The Senate has just passed an environment bill that includes higher CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards that will “…increase average fuel economy by 40 percent to 35 miles per gallon for cars, SUVs and pickup trucks by 2020.”
The auto industry is up in arms about this. They claim this is just not realistic and that meeting the standards will raise the cost of their vehicles by thousands of dollars among other reasons.
But just last night I watched an ad for an SUV 
that ALREADY gets 35 mpg! If they can make and market a consumer SUV now that meets the standards they have little faith in their own technological abilities to make across the board advances in the next 13 years.