CAFE Clash

Can you pass a law that will make cars get 50 mpg?  Well yes, but don't expect the cars to comply.  The only thing that will do 50 mpg is a motorcycle.  And, much as I like bikes, I owned one for years, I don't want to ride a bike to work in a New England snow storm.  Or bring the groceries home on one. Or take the kids to youth league soccer on one.  Or bring anything home from the lumber yard on a bike.  Once you get married, you need a vehicle big enough to hold you, the wife, the kids, the luggage, the picnic lunch, and the skis.  And a real vehicle like that is never gonna do 50 mpg.  You are doing well if you can get 25 out of it.
   The Greenies, and the lefties, are crying a lot of tears now that Trump's EPA is gonna dump the magical 50 mpg by 2025 rule.  It's magical because only magic will produce such a vehicle.  In fact, even the EPA understood that nobody could reach that mileage in the real world.  They offered incentives like giving all your cars a sizeable boost in mileage rating if they would run on alcohol.  It was such a juicy bennie, that was I running a car company I'd tell production to make 100% of my vehicles run on alcohol.   It isn't hard, all you have to do is select fuel system hoses and gaskets and such (elastomers) that can withstand alcohol.  And add some code to the engine microprocessor programming to richen up the mixture when running on alcohol since alcohol  doesn't provide nearly as much heat energy as gasoline does.  And presto, magic happens, the EPA says my vehicle fleet, my CAFE, gets a substantial boost. 
   In actual fact, the car companies have plenty of market incentive to build the best fuel economy they can.  It sells.  Good fuel economy is as important as styling to customers.  We ought to shut down the whole CAFE bureaucracy, lay off all the bureaucrats, save a little money, and get on with it.