Flunking the Oil Addiction Test

The muscle cars of yesteryear don’t seem quite so impressive any more. In fact, as Matthew L. Wald pointed out in The Times the other day, the most powerful 2005 Toyota Camry, the ultimate plain-vanilla family sedan, accelerates more quickly than some 1975 Pontiac Firebird models. A 2005 Nissan sports wagon can outrun a ‘65 Mustang.

These examples confirm a disturbing truth: most of the fancy technology developed over the years by automakers here and abroad has been used to make cars bigger and faster. Greater fuel efficiency

On Wednesday, the Bush administration published new standards for S.U.V.’s and other light trucks, except for the very biggest. Officials called the standards “the most ambitious fuel economy goals for light trucks ever developed.” Measured against the need, as well as against what manufacturers are capable of doing with off-the-shelf technology, they are also extremely disappointing.

The standards call for an 8.1 percent increase in miles per gallon over the four model years from 2008 to 2011. That change will save 10.7 billion gallons of gasoline over the lifetime of the new vehicles, the administration says, equal to about 227 million barrels of oil. That’s useful, of course, but it really amounts to only about 25 days’ worth of gasoline at today’s consumption rates, and less than three weeks’ worth of current oil imports