The first one was pointed to me by A Siegel in his diary earlier today, which is well worth a read:
That graph (from this ICCT report on cars and climate change (pdf)) shows that Europe and Japan already have today average CAFE at 40 MPG. So those (including Toyota) that say that reaching 35 MPG by 2020 is not possible are deeply unserious.
As a second data point, I'd like to flag an other table in that report, which provides the average carbon emissions (in CO2 g/km) of the cars produced by various manufacturers in Europe:
PEUGEOT/CITROEN 142
FIAT 146
RENAULT 147
TOYOTA 154
GENERAL MOTORS 157
HONDA 157
TOTAL 160
FORD 161
OTHER 162
VOLKSWAGEN 163
SUZUKI 168
HYUNDAI 168
NISSAN 169
MAZDA 175
MITSUBISHI 179
DAIMLER 181
BMW 185
CHRYSLER 238
The European operations of US manufacturers (excluding Chrysler, but they have a pretty small operation and specialise in cars like the Jeeps or the Viper) and Toyota are amongst the best.
So this is not a case, should tough emission standards be imposed, of US manufacturers at risk of being overwhelmed by foreign competition - they are already perfectly competitive in markets that value thriftiness and low emissions.
It sounds more like a narrow-minded defense of recent investments in production lines for huge SUVs (as Toyota's new Tundra factory in Texas), and a belief that Americans won't go for the kinds of cars that sell in Europe (smaller ones)
Which brings me to my third data point. The reason Europeans drive smaller cars is, of course, that gas taxes are very high, and thus fuel efficiency is valued. and the easiest way to have thrifty, low-emission cars is to not endow them with 200hp engines. That's why 11 European cars - none of them hybrids - have lower emissions than the Toyota Prius: they are smaller. Which has lots of other positive consequences:
A Silver Lining? The Connection between Gas Prices and Obesity
A causal relationship between gasoline prices and obesity is possible through mechanisms of increased exercise and decreased eating in restaurants. I use a fixed effects model to explore whether this theory has empirical support, finding that an additional $1 in real gasoline prices would reduce obesity in the U.S. by 15% after five years, and that 13% of the rise in obesity between 1979 and 2004 can be attributed to falling real gas prices during this period. I also provide evidence that the effect occurs both by increasing exercise and by lowering the frequency with which people eat at restaurants.
Not all collateral effects of gas (or carbon) taxes are negative...
Which leads me to use an editorial in the Financial times this week-end as a conclusion (Posturing will not save the planet:
Last week Thomas Friedman, the trope-injected megapundit of The New York Times, assailed the country’s big three carmakers for resisting. He especially deplored their allies, Toyota – green Toyota, for shame – and the congressional delegation from Michigan, led by John Dingell.
(...)
If Americans chose to, of course, they could buy fuel-efficient cars already – no innovation required. While nobody was looking, engineers in Europe and Japan were cunningly designing smaller cars. Yes, you just make them smaller! And drivers there snap them up because they have to pay two or three times as much for gasoline as Americans. Makes you think.
Switching to a lower-carbon economy has a cost. A high tax on gasoline makes it explicit, and is therefore dismissed as politically impossible. But the idea that the Cafe approach is costless, or that its costs will fall entirely on companies that had it coming anyway, is infantile. Given a choice between the ambitious and the fatuous, is it not better to press for the first?
(...)
Mr Dingell, so criticised by Mr Friedman and others on this issue, is trying to drum up support for a gas tax, a carbon tax and a cap on mortgage-interest tax relief for energy-guzzling houses. He has put draft legislation out for comment. Sure, Michigan’s Mr Dingell is in the pocket of America’s car companies. That does not mean he is wrong.
There is a cost to doing nothing. So the apparent cost of doing something must be compared to that. And as it can actually be pretty low (the technology exists, is in US manufacturers' hands already, and will have other positive side effects), it's time to be ambitious about it.
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