy theory and ressentiment for a high-proof cocktail of crazy. In a blog (i.e. not very well thought-through) item at Automotive News [sub], Industry Editor James Treece primes the loco pump with an intriguing proposition:

Some commentators and bloggers assume that ownership explains what goes on in the auto industry. They argue that GM and Chrysler management have repeatedly bowed to the desires of their government and union owners over the last two years, and that government ownership has perverted the market in other ways as well.

Well, if that’s so, it’s fair to ask the same question about the latest fuel-economy rules — and the companies that oppose them.

Already the crazy is starting to show: the Detroit automakers are widely recognized to be the chief beneficiaries of the “compromise” modifications to Obama’s proposal. So if government-owned automakers didn’t actually roll over for regulators, why legitimize the crackpot theories of “some commentators and bloggers”? Because Treece has a crackpot theory of his own…
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With the high political drama surrounding America’s debt ceiling crisis, last Friday’s CAFE announcement received much less attention from the media than it might have. But, flying even further beneath the radar is an attempt by Republicans to undo the fuel economy agreement that was the result of long negotiations. According to the NYT, some 39 “anti environmental” riders were attached to an Interior Department and EPA appropriations bill, including one which reads

Sec. 453. None of the funds made available under this Act shall be used— (1) to prepare, propose, promulgate, finalize, implement, or enforce any regulation pursuant to section 202 of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7521) regarding the regulation of any greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines that are manufactured after model year 2016 to address climate change.

Though one rider, which would have prevented any new listings on the Endangered Species Act lists of threatened and endangered species, was defeated, the NYT reports that the fuel economy rider is still pending. Politico adds that the bill is scheduled to go to the House floor today, but that President Obama is already threatening to veto the bill. Having worked with California, environmental groups and the auto industry to hammer out a compromise, it’s unlikely that the White House will approve any final bill that includes a measure to gut the new 2016-2025 standard… but the fact that Republicans are trying to eliminate the EPA’s ability to regulate fuel economy indicates that someone, somewhere wouldn’t mind seeing the newly-approved CAFE standard gutted.

With congress deadlocked on the debt ceiling, President Obama used today’s ceremony announcing (although not fully revealing) a 2025 CAFE standard to contrast fuel economy standard negotiations with the chaos on Capitol Hill. ABC quotes the President saying

You are all demonstrating what can happen when people put aside differences.  These folks are competitors.  You’ve got labor and business.  But they decided:  We’re going to work together to achieve something important and lasting for the country. So when it comes to tackling the deficit or it comes to growing the economy… the American people are demanding the same kind of resolve, the same kind of spirit of compromise, the same kind of problem solving that all these folks on stage have shown. They’re demanding that people come together and find common ground… That’s what I’m fighting for.  That’s what this debate is all about.  That’s what the American people want.

But getting a bunch of auto CEOs in the same room to agree on one 2025 “number” is a lot easier than breaking a political deadlock: after all, the standard could well be changed during the 2017 review period, so nobody is agreeing to anything set in stone past 2016. And the saber-rattling continues, as industry consultants predict doom for the post-2016 period, when the truck standard hits the same 5% annual improvement rate as cars. Besides, Volkswagen and Daimler are the equivalent in this situation of holdouts in the congress, refusing to appear at today’s ceremony and protesting the proposed standard in the media. And when the final rules is announced, this coalition of exemplary compromise could fall apart, as the Sierra Club threatens

As the administration moves forward to finalize the standard, it is critical that they avoid weakening loopholes and giveaways for the industry, and we look forward to working with them to ensure the strongest 2025 fuel efficiency and pollution standards possible to benefit American families and workers.

Defections on the right and left? Continued saber rattling? No concrete agreement yet in any case? Sounds a lot like congress, actually…

The announcement of President Obama’s proposed 54.5 MPG 2025 CAFE standard was hailed nearly unanimously today in a ceremony attended by many auto industry executives as well as government officials. Volkswagen and Daimler were conspicuous by their absence, as the Bloomberg quotes VeeDub spokesman Tony Cervone arguing

The proposal encourages manufacturers and customers to shift toward larger, less-efficient vehicles, defeating the goal of reduced greenhouse-gas emissions,

while Reuters notes Daimler’s response

Mercedes-Benz, the luxury car line owned by German car and truck maker Daimler, did not back the new program, saying it “clearly favors large SUVs and pickup trucks.”

“Our customers expect a range of vehicles from which to choose so this program creates a very real disconnect between government regulation and customer demand,” the carmaker said in a statement.

But are these concerns well-grounded? We don’t know yet, as the details of the proposal (specifically the loophole details) have not yet been released. Instead of publicizing the full rule, the White House released a report [PDF], highlighting the easy-to-like aspects of the proposed rule. But how easy-to-like is the standard really?

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When you talk to industry insiders about BMW, they most typically identify the brand’s great strength as it’s deep institutional knowledge about how to create satisfying road cars, an attribute that explains a lot of the brand’s previous conservatism about its product line. But expanding to include SUVs, hybrids and front-drive MINIs is one thing… starting a new brand as a completely clean sheet of paper, with hardly a trace of previous BMW technology, is quite another. And yet here they are: the i3 and the i8, the former of which launches in about two years. For a projected price of around €40k (BMW is also talking about car-sharing schemes), the i3 offers a 170 HP and 184 lb-ft of rear-drive electric power, wrapped up in an innovative construction concept that’s almost a throwback to body-on-frame (more like body-on-drivetrain) and is unique to the i brand. The whole thing is executed in carbon fiber reinforced plastic, hits 60 MPH in under 8 seconds, can reach 93 MPH and offers 80-100 miles of range. The i8 is further off, and is intended to be a four-door plug-in hybrid halo car, with a 5 second 0-60 time and front, rear or all-wheel-drive, depending on driving mode.

It’s all very Buck Rogers, like a set of Motorama cars of the future, and though the versions being shown now are called concepts, they’re supposed to be very, very close to the real thing. All we have to do now is wait, save our pennies and wait for the future to catch up.