"AI will of course take over any new requirements..."

by simply reporting what it's told to. You need the average to be 40 mpg, then it's 40 mpg. There's a reason Teslas have such good range, the company is run by pathological liars.

I guess that's sarcasm and AI humor, but remember that the average is across all vehicles for a manufacturer. Most trucks still get around 20 to 24. To offset that there will need to be lighter cars that get near 50, and not just a handful - trucks are top heavy sellers for some manufacturers not named Honda.

The 1996 Opel Astra 1.6 does even better by my quick calculation. Been driving it because mum can no longer drive it and the last two long trips ended up roughly at 1 litre per 19.8 km, and 17.2 km.

My best mate noted the supposed better economy of the lease cars he rode wasn't all that better over the years. Not surprisingly with the average weight of cars going up.

The only automakers affected by this will be the legacy US manufacturers. The ones that abandoned any make/model that weighs less than 8 metric tons. Yeah, that’s an exaggeration. More accurate to say that a US automaker considers a medium-sized SUV to be a “compact car” in their product lineup (Tesla being the one exception). It’s not that US cars use old tech - recent model US cars are pretty polished. But there’s no getting around the gas mileage issue. Big tall cars = more

A "much-needed move" would be to allow BYD cars to be sold here and let the free market economics (that conservatives ostensibly claim to love) sort everything out. But nope, gotta keep selling those high profit margin gas guzzlin' pickup trucks that over half of Americans can't actually afford.

The only solace I take from this is that Musk screwed himself by supporting this administration, because [1]Tesla's sales are down, too. [eletric-vehicles.com]

[1] https://eletric-vehicles.com/tesla/tesla-us-sales-reach-new-2025-low-in-november-mi-says/

You are deranged. What crimes have I committed?

It's fine -- the Republic-bans will just ban them, keeping the expensive and crappy American-made cars the only options to buy. They need to keep their rich friends happy somehow, you know!

Or "tariff" them. One of.

> In the USA car companies are bribing politicians to keep fuel economy standards low because they do not want to spend money on R&D.

Worse. Oil companies are driving the lobbying (i.e., bribing politicians) because they make trillions from people burning as much gasoline as possible.

But I was told the [1]opposite: [detroitnews.com]

> "We were ahead of them by a mile, by 10 miles, on the internal combustion engine. They went into EVs, and then they convinced the Western world to go into EVs and play their game," the freshman Republican lawmaker from Ohio said during an auto industry conference. "That was just irrational, dumb policy."...

> "I pushed back on the premise that EV somehow is about innovation," he said. "Electric vehicles were around in 1910. It's not like this is new technology."

Here's a guy wo

[1] https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2025/12/02/moreno-says-united-states-allies-dumb-to-compete-with-china-on-evs/87566739007

Only it is not just US manufacturers that are struggling. Toyota [1]had to recall 200K+ V35A-FTS V6 engines [thedrive.com]. [2]Honda also having massive issues. [caranddriver.com] These are new engines that were recently designed with fuel gas mileage targets in mind. Turns out that meeting them and still have reliable engine is a much harder problem.

You are also delusional if you think that Chinese cars are anything but unreliable [3]junk [jdpower.com] that you can laugh at while [4]they catch on fire [youtube.com].

[1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/total-bs-engine-teardown-specialist-says-toyotas-explanation-for-v6-failures-doesnt-make-sense

[2] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a65887327/nhtsa-probe-1-million-hondas-engine-failure/

[3] https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2025-china-vehicle-dependability-study-vds

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMKpCiDomgM

> Gee I wonder what caused vehicle prices to rise?

The weird thing about the USA is that inexpensive new cars don't sell well. Probably because if you've got decent credit you can just stretch the loan out until the heat death of the universe and get something fancier.

If you don't have good credit, even a cheap car quickly becomes too expensive once those awful interest rates do their thing.

> Automatic start/stop? Did they actually engineer the starter and electrical system to compensate? I have my doubts.

I'm very happy I was able to code that shit out on my car. I have my doubts too but if we are wrong the worst that will happen is my starter will last forever.

> Automatic start/stop? Did they actually engineer the starter and electrical system to compensate? I have my doubts

They actually did in every case I looked. The next question is how much a replacement starter costs on such car. It cost A LOT.

Good points, too bad they are peppered with some abhorrent language. Anyway, you also forgot to mention the whole mild-hybrid deal (basically using the starter as a generator for regenerative braking and to provide a boost to the engine during acceleration), which assumes the whole integrated starter-generator is properly engineered (doubtful), and shaving every last gram of weight to improve mileage (which often comes at the expense of component sturdiness).

We can't have those because they wanted to sell chicken meat to Germany after WWII.

No, really, Fat Electrician has a good video on it.

(our government is just a loony bin now)

For some reason, I don't think this is foreshadowing saner regulation. Just less.

I like to say that gas is currently cheap because anywhere you'd want to drive to spend money has become too fucking expensive.

As for EVs reducing demand, ChatGPT estimated that if all of the roughly 4 million EVs in the USA were magically transformed into ICE vehicles, the price of gasoline would raise by about 1.3%, which is well within normal market fluctuations. So no, you don't really have to thank us EV drivers for cheaper gas.

At least now I know that my own individual contribution in lowering gas pr

> the reason gas prices have been stable is we keep pushing for more fuel economy keeping demand down.

Absolute bullshit. a) Gas prices have no been stable; b) It is supply side that largely fluctuated, not demand; c) The biggest contributor to lower gas prices is the U.S. shale revolution, where a new technology allowed US-based production to increase.

The problem isn't the steel but the fragile meat bag strapped inside. Thanks to modern crumple zones and engineering people walk away from crashes that would have otherwise been fatal. That said, I do agree that vehicle bodywork is insanely expensive today. But I'll take that over being crushed in a steel can or experiencing fatal G forces.

> I remember when cars were made from STEEL, had STEEL chrome bumpers. If you bumped into someone, you might scratch the chrome. Now, bump into someone and it is a multi-thousand dollar repair! Plus, with all the electronic sensors and what not, makes it even more expensive. ...

[1]Rivian R1T Fender Bender Turns Into $42,000 Repair Bill [thedrive.com]

[2]Here’s Why That Rivian R1T Repair Cost $42,000 After Just A Minor Fender-Bender [theautopian.com]

[1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/rivian-r1t-fender-bender-turns-into-42000-repair-bill

[2] https://www.theautopian.com/heres-why-that-rivian-r1t-repair-cost-42000-after-just-a-minor-fender-bender/

That's not what's going to change. What's likely going to change is that domestic manufacturers can scale back production and sales targets of their EV models, since fleet efficiency numbers won't be as important, and they might tweak ICE vehicle software to have the start-stop systems default to being disabled.

There's not going to be any major retooling happening, because administrations change.

> specifically not cleaning out shavings and debris

This explanation was [1]discredited [autoblog.com] in [2]every [usatoday.com] case. That reason was provided to avoid stop-sale order by NHTSA.

[1] https://www.autoblog.com/news/engine-teardown-exposes-whats-really-wrong-with-toyotas-problematic-v6

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/cars/recalls/2025/10/30/gm-recalls-investigation-engine-failure/86992798007/

The direct fuel injection does seem to cause more trouble than it's worth. Small gain in fuel efficiency, large increase in maintenance cost.

Leave direct fuel injection to the diesels and race cars.

GM's transmission problems are due to other issues.

don't forget the higher cost of fuel needed to travel the same distance

if we assume a 15 gallon capacity, then a 50mpg fuel standard means you would be able to travel 750 miles on a full tank. but a 35 fuel standard means you would be able to travel only 525 miles on a full tank. so you would have to buy gas to travel 225 more miles. that's about an extra 6.5 gallons of gas. assuming a $3/gallon price that's an extra $20.

so, not only we screw the environment, but we also need to buy more gas from shell, bp

> Because automakers must meet only a fleet-wide average

Hey! I know! For every Ford Super Duty sold, just throw in a 10-speed bicycle.

What's the fleet average of 20 MPG and infinity?

Actually, Ford Maverick already exists. Surprisingly.

This is what the Slate EV is supposed to be. Granted, it's a bit more spartan than even the smaller pickup trucks of the late 90s and even after adjusting for inflation will be slightly less affordable, as well.

And for better or worse, it's an EV, so that rules out some of the use cases where you might want to drive it out to the middle of BFE without worrying about charging infrastructure.

Long ago, Japan kicked their ass. Foreign companies beat American laziness. Long ago, new laws protected American auto companies and harmed foreign ones in the market with the deal essentially being, cars can be imported with tariff or somewhat made here without. I don't remember the details but it also helped spawn fake car companies under a parent company. TRUCKS were functionally banned which weren't a big deal to the foreign companies plus they made more profit... a chunk of that profit is LOANS which i