Well, yes and no, I will grant you that.
If it were ALL mandated by "fuel economy", then we'd ALL be driving things akin to the Smart car or Honda Fit or the Fiat thingy and we'd be getting probably 60 mph.
However, REALITY is that the American consumer does NOT want 'small' cars en masse. They want SUVs, and bigger cars that have POWER. So, let's compare. Years and years ago I owned a '68 Chevy Camaro convertible. Back in the mid-70's, well I seem to remember paying around a dollar or less for a gallon gas...$.899 comes to mind, but that's immaterial. That Camaro, had a 327 c.i.d. engine, which equates to 5.352 L now. And the 327 wasn't the largest engines...there were 350, 396, 407, 454....but let's stick on the Camaro. That '68 had VERY little in the way of emissions controls. No catalytic converter, no EGR recirculation system, just a big Holly 4 bbl carb, dual exhaust, a PVC valve, etc. And 350 hp (at least my Camaro did). It did not have radial tires, and wasn't all that aerodynamic in the front end (big grille, radiatork, etc). What was my fuel economy? I think at the MOST, on long freeway trips, I got somewhere around 20-22 mpg (and REMEMVBER hte legal speed limit on interstates was 55 mph!). Fast forward to now, and compare a NEW Camaro convertibles. Heavier, more HP...the "out the door" price in '68 for that car was $2995 (I had the original window sticker from the original owner). A new, similarly equipped Camaro (yes, mine had power windows, fold down rear seat, gauges, cruise control, etc). Looking at the Chevy site, a 2012 V6 starts at $35K. That's the V6, 6-speed manual tranny (my old one only had a 4-speed)...start tacking on the options and it gets pricey. BUT for performance, take a look: The V6 will still only get 17/28 mpg overall. If you stuff the V8 in it, the price skyrockets to well over 40K and the fuel economy drops off to 14/19.
Take a look at my old 1990 Isuzu LS 4x4 SpaceCab. Paid $15K for in back in Oct 89 in Hawaii. Yes, original owner here. It's consistantly give me something around 18/24 mpg (it has the BIG 2.6L fuel injected 4 cyl Isuzu engine) and 5-speed manual tranny. It now has 190K on it and is in VERY good shape (having lived in AZ since March 1990). Then the "cash for clunkers' was in full swing, I thought about 'trading' But when I went to look at the small trucks, I'd decided on the Toyota....now I would have gotten a rebate, but the Toyota truck I was looking at at 6 cylinders (no 4), had similar features (AC, power windows, stereo, yati yati)...but in terms of fuel economy did not do any better than MY Isuzu..something like 14/19. So I simply could NOT justify trashing my 'good' truck (it would have been stripped and crushed, supposedly), go into debt STILL for nearly 30K (after reabate) to get a truck that was the same size, similar features, and basically got the same fuel economy as the one I have. Couldn't justify it.
Why the disparity. Mostly to blame is the EPA....the emissions requirements have required bigger engines with more HP to deliver the performance required by consumers. When you 'smog down' a vehicle, you have to boost the HP to compensate. Sort of a basic fact of nature, I guess. We DO lost a 'bit' of economy with 10% ethanol but it's NOT that much when you do a down and dirty physics comparison of BTUs per gallon between "pure gasoline" and E10. The engines today are MORE efficient at extracting energy of a gallon of fuel compared to the heyday of muscle cars. And of course, they POLLUTE a whole lot less. But there is a cost. Look at DIESEL engines. Why are there no AMERICAN cars equipped with DIESEL engines? They have lots of power...and they are efficient. THE EPA that's why. The EPAs requirements for diesel engines are out in left field. Subject for another discussion. I think the Genny would be a most awesome car with a diesel engine under the hood!
So a connection between the oil companies and the auto manufacturers? Not really. Oil is a commodity that is subject to supply and demand. And lately, as China and India's economies heated up, they DEMANDED a LOT more because they have no domestic supplies, so they compete with everybody else out there buying crude.
There's a symbiosis, of curse, oil producer - oil consumer..but that's about it.
Here are a couple of historical things to chew on:
Diesel, the inventor of the "diesel" engine, desired an engine that could be fueled with biomass from domestic German farms...vegetable oils...most notably PEANUT OIL. Yes, peanut oil. It would have created an engine with a domestic source of fuel and kept German farmers, well, farming.
Henry Ford's Model T had an engine that was able to run on gasoline, kerosene, or ethanol. Yes. it was. In 1908, gas stations were few and far between. Ford wanted to make his car popular with the masses and to FARMERS in particular; One variant had the carburetor (a Holley Model G) modified to run on ethyl alcohol, to be made at home by the self-reliant farmer. Well, needless to say, the popularity of the car soared and it sold. The fledgling oil industry was right behind, but one thing that was troubling was the fact that cars could run on ethanol and not need the new 'gasoline'. This is where you have to dig a bit and connect the dots. Car takes off, and soon there's talk of prohibition..that is, the banning of ALL forms of alcohol..especially 'ethanol'. This was enacted in 1920 and lasted until 1933. The Model T was produced from 1908 to 1927. We all know the 'reasons' for Prohibition...or do we? It's possible that there WAS a connection between Prohibitionists and the oil industry...Rockefeller may have opposed alcohol PUBLICLY for morality reasons but look at the end result: Alcohol gets banned, thus ALL vehicles MUST consume gasoline. IF it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. LoL....Ford may have supported it because he had a lot of workers he didn't want hungover. Anyways, Ford continued to make the dual fuel T's, but it proved too costly and stopped making the ethanol-capable T's shortly before the T was stopped altogether. The interesting thing is to look at graphs of the demise of alcohol overlaid with the soaring use of petroleum (gas) and oil idustry profits. Such is life.
well curb weight of 3900, but fully loaded up to 5k....still a heavy car, and if your in a V8 even a bit heavier yet
I know my view on gas companies and car manufacturers is a bit cynical when it comes to the miles per gallon your vehicle gets. It would seem to me that they could be making them way more efficient then they are considering how advanced technology is today.
