DETROIT -- The last time the U.S. government raised the required fuel economy standards for passenger cars, gasoline prices were approaching a very frightening ... 63 cents a gallon.
That was back in 1975, when Gerald Ford was president, South Vietnam had just fallen and disco was all the rage. That's when the government mandated that every automaker's fleet of cars put out an average of at least 27.5 miles per gallon. (Light truck requirements have been raised since, and now stand at 22.5 mpg.)
Since then, we've had oil shocks, two major desert wars, and the near-universal recognition of global warming. Yet until now, no administration has raised fuel efficiency standards.
"There just hasn't been any political pressure to do so," said Brett Smith, an expert on automotive technology with Ann Arbor's highly respected, nonprofit Center for Automotive Research.
Finally, however, the world has changed. Last week, as gasoline prices spiraled upward almost daily, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration finally announced new fuel economy standards. The CAFE (Corporate Fuel Economy Average) standards were widely expected, but they were more aggressive than most anticipated: Fuel economy standards will rise to a combined 31.6 miles per gallon by 2015; passenger cars will be expected to reach 35.7 mpg; trucks, 28.6 mpg.
"What the government is looking for is to reduce overall emissions," Smith said. If consumers choose lighter, more fuel-efficient vehicles, the overall number will be higher.
But is Detroit prepared, technologically and politically, for the new standards?
"Technologically, they're almost there," Smith said. "Politically -- well, they were prepared, but possibly not as well as they should have been," he said.
The sad fact is that Detroit's automakers are not only far smaller than they were -- they have far less clout on Capitol Hill.
Two decades ago, any hint of raising CAFE standards would have evoked thunderous denunciations from the corporate boardrooms. The auto industry's lobbyists would be dispatched, and the industry's watchdogs in Congress would go to work.
But now it is a different world. Last year, the not-so-Big Three sold fewer cars than the imports -- in America. Congress contemptuously crushed an attempt to block higher fuel economy standards by overwhelming margins a year ago.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., openly told the automakers, "We don't believe you anymore. We've had enough."
John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is reliably reported to have told the automakers. "Work with me, and I may be able to get you a deal you will hate -- but which you will be able to live with." Otherwise, he advised, they might get saddled with something worse. Much worse.
When the new standards were unveiled Tuesday, there was barely a murmur of protest. Yes, they could argue about the standards. But there will be a new administration in nine months and the odds are that the automakers might get an even worse deal. In the past, higher fuel economy standards have tended to help foreign competitors, especially the Japanese.
Will that be the case again?
Probably.
"The Japanese tend to be better prepared for this -- mentally as well as technologically," said Smith, who is an MBA, an expert on advanced powertrain technology and a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers.
But there may be a silver lining, of sorts.
"There is a perception that Detroit still doesn't do very well at making small cars," he noted. In the past, higher fuel economy standards have been credited with spurring Detroit to major technological improvements.
Possibly, just possibly, as the automakers grapple to invent better electric hybrid and hydrogen technologies, the higher required fuel economy standards will give them an added boost.
Possibly, just possibly, the shrinking automakers will hit on something that will enable them to better cope in a world of global competition and increasing fossil fuel scarcity.
Possibly.
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