Auto industry should speed fuel economy fixes-expert - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - While plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cells are likely one day to help cut U.S. gasoline consumption, major fuel savings can be achieved now if automakers put existing technologies to work under one hood.
So says Jason Mark, clean vehicles director for the nonpartisan, nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, who toured the Los Angeles Auto Show on Wednesday pointing to conventional gasoline-fueled cars and trucks that employ some of the fuel-savings ideas.
While automakers use some of the ideas on some of their models, they don't use all of the ideas on all of their models, which Mark said could be done without difficulty and at minimal cost.
"The technology is here. It's a matter of putting all the pieces of the puzzle together," Mark said.
Existing fuel-saving technologies used on many cars and trucks already include six-speed automatic transmissions, cylinder deactivation and simply better aerodynamic designing.
The cost, he said, would be $500 to $1,200 per vehicle, which Mark claims would be recouped over the life of a car's warranty in fuel savings.
And it would, within a decade, cut U.S. oil consumption by 2.3 million barrels per day, or about as much as is imported from Saudi Arabia and its neighbors, Mark said.
By 2016, the average fuel use by all new U.S. cars and trucks would rise to 35 miles per gallon from today's 25 mpg, Mark claims, by using existing gas-saving methods on conventional gasoline-driven vehicles.
"It's important for (automakers) to invest in technologies of the future," Mark said. "It would be a mistake for us to sit on our hands and wait for alternative fuels to save us from foreign oil dependence. We can use these technologies now."
Ford Motor Co. spokesman Nick Twork said automakers like Ford are already on their way to improving mileage for conventional gasoline vehicles.
But, the Ford spokesman said, "The idea that you can just overlay technology upon technology is probably not the right thing for the consumer. Definitely, consumers' taste is changing (toward fuel-saving vehicles). The real point is you have diminishing returns."
Mark said the fuel savings can be achieved on all vehicles, and he's not saying America needs to cut out heavy trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUVs).
"It's not about getting people out of their SUVs and into subcompacts. It's about building better SUVs and subcompacts," Mark said.
A 2007 Lincoln Navigator weighs almost three tons and is longer than 17 feet, but even it can save fuel by employing more of the technologies, Mark said. The Navigator already does use the six-speed automatic transmission that adds a mile per gallon to its fuel economy, he said.
Among the methods Mark wants to see more widely used are also are continuous variable transmissions which can provide a countless number of gears for better fuel efficiency, increasing the number of valves per cylinder to four from three, and variable valve timing.