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How the final legislation language and fuel efficiency manadated standards were worked out . At 35 mpg for the combined fleet the standard for 2020 is well behind what is seen in European Union countries and in Asian countries. The final language gives the EPA and the states like California the right to set their own standards for tailpipe emissions.

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Mr Tata in an interview said that the new small car from Tata will be able to meet current and future European emissions standards. There has been some speculation about emissions but this confirms that the technology for the new car has been kept to the forefront so that this car will keep emissions low. Lower Mr. Tata says than many small cars on the road today. Why is this important? Imagine in a counntry where urban areas already have a high level of pollution, cities like Kolkata and Ahmedabad, imagine putting in millions of these cars on the road, it would have been a serious error for Ratan Tata to have a vision of a great vision of a small car for the Indian people without having though about the environmental consequence of this. It appears that the vision includes staying upto date with future European emissions standards also. The other aspect is safety, arapid increase in the car fatality rate also would set this car back, and here Mr. Tata says the car hasn't compromise by using plastic, as a car its like any other passenger car, its made of sheet metal. Profits and margins on this car Mr. Tata says will depend a lot on the input costs. One of the inputs is steel whose prices have been rising. It helps that Tata is a big manufacturer of steel and would be able to better manage this input cost. A lot of sourcing is done on the internet auctions to get the best price and Tata has a long term relationship it appears with Bosch for the engine as Bosch is investing heavily in India. See the links to Tata's $2500 car and to Bosch....

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The average of vehicles on the road reached a record of 11.1 years in 2011, according to R.L. Polk research company. Using the average of 15,000 miles driven a year used by the EPA for cost calculation on fuel economy labels, shows that car are being driven for much longer nowadays, over 150,000 miles. In the 1960's and 1970's the average was closer to 100,000 miles. Because of the EPA mandated fuel emissions standards and technological advances the newer cars in 2012 have better life than the older cars in the 1970's. Toyota's, Honda's and Volvo's frequently get 150,000 or 200,000 miles and still have some usage left for example. In addition the tighter fuel efficiency standards of the Obama administration and technological advances now underway are likely to bring a new generation of cars that provide another level of improved performance.

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In an historic event, the young Senator who introduced bills on improving fuel efficiency in the Senate only a few years ago, announces his proposal for a single national fuel efficiency standard of 35.5 miles per gallon in 2016. Mr Obama had the chief executives of 10 global auto companies all gathered together, as he made the announcement. It reverses decades of conflict on this issue, and puts the US at the forefront of developing new technologies for fuel efficiency and emissions control.

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On Mercedes Chryslers efforts to bring new diesel technology to the United States. Diesels account for half of all cars sold in Europe can they make enough of a dent in the US to affect oil imports and oil prices? "Bluetec " is the European competitor to Japanese hybrid technologies, if it can be made environmentally friendly (with urea and other additives to reduce bad emissions) the its a real competitor to hybrids. The remaining task is marketing which is the challenge facing the Europeans. One bit of encouragement the new bluetec meets California emission standards.

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BMW's first mass production electric car the i3 will go on sale inthe U.S. in the second quarter of 2014, priced at $41,350. It is a city car with a range of 100 miles from one charge. BMW will launch a i8 in 2014. The i8 is a super sports car with high fuel economy. A electric motor drives the front wheels and a 3 cylinder gasoline engine drives rear wheels. BMW's CEO Reithofer has increased spending on R&D so that it can meet the 30% of automobiles that have to be hybrids or electric vehicles by 2025 for BMW to meet higher European auto emissions standards. R&D spending was up 17% in 2012 to 9.2 billion euros, and capital spending up 42%.

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Detail about Tata's $2500 car. What it looks like- a jelly bean small in front, larger in the back for aerodynamics, 30-35 horsepower, with bearings good for 45 mph, top speed 75 mph, trunk in front to hold a briefcase and battery, rear mounted engine with continuous variable transmission, a hollowed out steering wheel shaft, engine designed by Bosch 600 to 660 cubic centimetres 35 hp. Tata CEO, Ratan Tata, says in a interview the car will do far better on emissions than today's low end cars, and that the emissions standards were much easier to meet than the crash and safety tests, because of the lightness of the vehicle. Todays lower emissions standards in developing countries makes it easier by not having to use more expensive technologies. Electronic sourcing and internet auctions are used by Tata to a greater degree, 30-40 % of parts sourced this way compared to 10-15% by other larger carmakers. This helps meet the aggressive cost target. On the safety isssue its interesting to note that most of the people buying this car will be millions of motorcycle families and individuals (typically a couple of people can ride an Indian motorcycle). They may be safer in a light car than on a motorcycle. This has to be seen in the particular context of India. Renault-Nissan used the experience of lowcost car engineering techniques and secrets from its Logan car made in Romania and transferred it to its other models. Tata started with a clean sheet of paper, asked the quesion what they really had to have and was there some other way. It was Ratan Tata's dream to build a car in 1 lakh or 100,000 rupees or about $2500. The project had all out backing and tested Indian engineers ingenuity. The Tata effort will be studied by carmakers from around the world. Bosch does not underestimate the value of this business, as the car will target a market of hundreds of millions of people in India and China and developing countries. Ariba a supplier to Toyota, and BMW a supplier to Tata, helped Tata buy parts through electronic sourcing. China's Cherry Automobile company, another pioneer, had an Austrian firm help it design its engine for its small car. Tata worked with German company Bosch on the engine. And both must have used cutting edge technology but with a different goals and specifications to achieve unique tasks....

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Kurczewski test drives aNano LX around the test drive track near the Tata Pimpri factory, and on city streets. He thinks the pickup is good for Indian city streets. The four speed manual transmission makes changing gears abreeze. The 0.6 liter engine is half the size of the Toyota Yaris or the Honda Fit. Acceleration is slow 30 seconds to reach 60mph, but in Indian traffic this works fine. Visibility is excellent. No exterior passenger side mirror, no radio, and luggage goes in from inside the car, all deisgned to keep costs down. THere is Airconditioning in the LX which accounts for half of Nano orders so far and goes for $3800. Three point safety belts, but no air bags. A Nano Europa with improvements to meet European safety and emission standards and air bags will be intorduced to Europe in 2011, and asimilar car also intoroduced to the USA by 2011 possibly at Chrysler-FIat dealers.

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Axel Friedrich, a top German Environmental Agency regulator who advocates using modifications of existing vehicles as a more effective solution to the auto emissions problem. He recently reconfigured the VW Golf to show that by making changes- such as lighter seating and weight saving hood other steps to reduce the car's weight, low resistance tires, and engines that turn off when stopped and start when accelerator is pressed, more efficient gear ratios, removing the mirrors and substituting tiny cameras, and improving the aerodynamics- emissions can be cut 25% even with horsepower intact. Working with the Institute of Automotive Engineering at RWTH University in Aachen, Germany, Axel redesigned the Golf in this way to achieve a CO2 emissions reduction from 172 grams per kilometer to 131 grams and is working to bring it to 120 grams. 120 grams per kilometer is the EU's tentative target for emissions for cars sold in the region by 2012. Automakers have for years complained that this would be difficult to do in this manner because customers were concerned about safety and comfort. Its not clear that this would affect safety. However with global warming a big issue in Europe, most automakers are making changes now to prepare for a shift to 120 grams per kilometer in emissions. VW has announced a diesel version of the gasoline version that incorporates some of the redesign changes that Axel Friedrich made on his Golf, such as low resistance tires, and more efficient gear ratios, lower chassis for improved aerodynamics etc. This diesel version costs a base price of euros 20,615, and is only euros 315 mor than a standard diesel Golf. BMW has a new diesel version of its 1-Series with low resistance tiresand a gearshift indicator, which emits 16% less CO2 and costs nearly same as its predecessor. At Frankfurt Auto Show Mercedes Mercedes is expected to announce more cars with stop start systems. All this will help automakers in Germany achieve the EU 2008 target of 140 grams of CO2 emissions by 2008 on the way to the 2012 EU target of 120 grams. ...

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On one hand Chinese environmental officials are aware of the pollution problems in Beijing and Shanghai and other cities. Levels of nitrogen dioxide in Beijing exceed the WHO clean air guidelines by 78%. On the other hand the newly emerging middle class is seeking car ownership, and the local government officials need growth in the car industry to show good GNP and GDP growth numbers on which their performance is judged. Beijing and Shanghai and Anhui province local governments are part owners of some auto companies. About 416,000 people are employed in the Shanghai area auto industry alone and the auto industry in Shanghai pays about 900 millon dollars in taxes, according to government figures. At seven cars per 1000 population car sales are just beginning to take off. And with China's population its clearly not going to be possible to have the same level of ownership as in the US. The same is true for India. This would increase by many times the current demand for crude oil and increase emissions to the point of creating a disaster. And even today because of lax enforcement, and older models on the road, about 40% of vehicles in Beijing have no pollution controls and the other 60% have varying degrees of pollution controls. Experts say changes to the subsidized oil price policy, refineries that produce cleaner gasoline, policies to build more mass transit which has lagged behind in China as car sales took off (and probably more GNP impact from car plants than mass transit which act as inducement for local officials), and stricter fuel efficiency and auto emissions standards are needed....

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The US gets the lowest score among the large industrialized nations- way behind Europe- in its record on greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution policies, agricultural policies, smog, and other environment criteria in a survey done jointly by researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities. On regional smog the US has a very poor score.

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British Firms back up the Stern Review a study commissioned by the British government by joining together on carborn emissions reduction. The 18 top companies in Britian backing up the Stern Review include Tesco, BP and BT employ 2 million people and have $2 trillion in revenue. What the Stern Review pointed out is that investing 1% of GNP now will save costs worth 20% or more of GNP in future years. Heres how- the companies will develop a standard on how companies regularly report emissions, will invest in technology and emissions saving projects, and will reduce emissions froim cars and offices.

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482,000 VW owners in the U.S. and 11 million worldwide face the uncertainty of waiting for VW to find a technical solution to these cars on the road with highly polluting diesel engines. Resale prices of VW are declining.

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The new diesel Jetta from Volkswagen is gointo into all 50 states and meets the ultra strict standards for emissions of California. The same is true of the European diesel Honda Accord that is coming to the USA, and the BMW 335i and other models that all run on diesel. The economics is better than gasoline per mile its 15-20% cheaper and compared to hybrids diesels offer a better deal because the premium is less and the payback period for the extra cost is faster, in the case of the MercedesE320 Bluetec diesel $1400 and 2 year payback, vs the Camry hybrid premium of $3800 and with gas at $3 per gallon 3 to 8 years for payback. And hybrids only offer buel economy but diesel offers both fuel economy and performance like the BMW 335i with 265 hp and 33mpg on highway. Because of this new attractiveness of diesel its share of the market is expected to grow to 15% in 2015 in the USA from 6% now and hybrids are expected to go from 2.2% today to 6% by then.