President Barack Obama wants US cars to be averaging 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. He’s told all the major manufacturers about it and it seems they’re reasonably happy!

If this sounds like a dream; it isn’t. This is what the US President told the industry, and the industry is generally happy with it.Why is that? Because in the past, the very powerful motor industry lobby in the US has strongly resisted any tampering with what it does, and the great American population is fiercely defensive of their rights to drive gas-guzzling pick-ups and US politicians looking to get elected are all too aware that taking a strong stance on behalf of these motorists is a sure-fire vote winner.

So, like most things in modern day democracies, the actuality is slightly different from the PR.In reality, there will be extra credits for motor manufacturers producing hybrid cars or electric cars as part of the Obama Administration’s overall attempts to encourage new thinking around fuel economy.

Also, the politicians aren’t completely stupid, so there’ll be a partial exemption for pick-ups. Their size and weight make fuel efficiency a difficult nut to crack, and they’ll have to be able to produce better fuel efficiency figures eventually, but they’ll at least be exempt from the new scheme between 2017 and 2019. Manufacturers will also receive extra credit for incorporating hybrid vehicles into the pick-up design in the meantime.So there we are, Detroit is welcoming new green technology. Perhaps it has to? The manufacturers are all too aware of what happened previously when they were stuck with SUV-heavy suites of vehicles they couldn’t shift profitably when petrol prices rose quickly.With a concentration on fuel-efficient vehicles and with extra credits for new technologies, they clearly think they’re on to a winner… and they’re going green.