United States Department of Transportation
i
Advanced Automotive Technology: Visions of a Super-Efficient Family Car
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1995-09-01
[PDF-2.56 MB]
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Abstract:The automobile has come to symbolize the essence of a modern industrial society. Perhaps more than any other single icon, it is associated with a desire for independence and freedom of movement; it is an expression of economic status and personal style. Automobile production is also critically important to the major industrial economies of the world. In the United States, for instance, about 5 percent of all workers are employed directly (including fuel production and distribution) by the auto industry. Technological change in the auto industry can potentially influence not only the kinds of cars that are driven, but also the health of the economy. The automobile is also associated with many of the ills of a modern industrial society. Automotive emissions of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides are responsible for as much as 50 percent of ozone in urban areas; despite improvements in air quality forced by government regulations, 50 million Americans still live in counties with unsafe ozone levels. Automobiles are also responsible for 37 percent of U.S. oil consumption, in an era when U.S. dependence on imported oil is more than 50 percent and still increasing. A concern related to automotive gasoline consumption is the emission of greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, which may be linked to global climate change. The automobile fleet, which accounts for 15 percent of the U.S. annual total, is one of this country’s single largest emitters of carbon dioxide. Recent technological improvements to engines and vehicle designs have begun to address these problems, at least at the level of the individual vehicle. Driven by government regulation and the gasoline price increases of the 1970s, new car fuel economy has doubled between 1972 and today, and individual vehicle emissions have been reduced substantially. Several trends have undercut a portion of these gains, however, with the result that the negative impacts of automobiles are expected to continue.
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