New Vehicle Standards Mean High Priced and Unsafe Cars Americans Don’t Want

Ben Lieberman / September 15, 2009

Take good care of your current car. Given what the proposed Environmental Protection Agency/Department of Transportation regulations are going to do to new vehicles, you may want to hang on to it for as long as possible.

Pursuant to federal law as well as a 2007 Supreme Court case, these two agencies have proposed a sharp increase in vehicle fuel economy. The proposal requires a 5 percent annual increase in fuel economy starting with the 2012 model year, reaching 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. Note that this would be the vehicle fleet average, a figure that only a handful of models now meet. (more…)