U.S. to Promote More Fuel-Efficient Trucks - Post
Copyright ©2000 Reuters Limited
March 30, 2000
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Clinton administration will announce on Thursday that it is extending to light trucks a $1.6 billion program with the nation's automakers to produce super-high-mileage family cars, the Washington Post reported.
It said the program, to be unveiled by Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites), would encourage automakers to produce small trucks using a combination of electric and diesel engines that can get up to 50 miles per gallon (mpg), according to some estimates.
The truck initiative would use technology developed under the administration's ``Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles,'' which is designed to produce 80-mpg family cars by 2004 and reduce U.S. dependence on oil imports.
Rising crude oil prices in recent months have hit U.S. drivers of trucks and sport-utility vehicles especially hard, since they are gas guzzlers, averaging 20.9 mpg against 28.7 mpg for cars.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Tuesday agreed to increase production, which should drive gasoline prices lower.President Clinton foreshadowed Thursday's announcement at a press conference on Wednesday when he mentioned America's love affair with big sport-utility vehicles and said it would eventually force some changes.
``If they're going to drive them, we're either going to have to find a way for them to get better mileage or run on alternative fuels over the long run. And I think we will be able to do that,'' Clinton told reporters.
Administration officials said the new truck initiative is a logical way of expanding the use of the technology developed in the car program.
Under the guidelines of the partnership, established by the Clinton administration in 1993, U.S. automakers must be marketing the 80-mpg family cars by 2004. But the Post said auto industry and administration sources cautioned on Wednesday that no ``target date'' has been set for the new trucks.
Since 1993, the government and the industry have spent $1.6 billion, equally divided between the two parties, to develop 80-mpg family cars, government and industry sources said. Much of that technology is applicable to small trucks, and possibly to some larger models, those sources said.
The Clinton administration has proposed $8 million in seed money in the fiscal 2001 budget to transfer the new technology to trucks, those sources said.
``This is a logical offshoot of everything we've been doing since 1993,'' one industry source told the paper. ``This technology can be used for more than one purpose.''