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American Gas-Guzzlers Hurting Business as Well as Environment

Even as another Detroit automaker announced thousands of layoffs, a new survey found that a 'fuel-efficient vehicle gap' between Europe and the U.S. is hurting automakers and consumers, and that demand is high for gas-sipping cars.

The number of fuel-efficient vehicles is rapidly climbing in Europe, while the U.S. market now offers only two such cars -- even though Detroit automakers make a significant number of Europe's green machines, according to the Civil Society Institute.

CSI's 40mpg.org project, which aims to immediately increase the required fuel efficiency for vehicles sold in the U.S., announced the news as it released a report listing the 'fuel-efficient vehicles gap' and a study of American attitudes on auto regulations and fuel efficiency.

"The technology for great fuel efficiency is real, it exists overseas and can easily be imported to the United States," said Pam Solo, the president and founder of CSI. "America is needlessly losing the race to develop and deploy the best fuel-efficient technology, and to deliver it to the American consumer."

As evidence of the existence and demand for fuel-efficient vehicles, the report lists 113 fuel-efficient vehicles, up from 86 in 2005, while American drivers have only two. In late 2005, when CSI first conducted the research, there were five such vehicles on the road, but in the last two years, the Honda Insight and Volkswagen's diesel Beetle and Golf models have been shelved. The remaining fuel-efficient vehicles -- defined by the group as those getting a combined city and highway average of 40 miles per gallon -- are the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic, both hybrid cars.

"The U.S. is literally stuck in reverse when it comes to fuel efficiency, and it's falling farther behind the rest of the world," Ailis Aaron Wolf, a spokesperson for 40mpg.org. She added that an even more disturbing fact that emerged from the report is which auto companies are manufacturing all of Europe's fuel-efficient vehicles. "Nearly two-thirds -- 74 models -- of the 113 highly fuel efficient car models that are unavailable to American consumers are either made by U.S. auto manufacturers -- for example, Ford and GM -- or foreign manufacturers with substantial U.S. sales operations, like Volkswagen, Nissan and Toyota."

CSI also announced results of a new survey conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation to gauge Americans' feelings about fuel efficiency rates. On the same day that Chrysler announced it would lay off 13,000 workers in an effort to remain afloat, the survey results showed that 78 percent of survey respondents said they believe Congress could help to save ailing U.S. automakers by requiring the high fuel efficiency that is already being achieved -- often by the same companies -- in Europe.

Graham Hueber, a senior researcher at ORC, said, "There is a potential market of 2.5 million or more U.S. consumers for the introduction of fuel-efficient cars now being sold overseas, but not in this country." Significantly, he added that 12 percent of respondents "have faced a delay in getting the fuel-efficient car they wanted or were concerned enough about reports of delays not to proceed with purchasing such a vehicle."

The survey also found that 85 percent of Americans believe Congress should make higher fuel-efficiency levels mandatory for cars sold here. Contrary to other news reports showing that interest in fuel-efficient cars is on the decline as gas prices drop, ORC found that 76 percent of the people surveyed were as likely or more likely to buy a hybrid now as they were six months ago, owing to the widespread belief that gas prices will soon rise again.

The full results of the study and the survey are available from 40mpg.org and The Civil Society Institute.

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