MPG goals elusive at SAE conference

Detroit -- Auto executives at the opening day of the annual SAE World Congress said Monday they have the technology to build vehicles with a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon, but some are skeptical consumers are motivated to buy them when gas is still hovering at $2 a gallon.

"There is more than enough technology to get to 35 mpg now," said Trevor Jones of the National Research Council. Jones, who chairs the council's committee on fuel economy technology for light-duty vehicles, was among the experts on a panel speaking to automotive engineers and other industry insiders at Cobo Center.

"As long as gas remains cheap, it will be hard for alternative technologies to break into the mainstream market," said former Honda official John German, a senior fellow with the International Council for Clean Transportation.

Until gas becomes more costly, German doesn't expect cars to become dramatically smaller or more fuel efficient. If the cost of gas is less than insurance, he believes, consumers will continue to buy larger and more functional vehicles.

German's opinion wasn't shared by everyone. Jon Juriga, director of powertrain at the Hyundai Kia Technical Center, said he already sees vehicles getting smaller -- one path to greater fuel efficiency.

Juriga said the South Korean automaker has pledged to be at 35 mpg by 2015 -- five years before the U.S. government says all automakers must meet that standard. But he sees that mandate as just one step on a trend to even higher fuel-efficiency numbers.

Although technology is moving ahead for electric and hybrid vehicles, bringing them into mass production at an affordable price could still take decades, experts said.

"Customers will not pay a lot of extra money just to be green," said Juriga. "There has to be value for their money."

In late 2007, Congress ordered automakers to meet a fleetwide average of 35 mpg by 2020. Last year, federal regulators said the first five years of requirements could cost the auto industry more than $40 billion.

But 35 mpg could come before 2020, because California and 12 other states are seeking government permission to reduce tailpipe emissions by 30 percent by 2016. That could require cars to average 43.7 mpg by 2016.

Still, there is some good news.

The panel said the auto industry has largely reached "technology neutrality," meaning all technology is available to all automakers, Jones said. Some are ahead in some areas, such as Toyota on hybrids and Volkswagen on diesels.

The reason for the neutrality, Jones said, is that "65-70 percent of the technology supplied (to all the automakers ) is by suppliers like Bosch."

In Europe, diesels account for about half of the fleet -- in large part because of heavy taxes on gasoline. But diesels will not attain their full potential without government assistance, including an energy policy, said Johannes-Joerg Rueger, senior vice president of diesel engineering for Robert Bosch LLC.

"What we can do as a supplier is somewhat limited," he said, acknowledging the need for government to help promote the technology.

Rob Snell contributed.