We now know that all combustion engines require high effiency particulate filters, not just the diesels (with their unrigorous standards). Public health demands the rapid implementation of a new standard to eliminate this attack upon us all.

Stoichiometry is the big dog, and charging extra money for forced induction is the cat's meow.

Decades ago? The euro "yee haw" effect of clean diesel ultra low speed torque development is actually only a couple years old. This has no effect on maximum horsepower. I'd rather see 160 lb-ft at 1450 rpm out of a 1.0L advanced 2 cylinder, or 80 lb-ft out of a 0.5L single. Who cares about maximum power? What we need is a steep power curve out of a hyper efficient burn.

"EPA projects that 99% of US counties will meet the proposed standards without undertaking any further actions to reduce emissions." This means that the new rules are just a new set of clothes for an basically unchanged pollution set. In addition to grandfathering, the 1% of polluters in potential violation will receive a variance no doubt. The burning goes on with no end in sight.

So here we are 41 years later, and we finally get some federal power station rules for which industry gets 4+ more years to implement. It only took a million lives and 10 million stolen childhoods to get the it done. Thank the lord we live in such an advanced society.

This BASH II version should be the ONLY Malibu, and the transaction price needs to be around $23,500 to be competitive. Car buyers care about price, interior & exterior style, NVH, sound systems, ride, and mileage. Power is way down on the list so there's no need to invest in the new 2.5L. IF GM had a brain, they'd be downsizing like the rest of the world.

A patently ridiculous application for the exclusive rights and royalties to the concept of alcohol blended fuels in non-stoichiometric engine applications. Dozens of research labs, including MIT, have been working on this for years, and ExxonMobil thinks they can own the entire field because they've got the deepest wallets. What's next? A patent application on chicken soup?

Roger Pham, right on man! Also, Ai Vin is correct to say "Bush and Cheney's real job in the White House was to continue a policy started in the Reagan years." That's why I wore a button during the run-up to his first election that depicted candidate Reagan with the caption "Scary Monster - Super Creap." People thought it was funny. I was actually horrified, and I still am. It's been 37 years since the oil embargo of 1973, and what's changed in transportation? Not much. Thank god we still have Christmas.

Henry Where to start? You say that anything humans do is natural, that there's nothing we can do anyway, that the cost of doing anything is too high, that Colorado shale conversion is $100/bbl but coal conversion is $35/bbl. You imply that a pound of uranium can be mined as harmlessly as a pound of coal, that the government is preventing a private company from reprocessing uranium, that the word "possible" means "hopefully non-lethal," that a nuclear repository must be protected by statute but left unguarded, that a technology exists to safely spread uranium dust on the ground, that nuclear power can be generated cheaply, and that environmentalists are controlled by oil speculators. Finally you say that Chernobyl was not a disaster, when upwards of a million people have lost their lives as a result. See: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment Written by Alexey V. Yablokov (Center for Russian Environmental Policy, Moscow, Russia), Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko (Institute of Radiation Safety, Minsk, Belarus). Consulting Editor Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger (Environmental Institute, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan). Volume 1181, December 2009 335 Pages To which I respond Henry: PFAWWWWWWWWWW! JC

134g/km is "low," but 123g/km is not. Maybe the words "low CO2" emissions should have a standard meaning on this site, such as low CO2 emissions = <100g/km. "Very low CO2" emissions could be a good amount less, say 25% less, at <75g/km as in upcoming PHEV's. I know that this is a niggling complaint, but I'm not impressed with either engine.

@ John Thompson: What a knee jerk conservative fool you are. The United States DOES NOT have appropriate regulations. That's why we have far more graft in this country, for example. We have had a 'free for all" economy for about 175 years. We have the third lowest corporate taxes in the developed world (ex: Ireland and Switzerland), and we have a paucity of regulations. How's this for a reality check: huge tax bonuses are instances of embezzlement, and these bonuses ARE part of the cause of the banking collapse. One cause was the following unfortunate internal bank policy: grifting borrowers into pay banks usurious interest rates, knowing full well that the people couldn't pay it back. There have been lots of fuel-efficient cars bought here. I don't drive one. Ford Leviathan, GMC Gargantua, Dodge Colossus, etc. With regulations. 'Western cowboys had their days' - how utterly profound and sage. This forum is for people who are interested in Energy, Technologies, Issues and Policies for Sustainable Mobility, not stupid conservative politics. Come again some other day.

Cows are indeed holy. If everyone lived as simply as the average Indian (not recommended), we wouldn't be in such an environmental mess. Smaller families come with female empowerment. When Indian men further respect the reproductive rights of Indian women, the population will stabilize. This cultural change, well underway in the cities, is now proceeding in the countryside. India can afford to hire low wage workers to build and install irrigation systems. If it gets worse, they'll probably act more effectively. But is this a sustainable mobility article?

Super! Now if only we could get them to actually produce it out of aluminum and high strength steel, upsize the motor/battery, then at 80+ mpg this will be the efficient car standard bearer for the world - an impressive one off.

There will never be a joystick controlled car, unless it is primarily controlled by a grand road computer that controls all of the cars in the area. Control of a steering wheel is far less susceptible to inputs from various mishaps. Bump a joystick controlled car and watch it change course and speed. Bump a steering wheel and rarely does anything change. Drivers' legs don't get bumped in a car, and don't much move in an accident. During a vehicular mishap under joystick control, a driver may all too easily be confused by using the three controls combined into one. Our present system of three separate controls for steering, braking and accelerating allows for finer modulation and differentiation, and thereby increases the chance that a driver can maintain control of the vehicle, even performing complex maneuvers to reduce the severity of the outcome, if not entirely preventing the accident.

Ben wrote "Why are we subsiding something that has been profitable for centuries?" Why? Because the purpose of government has always been to enrich the oligarchy at the expense of the poor. The modern form of which is to enrich mega-corporations and the small group of people who often run them into the ground - but get rich doing so. A larger group that gamed the system was the pirates - just as long as the thievery occured elsewhere, and some payment was made to the host government. The modern form of which is small business, who rob their suppliers, customers and employees, and then go bust - but not before paying some taxes. Imagine what science could have done with photovoltaics and batteries with three trillion dollars in subsidies. Imagine what people could do with their hard earned money if only they weren't robbed of it.

I was about to write how wintermane2000 had it correct once again; and then he wrote back about war - completely wrong. Oh well. The study shows the obvious: Americans can't see past the nose on their face. Young people have better brains. Republicans are ignorant and all too commonly self-centered liars. Most people are afraid of impending global warming disasters, but don't want to change their lifestyle to avoid them. They seek genius from science, or miracles from god to make it all go away. They don't want to pay a penny for it. Note that the trend line is not statistically significant. With rapidly increasing living standards in the third world, there can be no way to avoid catastrophe without an order of magnitude reduction in GHG emissions by way of our living simply and efficiently. The human population must volutarily be brought down to something like 1/3 its present size in order to accomplish this. How is it to be done? As Wintermane2000 said, I don't think it can be done given human nature. We are toast one way or another. We can only postpone the inevitable; and even that will take the adoration of a cult figure like the world has never seen.

It's September already; shouldn't this be a Euro 5?

But can the engine charge the batteries? The Volt cannot. The system is 2-3 times more powerful than is needed for a minimalist and lightweight 4 seater; but this is a deluxe sports car concept.

Requiring sacrifice and new thinking, no solution is viable without a brilliant use of the bully pulpit, and with the Congress and media fully on board. This is the way the USA has always gone to war, and fought the cold war and ran the space race. Ten years ISN"T FAST ENOUGH to ensure expensive carbon fuel. With the world in recession, this is the perfect time to rationalize fuel prices to force efficiencies. The world's ecosystems cannot bear the stress. The developed nations borrow money to keep up their roadways. The USA barely taxes road users. The general public pays for roads. Trucking companies do not come close to paying their fair share. Why? The USA needs to spend its money efficiently by getting electric rail to take the long haul freight instead of trucks. Only with the revitilization of rail freight does electric passenger rail make economic sense. The suggestion of reducing income taxes does little good for the society. The country already has relatively low taxes, and a ballooning deficit. Income tax should be progressive, automatic and foolproof. Tax loopholes and tax breaks are inefficient, unless they cement a growing, high employment industry within the country. The only tax break should be for companies with long term increasing employment - period. There should not be any breaks for agriculture or any other industry. If battery factories are so important, they should be built and operated by the government. If photovoltaic farms are so important, they should also be built by the government. That's unlikely to happen. The whole point of raising the cost of carbon fuel is to allow low carbon, high employment industries flourish. This should not be tied to taxation. More than low carbon goods and services, people need low carbon housing and workplaces. The empowerment of women is key to population reduction, which is truely vital to the ecosystem, and the ultimate goal of the enterprise.

In 2012, this California standard of 1000ppm will be an improvement for ships using fuel loaded outside of north America. However, this improvement pales in comparison to the ships using fuel loaded in north America which will use the 2014 USA standard of 15ppm. We desperately need a worldwide ULSD standard.

@alpha1847, Agreed - a light pressure, DI Miller 1.4L would be the best way to go for GM's new lithium BASH Malibu for 2011, only instead, I'd recommend a bigger NiMH battery(more like Ford, Toyota and Honda) until the price of the lithium battery comes down to earth. This should be the standard powerplant, not an optional one. There's no reason to upsize to ~1.6L, as the battery will make up for the torque loss; that's its purpose. The cost of making yet another engine easily overrides the horsepower loss in my opinion. GM has the turbo 2.8L, and DI 3.0L for those who want to waste their hard earned money, and to do their bit to melt Greenland. As the new head of GM "doesn't know anything about cars," and as the public will continue to be dragged by the media into buying overpowered cars, I'd guess that the DI 3.0L is scheduled for the Malibu as well. Putting the kabosh to the sixes (in this affordable class) should be what the government does, but I doubt they have the nerve to tell the industry what to do.

@Peter, The collateral is nothing even close to zero, and indeed, the secure debt holders would have gotten their money back if the assets had been liquidated. @ et. al. Wintermane2000 is correct when he writes that the meaning of secured debt is now debased. Chrysler was deemed too large to liquidate, and the government just willy nilly decided who got a piece of the pie - appalling. As formed, the unions are poorly represented on the board, which may lead to additional stress on the company. I don't understand this. Following bankruptcy, I believe that the unions should have been allowed to buy the company with a government backed loan. They are the biggest stake holder by far, and have all the power to make the reorganization a success. The secured lenders should have been respected. Fiat has nothing on Chrysler engineers, and more could be hired from the excess supply at GM - more are needed. There was no reason to bring Fiat (a company teetering on bankruptcy itself) to the table other than a lack of trust on the part of the government. Fiat can provide tooling to replace the smaller Dodge offerings, and that's about it. However, the existing Caliber needs only a new engine, revised suspension and updated interior to be competitive. This can easily be done with existing resources. Fiat cannot provide the necessary changes to the rest of the car line to bring them up to date. Chrysler went down the tubes because of the supremacy of the accounting department over the quality engineering department. GM is suffering the same fate for the very same reason. They both took their customers for granted. They also fociferously fought against national health care, and they traded a bloated retirement plan for Mexican production. All put together, these choices reduced their margins to the point where they were only making money on the car loans. Their customers, workers and paid retirees all became aged. When the fuel shortage hit, neither had a single competitive product in segment to offer - not one. The long recession only hastened the inevitable demise of Chrysler.

There is a problem with the selection of the Green Line in Boston being used as typical light rail. The Green Line, being the oldest American line still in existence, usually carries only 2 cars per train, a very atypical and inefficient number. It also makes all of its many stops over very small distances. The energy for all this stopping and starting is not typical of any other light rail line in Boston. The others all have close to a dozen cars per train, and stop far less often over much larger distances. This seems to have been a very poor choice, and must skew the results, causing significant errors in the conclusions.

Obviously, they're charging this much because they can. It's a novelty car. When the volumes are increased, the price will be lowered. The volumes will increase when the cost of the batteries demonstrably pays for the factory that built them. The batteries must also be proven reliable, which is not a certainty. Patents must be respected via payments. Mitsubishi's auto production timetable is completely realistic at 20% electric by the year 2020. That's 2-3 generations away from the i-MiEV.