Go right ahead, Detroit. I'm not replacing my Ford Ranger until you offer a hybrid small pickup. And if you're going to use loopholes in federal regulations to get around making any serious efforts, then I hope your companies die a quick death.

Rip off the Band-Aid and prop up companies that want to stay in business (and don't pay their upper management such obscene salaries).

Great so now the AC will be even less comfotable. I remember when I was a kid my Grandma had an old Comet with AC and it got so cold it felt like winter in there because of Freon. Then the environmental Nazis got it banned and we have the crappy AC we have today. I bought my vehicle brand new in 2003 and even when new it would take like 10 minutes to get the temp down to 75 degrees on a hot day. I want BETTER AC not worse. I like to drive with my AC set to like 60 and todays AC cant do it let alone tomorrows

Do we seriously need MORE government control? This bill makes no sense to me.

@Rey:

Its because they cant make a hybrid truck that performs just as well and has just as much power as a non hybrid. This is why these fuel standards suck. We will all end up having to drive golf carts with no power or steel to protect us.

@Moosehawk:
Well then, say goodbye to the American automobile industry.

pretty misleading title. from the title you'd assume American auto manufacturers are planning on using this loophole, whereas in reality that's just supposition on the part of the author. the real story is that the bill to improve car mileage is a mirage, basically a toothless jesture. I don't think it matters much, higher oil prices a year ago have done more to improve gas mileage than anything the gov't will do.

@yagisencho: Gladly.

Sure, go right ahead, Detriot. Cut corners. It's gotten you so far in the past.

I'll just be sticking to imports that actually want to design good cars that people want to buy while you go into chapter 11.

@Gorphlog: There's really no reason for a light truck to be a hybrid or a gasser, other than existing precedent. If we could collectively unscrew our heads from our nether regions when it comes to diesel emissions and fuel taxation policy we might make some real progress.

I'd really like my truck to be diesel powered, but I sure don't need the 300hp/610lb-ft Cummins that comes in a Ram 2500 to do the things I want to do with it.

I wonder if this will be similar to Dupont's CFC hoax, where as their patent for Freon expired, they patented HCFC (and HFC) and spent millions to find reasons why Freon cannot be used in the automaker and home appliance industries. That 17 year exclusivity (which I think started in '96) will expire in the next five years, so it makes sense that they're trying to move to something else now.

@craptastico: +1 cookie to you sir. When the US loses our AAA rating and nobody will loan us cash to buy oil with, you'll see a lot more 1.5liter 4-bangers on the road :)

@MichaelBrazell:

Yeah, that's a great idea. That'll help our trade deficit.

@Gorphlog: "Envornmental Nazis". There we go, Godwin. Your argument is 100% moot now.

After spending 20 hours on the road earlier this week, I found that turning on the A/C in my Toyota Corolla will decrease my gas mileage about 1.6 MPG on the lowest setting.

@craptastico:

And for some reason he thinks that only American automakers would take advantage of this "loophole" when foreign automakers could just as easily. Biased much?

I don't even know how serious American automakers will be about compliance with these rules. I think they (and the government/union majority ownership) will be thrilled if they are still viable by 2016. They can worry about lobbying their way out then if they are still around.

I don't see anywhere in this entire story at Jalopnik that singles out Detroit manufacturers as the ones saying "we'll just improve our A/C". The only thing I could find that mentions detroit is in the paragraph where they quote the proposal, where it says it's worded to allow less stringent policies on manufacturers of larger vehicles like SUVs and Trucks, which in the end would favor Detroit.

Slightly biased/misleading title?

@Gorphlog: There's something wrong with your car then. It takes a minute or two for both cars of our cars to get cold with the A/C.

This is all the result of a government model that treats technology development like some sort of resource allocation problem. People in Washington truly think this is like a video game. You drop dollars on the cluster of scientists, a progress bar appears, then THWRRRPPP - fuel-efficient cars! No design tradeoffs necessary, we'll just invent. Assuming anything is possible is great, but it's also a logical black hole.

The problem with cars isn't fuel efficiency, it's cars. The problem is that our country is sprawling and dependent on vehicles best powered by fossil fuels. Introducing fuel standards without legitimate plans to urbanize and create public transport infrastructure within such a tight engineering/dev cycle just means that car companies will be forced to make lighter cars. With less safety equipment.

I dont see how this will improve gas mileage if A/C technology is decreased? seem like every time Detriot Tries to cut corners it digs them deeper in the whole. even if there is a breakthrough with techonolgy, lets hope the EPA doesn't over regulate it and have it ultmately removed as R12 was replaced by R134 Freon. it scares me that R250 is next!

-dave

@Gorphlog: I want my skin to get YOUNGER, not older. Did the government consider that when they made those pesky laws against smearing my face with freshly-aborted fetuses? No, it didn't. That's it, I'm seceding to be my own nation of one.

Seriously, who needs the AC down at 60?

The WSJ had an article talking about a way automakers are looking to increase fuel efficiency the cheap way: make cars smaller.

[online.wsj.com]

The article warns against simply making cars smaller and lighter since they are less efficient at protecting the driver, as most vehicle crashes involve only the one car - such as crashes in which the vehicle hits a tree, a pole or something else.

@Gorphlog: Once everyone is driving golf carts, you won't need steel to protect you.

Remember, the reason little cars are less safe is because of people driving SUVs

Wonder what sort of Chicago style "campaign contribution" led to that.

@Gorphlog: Those darn environmental nazis and their evil plans to retain the ozone layer!

Ozone isn't even healthy! They warn us not to breath when the levels get to high in the cities!

Surely it doesn't do anything useful up there in the stratosphere deflecting cosmic rays from mutating our children.

I'll take mutant three-armed tentacle-faced children over a non-freon air conditioner any day... as long as they don't eat my pan-fried pork chops.

[www.freerepublic.com]

[jalopnik.com]

These two kids did what Detroit could not.

@MichaelBrazell: Yeah! Screw American industry! We don't need no stinkin manufacturing capacity! And while we're at it, get rid of the farms, too! We can be a nation of stock brokers and insurance salesmen and ironic hipster baristas!

@I Love New Jersey: Really? With a username like that, you are making geography-based smears?

Law of unintended consequences abound! A lot of that bill speaks of running A/C and power steering via electricity. Well, for those of you with electric air conditioners at home, you know those things are the size of a small bus, even the window units. So really, this will be adding to the weight of the vehicle, especially since the cars will have to have a HUGE alternator and bigger battery to carry that load. Something has to power that stuff! Essentially it will negate any benefit.

@pecan 3.14159265: I've seen several articles along these lines, but there is one thing I want to know that they never seem to discuss: the increase in safety that will come from fewer OTHER people driving around huge heavy SUVs that might hurt me when they hit me. I think that any change in safety from having more small cars will be mixed, at most.

Also, I don't have many one-car accidents (I never have), because I'm a good driver and I don't drive drunk, tired, etc. So it might well INCREASE my personal safety for there to be fewer large cars on the road.

These articles strike me as propaganda making selective use of statistics. I wonder what their agenda is.

I'd really like to see a heavy gas tax increase instead of this new regulation, personally. I think the tax increase would be much more effective in reducing use of oil while also raising lots of tax revenue and being much more difficult to circumvent.

@csdiego: So, I take it when we're on the same freeway in gridlock you won't be accepting one of my lovely A/C snowcones? More for the rest of us.

@Gorphlog: If we eventually all end up driving golf carts with no power then we won't need steel to protect us. ;-)

@lulfas: Oops! I made the same comment before I read yours.

@Rey: Why are you blaming Detroit? Ford is the ONLY COMPANY left even making a small pickup, the Tacoma, Ridgeline and Frontier are all mid-size. Also, a hybrid compact pickup makes no sense, a diesel would work much much better, but the EPA has virtually made it impossible for anyone to put a cost effective diesel motor in a lightweight vehicle. I would still like to see someone do that, even though there would probably be a $3,000-$5,000 premium on what would probably be a $15,000 base price tag, and would really consider buying one.

@lulfas: Well, larger commercial vehicles are pretty numerous and will not go away just because everyone is driving a golf cart. I think it would be more effective to show people that SUVs don't really offer much in the way of additional safety. Plus, if you live in the part of the country between say Ohio and Montana, you have flash flooding to worry about, and it's nice to have a taller vehicle. That being said, my heaviest vehicle weighs in at 3,000 lbs, while my other 2 are around 2200 and 2400, but it's really a matter of personal preference there.

@johnva: And come to think of it, since I already drive a smaller car, these regulations will only increase my safety. I'm all for it. The highway should not be an arms race based on having the biggest, heaviest vehicles.

Also, it's kind of misleading to call small cars "dangerous" without accounting for driver behavior. Apparently Ford F-150 pickups account for a disproportionate number of fatal accidents partly because the people who buy them tend to be more careless drivers, drive drunk more often, etc. Maybe having smaller cars and trucks would cause those people to drive more safely since they would have less of a false sense of security. We just don't know about these sorts of variables in advance, so I think this sort of talk is misguided at best and disingenious at best.

@johnva: "disingenuous at worst".

@lulfas: That line of thought basically says that I should force others into a pattern of behavior that is the same as mine, simply because if I'm the only one doing it then it will mean a whole lot more danger for me.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I think there are some things that could be done in the interim that could in fact increase mileage slightly and not change significantly what's used today: the use of electric compressors instead of belt driven versions.

This alone may save a mpg or three methinks, and I think it's already done ina couple of cars today (Prius?)

But like others, I'm an a/c fanatic-you'll have to pry away a/c from my (hot) dead fingers. You say I don't need it (at whatever temperature), and I'll call you the facist that you are; I make those decisions for me, you make decisions for you and keep your grubby thoughts and hands to your own life.

C-

@NightSteel: It would be awesome if this worked (especially since it would be extremely easy to repair the broken a/c in my old E30) but nothing I've found has actually been able to show the efficiency of this type of system, or the Peltier chips that he's using. My guess is, even if you could amass enough of these chips to actually be able to cool down an entire car, it would require more energy than using a compressed refrigerant based system. A lot of people seem to forget that the electricity in your car IS NOT FREE. The alternator puts drag on the motor the same as an A/C compressor does.

The articles you posted say that they obtained the chips from eBay. None of the auctions I've found have any tech specs that would allow me to verify if this system would be viable or not, so without any further evidence, I would not rush to the conclusion that these kids managed to outwit Detroit.

@NightSteel: Actually, the articles you posted show that this was done around 2005 - wouldn't you think that if this was a viable system, someone would have done something with it in the last 4 years?

@Gorphlog: I don't know what kind of crappy A/C your car has, but my '94 Saturn's A/C can still chill you to the bone in no time. I have also rented half a dozen, late model cars in the past 5 years, and I have not had a bad experience with the A/C or heat.

Don't generalize just because your car's A/C sucks.

@personnext: Yes, the market will correct for this sort of thing. Unfortunately, it will do that by destroying the American auto industry. Do we really want that?

@captadam: Screw stupidity. It's change or die.

@badgeman46: Hmm. It seems to me that the "loophole" here is that the vehicle has to have lower overall CO2 emissions.

But since, ultimately, all of the power to run all of your accessories comes from burning gas, reducing CO2 emissions means you have to burn less gas overall.

So unless you have a plug-in hybrid or something that gets its energy from somewhere other than gas, doesn't this "loophole" still mean that your fuel efficiency will go up?

Am I confused here? Where's the flaw in my logic?

@yagisencho: Define "American automobile industry".

If foreign car companies set up manufacturing factories here in America, hiring American auto workers, are they part of the "American automobile industry"?

If GM and Ford are publicly traded companies that are partially owned by individuals living in foreign countries, are they still part of the "American automobile industry"?

At this point, GM really is the "American" automobile industry, as we've given them $15.4 billion in bailouts. When Obama promised "...starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warranty.", it no longer became an "industry" and just became another government program.

@personnext: Yeah, more like 60MPG (assuming A/C is off).

@Riff-Raff: I have a 2005 Chevy Malibu and the a/c is fine. Ice cold on most days. The problem is when it's 115+ out and it just can't keep up and takes forever to cool off, because, well, it's fuckin' hot as hell outside.

@MichaelBrazell: That's the first I heard of that conspiracy theory. Better keep that tinfoil hat on tight.