The new rules, combined with the previous rules to increase CAFE to 35.5 mpg between 2011 and 2016, will nearly double the old standard that hadn’t been changed since the 1980s, LaHood said during the conference call. While the Obama Administration called the new standards “groundbreaking,” in a press release, LaHood said during the conference call that the fuel economy requirements won’t change drastically overnight, but will steadily increase each year.

— Motor Trend, August 28, 2012I

I used this GM Trailblazer (Trail Blazes on the Carbon Footprint!) for the day:

GM’s Trailblazer is a “complete pig” that needs to be cooked and served up to patrons at Burlington, Ontario’s Ribfest or chopped up for Maple Leaf Foods distribution.  I can’t believe how much gas this hog consumed in one short trip and to think, there are countless consumers who bought this beast for the occasional Walmart shopping trip with speed bumps!

CAFE standards in the US have been pathetically shortsighted and ineffective for 30+ years. Inspired into implementation because of the “oil shocks” of the 70’s, CAFE standards have done nothing but highlight the lack of willpower south of the border to meet the energy challenges of the future.  After all, when you have a former Vice President speak these words, you know where the money really is:

“The American Way of Life is not negotiable.”

— Dick Cheney

Of course, Cheney speaks for Haliburton and co., not real Americans who still face economic uncertainty after 2008’s financial crisis.

It’s no wonder that smart “revolutionary” minds are absolutely necessary for efforts like Tesla Electric and to think, even Steve Jobs, wanted to build a car.  It’s a tragedy he didn’t survive long enough to decimate the dinosaurs in Detroit, Michigan and the power complex in the DC Beltway which is fueled by pure greed versus the greater good. 

Imagine if the right technical minds joined forces (like a “Justice League” of sorts) and deployed a Manhattan Project-style project which would ultimately decimate the oil industry to the point where their focus shifted from “oil company” to “energy company” to power humanity’s evolution into the next few hundred centuries?

There’s no excuse for this lack of progress!  

Since 1979, CAFE miles per gallon went from a pathetic 17.1mpg to an even more pathetic 24.1mpg if we look at combined 2-wheel and 4-wheel drive vehicle data.  What the…..! (See Wikipedia)

Based on Obama’s new “groundbreaking” announcement, the new CAFE standards are expected to save a paltry 12 billion barrels of oil during the life of this new program.

Want to know what the CIA U.S. 2010 estimate is for the United States’ daily consumption of oil by the barrel?  19,150,000 barrels per day which works out to a saving of 615 days worth of oil.  That’s not even two years of oil savings for a program stretched out 13 years to 2025.

The CIA’s own World Factbook shows the reality:

Not entirely great prospects for a carbon-LESS future.  

When you combine the EU, China, Japan and India (given China and India as emerging nations of untold growth in the coming decades), this is a global challenge. 

I do understand the impacts to economic growth globally if everyone were to take this head-on but when you look at the CAFE program’s sheer lack of progress since 1978, I don’t give a damn. 

JFK offered the challenge on May 25, 1961 to have men land on the moon.  Men landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. How’s that for focus?

Am I going to listen to the Detroit 3 and every other automaker tell whatever lie they want to bring forth about this intolerable progress and inefficiency?! No.

What are your thoughts? 

Personally, I can’t believe people have conditioned themselves and accepted paying at the pump for beasts like the GM Trailblazer. The QEW commute into the city alone in this beast is a horrid decimation of the personal pocketbook.  Why people? Why would you continue to buy this crap and accept the “Big is Better” mantra of a lazy, fat, Detroit 3 mindset where two of the automakers required a government bailout for bad management and terrible automotive innovation.  Afterall, it was GM that brought us the Hummer through a wonderful military acquisition well after Arnold Schwarzenegger cried for a commercialized solution. Thankfully, GM sold it off to the booming Chinese market (Dear Good Lord!). Just look at this forum thread on the 10MPG Hummer.  Criminal.  (See Hummer forums)

B.S.

My next car will be a carbon-busting one.  When I start to wean off of the gas “pump” from Haliburton and company, I’ll feel much better. There’s a bigger message in here better left for the “vagueness department”. 

Start with the Nissan Leaf.