Results from the study show hybrid vehicles had a crash rate of 0.9% compared to just 0.6% for regular ICE vehicles. Because hybrids tend to use all-electric mode at lower speeds, the number of pedestrian/bike accidents are higher at under 35 MPH. The report itself uses limited data from only 12 states and doesn't draw direct conclusions as to why — though it's obvious — so this is being used to instruct local governments on how to deal with hybrids and non-car commuters.

[NHTSA (PDF) via Green Car Reports, Pure Green Cars]

Though these vehicles come with an explicit warning about trying to actually register one of these salvage cars, someone looking for parts for their vehicle, a LeMons contender, or a super cheap swap should look no further than GSAAuctions.gov. There's also the novelty of owning a car you can watch crashed in slow motion online.

Click "Next" to see what your crash dollars buy you. (Hat tip to YellowDucati!)

[GSAAuctions.gov]

Make: Chevy
Model: Impala
Damage: Side Crash
Current Bid: $1,425

Make: Toyota
Model: Yaris
Damage: Side/Bumper
Current Bid: $950

Make: Dodge
Model: Journey
Damage: Side Crash, No Door on the passenger side
Current Bid: $2,175

Make: Nissan
Model: Murano
Damage: Side Crash
Current Bid: $3,175

Make: Audi
Model: A4 Sedan
Damage: Rear and Side Crash, exposure to elements
Current Bid: $1,625

Make: Nissan
Model: Murano
Damage: Front crash, significant
Current Bid: $400

Make: Toyota
Model: Matrix
Damage: Front And Side Damage
Current Bid: $400

Once upon a time, safety was an afterthought. When Carl Benz invented the first automobile in 1885, society paid no mind to the concept of safety. A seat that didn't have razor blade and plague-impregnated upholstery was safe enough. Those early, prototypical automobiles were nothing more than amusements, and were considered as such. Though the well-off bought them, they weren't used for daily transport as the roads weren't exactly able to cope with speeds above that of a horse-drawn carriage. About the only concession to safety in this era was the inclusion of basic headlights to see at night, scrub brakes to slow the vehicle, and human-eviscerating mechanical bits which weren't in constant contact with the occupants.

Click Next to continue...

As the new century dawned, competition in the realm of the automobile began to heat up. Hundreds of garage tinkerers like Ransom Olds and Henry Ford started their own manufacturing companies, both of those more than once. The focus of the era was cut-throat competition in its purest form. The increasingly popular automobile was gaining ground as a transportation method. They didn't require the quarter and care a team of horses did, and they offered a modern panache the carriage could not. They also afforded the safety of cabins closed to the elements, windows heated in the winter to avoid frost, and starter cranks designed to pull away rather than break the starter's wrist upon a back fire.

Click Next to continue...

Photo credit: SeriousWheels

By the late nineteen teens the myriad automakers began consolidating into a powerful group of centralized corporations, some of which survive to this day (some barely). Chrysler, General Motors, Ford, Packard, Hudson, Nash, and more had emerged from the brutal competition of the beginning years and established their niche with the buying public. Mass production was increasingly the order of the day and Americans proved very good at it. Building cars in this time was like printing money. Perhaps the most important development in the history of the automobile took place in this era Charles "Boss" Kettering developed the automatic starter, which freed motorists from the constant danger of hideously mangled limbs from starting accidents. It allowed female motorists independence and democratized the idea of a car in every carriage house. Sounds simple today, but the electric starter was and remains one of the most important innovations in automotive history.

Click Next to continue...

And so things went for the better part of three decades. The newest model would supplant the last in power, performance and style. Innovations like the keyed ignition made it safe to park your car street side following the invention of the starter. Vehicles reached gargantuan proportions but innovation came in the form of refinement, luxury, and increased power, but not really safety. Then the depression happened, killing off all but the strongest brands. Then the second world war happened.

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The war effort saw a halt to the large scale production of cars in favor of tanks and planes. But it was also a period of frenetic advancements in technology and material science, and that would show when the war ended. The returning GI's brought with them pent up demand for new cars but there hadn't been a new design penned since 1941. Most returned with antiquated designs but one plucky upstart named Tucker had safety innovations that wouldn't be standard for many years. It featured a cabin with a padded dash far away from the front seat occupants and free from protrusions which caused a great deal of injury during car crashes of that era. It also had a center headlight that turned with the wheels, but alas, Preston Tucker overextended himself and the old boys club wasn't interested in new competition, after 48 units the company closed down, but the ideas were slowly adopted. Sealed beam headlights came along in the forties and provided a huge improvement to road lighting at the time. That invention also provided the impetus for some of the first automotive standardization legislation in the US.

Click Next to continue...

As the babies of the baby boom generation came along, parents became more concerned with safety, as did the Federal Government. By the 1950's rudimentary seat belts became optional on some Ford models and three point safety belts were pioneered at Volvo. However, the thinking behind engineering hadn't yet changed much, it took Ralph Nadar's inflammatory book Unsafe At Any Speed to raise the public awareness of some of the safety problems which came from old fashioned production and the car's high speed capabilities. While it made an example of the Chevrolet Corvair, it was an indictment of the industry as a whole and the book served as a lightning rod for Washington, where legislation was passed establishing the embryonic elements which would become the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). Front and rear seat safety belts were made mandatory equipment in 1966.

Click Next to continue...

The first Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) were introduced in 1967 and vehicles not complying with FMVSS and NHTSA standards were not legal for sale in the US. Along with rising pressure from the OPEC oil embargo came mandates for laminated safety glass, bumpers designed for low speed impact, seat belt warning lights and a host of other items. Together they served to result in the overweight, under-performing, and frankly undesirable cars of the 1970s and early 80's.

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The 80's saw it's own kind of innovation however. The crumple zone concept had first been implemented in the 1959 Mercedes Fintail, but it was not widely adopted until mass market unibody vehicles became popular in the 1980s. The concept involved a reinforced safety cell surrounding the passengers and a front and rear structure designed to absorb and disperse crash force, protecting the passengers by sacrificing the vehicle. The advent of mainframe supercomputing capabilities made it possible to engineer these structures with a data driven method rather than guess and check. Also, in 1984, and FMVSS rules change allowed for lighting elements other than sealed beams. Though the change wasn't readily adopted then, it made the compound refractor and HID systems of today possible.

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Another important advancement of the era came not from the vehicles themselves, but from the method of crash testing. Rather than base crash performance on the damage to the car, the advent of data collecting crash test dummies put the focus on the passenger. "Vince and Larry"-like crash test dummies changed the way cars were designed in more ways than one. It was no longer good enough to restrain the passengers, the seat belts and automotive structure needed to be designed in a way to limit contact with the vehicle and control the passengers rate of deceleration, avoiding internal injuries as much as external. This is where the concept of passive restraints came to the forefront.

Click Next to continue...

Initial legislation towards passive restraints was vague, and led to the utterly silly door-mounted motorized seat belts, which became useless if the door came open during an impact, but eventually the rules were tightened and drivers side airbags became mandatory, followed by passenger side. While those remain the only required airbags, the continued commoditization of cars has led to an intense focus from a buyers perspective on overall safety. This in turn spawned something of a safety arms race through the latter part of the 1990's. Torso, side curtain, knee bolster, and smart airbags have become common equipment across the price spectrum. As in-car computational power and sensor technologies improved, systems like ABS became very common, followed then by various iterations of stability control.

Click Next to continue...

Following the disastrous Ford Explorer and Firestone rollover recall, and the then-popularity of the high-center-of-gravity SUV, focus was placed on roll mitigation and rollover safety. Testing for roof strength has actually been recent standardized. Another recent avenue of improvement has been side impact safety. If crumple zones worked for the front and rear, they should work for the sides. The only problem is there's not much energy absorbing space between the passengers and the skin of the doors, so the issue has presented some challenges. Side intrusion beams and multi-point door retention points as well as the aforementioned side airbag strategies have gone a long way to improving side impact safety. One of the more interesting innovations has been active vehicle monitoring by way of systems like OnStar, which is alerted by the vehicle of a possible crash condition and calls the vehicle via embedded cellular phone and sends emergency responders if necessary.

Click Next to continue...

The latest frontier in safety is augmenting the driver's focus on the road. It's now not uncommon for radar or camera based sensor systems to monitor forward traffic and adjust cruise control or apply the brakes to avoid a collision, watch the road markings to alert the driver if they drift from a lane, and monitor the car's blind spots for unseen danger.

While purists will grumble at the increasing heft of vehicles because of all these regulations, it's important to keep in mind the survivability of accidents has increased many times over since the 1960's despite considerably higher average speeds, denser road networks and more average miles driven. Going forward will undoubtedly see further innovation, and improved crash performance, and despite engineer's best efforts, all the safety equipment in the world won't remove the largest source of dangerl: the one behind the wheel.

Click next or on any individual video to enjoy the delightful destruction of premium and luxury vehicles and see how much each crash cost on the open market.

(special thanks to Lex Walters, the super diligent intern bringing you these great crashes today)

2008 BMW 5-Series
MSRP: $58,800

2003 Mercedes E-Class
MSRP: $54,850

2008 BMW X5
MSRP: $54,800

2007 Cadillac STS
MSRP: $53,360

2008 Mercedes M-Class
MSRP: $52,750

2006 Cadillac DTS
MSRP: $49,695

Nissan Pathfinder
MSRP: $42,100

2004 Cadillac SRX
MSRP: $46,595

2009 Cadillac CTS
MSRP: $40,760

2009 Audi A4
MSRP: $40,400

2003 BMW Z4
MSRP: $40,250

2005 Volvo V70
MSRP: $39,255

2003 Saab 9-5
MSRP: $39,040

2008 Lexus RX350
MSRP: $38,800

2009 Acura TL
MSRP: $38,505

2009 Audi Q5
MSRP: $37,200

2005 Acura MDX
MSRP: $36,900

2008 Mercedes C Class
MSRP: $36,900

2008 Nissan 350z
MSRP: $36,740

2010 Toyota Tundra
MSRP: $36,560

2009 Hyundai Genesis
MSRP: $34,521

2008 Lexus IS250
MSRP: $34,485

2007 Mazda CX-9
MSRP: $33,875

2004 Chrysler Crossfire
MSRP: $33,620

2007 Lexus ES350
MSRP: $33,470

The original version of the list separated each vehicle by powertrain and configuration. This favors cars. For example, the Ford Escape is actually six different vehicles under this system (I4 FWD, V6 FWD, I4 AWD, V6 AWD, Hybrid FWD, Hybrid AWD). Vehicles like the Ford Focus and Chevy Cobalt are all FWD and have typically no more than one or two engines.

The folks at Edmunds.com put together the list with all the variations combined. The list puts the Ford Escape up top and gives eight-of-the-ten most sold vehicles to the not-so-Big Three with four SUV/trucks in the top ten. This still conforms to our math, which showed more people using the $4,500 voucher, but it just means people are trading in for trucks with the full 2 or 5 MPG improvement.

Click next for the NHTSA list and the modified list. (Hat tip to Ptschett!) [CNN]

Photo Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images

The Ten Most Purchased Vehicles (NHTSA Standard)
1. Toyota Corolla
2. Ford Focus FWD
3. Honda Civic
4. Toyota Prius
5. Toyota Camry
6. Hyundai Elantra
7. Ford Escape FWD
8. Dodge Caliber
9. Honda Fit
10. Chevrolet Cobalt

The Ten Most Purchased In Cars (Edmunds Standard)
1. Ford Escape
2. Ford Focus
3. Jeep Patriot
4. Dodge Caliber
5. Ford F-150
6. Honda Civic
7. Chevrolet Silverado
8. Chevrolet Cobalt
9. Toyota Corolla
10. Ford Fusion

The most hilarious/awful instance of this practice we've yet seen is the "Cash For Clunkers Automotive Network," promoting sites like DineroPorSuCaracha.com and CashForClunkersHeadquarters.com with apparent endorsements from awful, terrible people like Angelica Vale of the original Mexican telenovela version of Ugly Betty, Dancing With The Stars non-star Christian de la Fuente Sabarots, and George W. Bush's Chief of the US Office of Citizenship. Wondering who they're targeting here?

While probably not outright illegal, the site appears to profit off unsuspecting users by taking their personal information and selling it to dealerships, helping those dealerships get higher search engine juice, or, at the very least, advertising from people coming through this portal. This would be considered a "service" if there was a need for a middleman. There isn't. Sites like the official one — Cars.gov — and other reputable consumer information sites exist that aren't selling off your data.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been out in front of this, trying to keep sites from crossing the line and they've met with some success.

"A number of them got straightened out and cleaned up their act a little bit and made it look like they had less of an official connection," said Rae Tyson of the NHTSA.

Unfortunately, not everyone is playing by the rules. if you go to CashForClunkersInformation.org (published by the same sneaky Level 5 Advertising behind these other sites) and click on their "about page" the hotlinked Cars.gov link actually goes to a Honda dealership in Queens, New York.

The NHTSA doesn't look kindly on this type of misdirection and hopes this was merely a mistake made by some sort of technician. If not, Tyson says they'll be getting a phone call from the feds.

We've had no reports of anyone getting directly ripped off from this type of behavior, but it's probably best to avoid unofficial sites with stupid names. Seriously folks, Clunkerz.com is not the official government website.

New Jersey resident Jeff Chase was considering trading in his 1989 Mazda 929 for a new car and checked the government's FuelEconomy.gov website and it said it met the 18 MPG threshold to be considered a gas-guzzling clunker. He went back later to buy the new car only to discover the numbers had been changed and the combined mileage was now 19 MPG and therefore disqualified from the discount.

"The dealer that I wanted to do business with had started to write sales orders for cars but were not delivering them until the final CARS rules were set," said Jeff Chance. "They are finding out that cars that they thought were qualified as trade-ins are no longer eligible. Now these people will not be able to purchase a car."

Jeff isn't alone. Daniel Anderson was planning to trade up from his 1991 V6 Toyota Camry only to be rejected because the number was changed sometime in the last week from 18 MPG, a number that would have garnered him a check, to a new 19 MPG rating.

Were the vehicles rechecked? Did they apply a new standard? Given the numerous Camrys and old Mazdas on the road, it's possible there are thousands of car owners on the road who believe they're qualified for a discount only to arrive at the dealership and find the numbers have changed.

This is especially troublesome because the official rules released this week states they'll use the latest combined mileage as determined by the EPA because the agency reconfigured how they measure mileage to more accurately reflect real-world MPG. Thus the Cash For Clunkers final rule states:

CARS Act Rule Language
EPA changed the way it calculated fuel economy ratings starting in Model Year 2008, and has estimated the revised ratings for Model Years 1985-2007. Therefore, as described above, eligibility is determined by the revised ratings rather than the original EPA sticker on the vehicle. Since the revised ratings reflect a lower fuel economy, vehicles that would not be eligible under their original EPA rating may qualify for trade- in.

If this is the case, people who discovered their car's were formerly rated as 18 MPG technically had vehicles determined to qualify under the rules.

Karen E. Aldana with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the agency wasn't aware of what happened. "On the final rule we said we'd use their fuelconomy.gov ratings, so the fact that they're changing it all of a sudden, if that's happening — this is the first I've heard of this."

NHTSA spokesperson Rae Tyson called us back after the story originally ran to inform us that, though they wrote the role, the mileage measurements are completely under the control of the EPA and the rating that went into affect on Friday, July 24th is the one that currently determines eligibility and if anyone made a deal before Friday did so at their own risk.

"The fact is that we have said all along that any dealer entered into a sales agreement prior to the beginning of the agreement was doing so at his own or her own peril because until the program is final you always run into the risk of a deal made not qualifying," said Tyson.

An aide we've spoken to for one of the leaders behind the original bill in Congress says they were also unaware this was occurring.

UPDATE: WE Just received this statement from the EPA confirming what happened:

EPA Statement On Mileage Changes:
In support of the new CARS program, the government conducted a month-long quality assurance and quality control effort regarding fuel economy calculations on more than 30,000 vehicle model types spanning the past 25 years.

As a result of the review, roughly an equal number of vehicles became eligible as those found to be not eligible. Of the above model types, eligibility for roughly 100 vehicles was affected.

An enormous effort went into completing these updates so that they would be in place with NHTSA's issuance of the CARS regulation last week — working to ensure that the most precise info possible would be available to consumers once the program took effect.

Photo: Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood celebrating the launch of the CARS program last week. Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images

It should be noted the NHTSA does this sort of thing occasionally and it does not indicate there's an actual problem. All of this is based on 12 vehicle owner complaints about loss of power and 15 complaints of harsh shifting. It could be a case of some kinks to work out with the new technology, user unfamiliarity, or something actually wrong with the system. If there is a problem with the system they will likely require a recall. The report summary below:

NHTSA Report
ODI has received 12 Vehicle Owner complaints (VOQ's) alleging incidents of loss of motive power while driving due to a malfunction of the Direct Shift Gearbox (DSG) transmission used in the subject vehicles. In most incidents, the DSG malfunction either spontaneously self-corrected or was temporarily corrected after the engine was stopped and restarted. Three complaints indicate that the vehicle had to be towed. In addition, ODI has received 15 complaints alleging safety concerns with harsh shifting either during low speed parking maneuvers, while accelerating from a stop or during upshifts/downshifts at speed. A Preliminary Evaluation has been opened to assess the frequency and safety consequences of the DSG transmission malfunctions.

(H/T to Travis) [NHTSA]

At issue is the federal government's twin towers of regulation power — the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). What President Obama announced Tuesday was that the EPA and NHTSA intend to work together to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards at the national level. This avoids different standards being implemented at the state versus federal level, and to avoid unharmonized or inconsistent GHG emission and CAFE standards.

The problem is, as has been widely reported by everyone in the media, ourselves included, NHTSA is not proposing a 35.5 MPG CAFE standard by model year 2016. Rather, as we're now being told by analysts at Credit Suisse, the EPA intends to propose GHG emission standards that, based on its estimates of model year 2016 light vehicle sales at that time, would result in fleet average CO2 emissions (of vehicles sold in that model year) of roughly 250 grams/mile. This creates at least one huge loophole in the system for automakers to take advantage of.

The Air Conditioner Loophole
That level of CO2 emission per mile would equate to about 35.5 MPG in fuel economy parlance. However — here's the big loophole — it's expected by the EPA and NHTSA that most manufacturers would apply air conditioning improvements to reduce GHG emissions. Air conditioning improvements do not enter into the NHTSA's calculation of MPG fuel economy.

Thus, the improvement in MPG that is equivalent to the estimated 250g of CO2/mile will actually fall well short of the 35.5 MPG mark. The gap between what the fleet CAFE will be and the widely reported 35.5, would be made up by air conditioner improvements. So basically, when you buy your supposedly more-fuel-efficient vehicle in 2016, it won't have as high of a fuel economy as it could — thanks to your car's air conditioning.

Automakers Get Lower Standards The More Large SUVs, Trucks They Build
Credit Suisse also points out in a new report released today that another key component of the proposal yesterday is that the EPA and NHTSA both intend to propose separate footprint-based standards. This is consistent with NHTSA's current approach to CAFE standards and, as such, means that there will be no set standard, with respect to either CO2 or fuel economy, for any single manufacturer or in fact for the fleet as a whole. Any standards you hear about for a given manufacturer or for the fleet as a whole are estimates.

This is because the actual MPG or CO2 "standard" for every manufacturer will vary depending on what they build. Footprint-based means the amount of CO2 emitted and the level of fuel economy will vary depending on the vehicles wheelbase multiplied by its track width. Put another way, the area between where the tires touch the road.

This quote from the proposal addresses the implications for automakers: "Under a footprint-based standard, each manufacturer would have a GHG and CAFE standard unique to its fleet, with a separate standard for passenger cars and light-trucks, depending on the footprints of the vehicle models produced by that manufacturer. Generally, manufacturers of larger vehicles (i.e. vehicles with larger footprints) would face less stringent standards (i.e., higher CO2 grams/mile standards and lower CAFE standards) than manufacturers of smaller vehicles." This clearly favors the domestic makers.

Will That Be Cash Or Credit?
The EPA and NHTSA foresee flexibility in compliance with its proposed standards based on certain credits. Credits can be earned for fleet over-compliance in a given year, and applied in future years. Current consideration is to allow credits to be carried forward for at least 5 years.

In addition to credits at the fleet level that could be carried forward, the agencies intend to consider giving manufacturers the ability to transfer credits among its fleet. That is, if an automaker achieves over-compliance on the car side, it can transfer those credits to the truck side, and vice versa.

Air conditioning credits: AC units contribute to GHG emissions in two ways. First, through the leakage of hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants, and second, by placing additional load on the engine, which causes the engine to produce additional CO2. The EPA is considering an approach that would enable automakers to earn credits by reducing GHG emissions (HFC and CO2) related to AC systems. Under the approach, reductions in HFCs would be converted to a CO2 equivalent reduction on a gram/mile basis that could be used as credits in meeting fleet CO2 standards. The EPA said it believes automakers would reduce HFC and CO2 emission through AC upgrades in order to take advantage of these credits.

Additional credit opportunities are being considered to help promote the commercialization of electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. They are called "super credits", and they would take the form of a multiplier such that the number of hybrid/electric vehicles sold would count as more than one vehicle in the manufacturer's fleet average. Thus helping automakers achieve fleet compliance by offering such vehicles, and applying those credits as needed.

Who Comes Out On Top?
All of this doesn't mean the automakers won't have to make an improvement. There's still much work to be done to bring all the vehicles up to these standards, but as we learn more it becomes clearer why so many auto execs were willing to stand behind President Obama.

[Credit Suisse, EPA, Green Car Advisor]

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) does some pretty mean and twisted things to our cars before we ever get behind the wheel and for that you should thank them. They've helped us choose which cars are the safest for ourselves, our children, our pets as well as for other drivers and pedestrians. By now you've probably seen how bad some of these tests can get, most notable being the recent zero star rating that the Chinese-built Brilliance BS4 received in the Euro NCAP (European New Car Assessment Programme) tests, but have you ever really, truly wondered how some of our favorite sports cars and exotic cars have fared in these gruesome tests? Below, you'll find ten crash tests that we've found thanks in part to the magical intarwebz that we've rated in order of least to most cringe-worthy. This has no bearing on how the vehicles actually performed in the test, but more in how they performed based on our ability not to yelp in pain while watching it. You'll either really like or really hate what you'll see, but either way, you'll now know that the NHTSA was in fact looking out for all the tools running around wrecking their exotics. Enjoy!

10. Honda S2000

9. Nissan 350Z

8. Porsche Boxster

7. Corvette C6

6. Mercedes-Benz SL

5. Ford RS200

4. Lamborghini Diablo

3. Jaguar XJ220

2. McLaren F1

1. Formula One

[clips via youtube]

It's unclear what cars will and will-not be included at this point, but our assumption is, since the issue relates to possibly roadable cars being properly titled, it may impact concept and one-off specialty cars rather than important-production-run vehicles. Here's the statement from BJ:

We are very pleased to offer a group of specialty cars from GM during the Palm Beach Auction. However, we have been told there are some issues related to the sale of some of the vehicles, and that GM will be unable to resolve these issues in time to include them in the 2009 Palm Beach auction. This information was communicated to Barrett-Jackson at 4 pm EST on Thursday, April 9, 2009.

Barrett-Jackson regrets any inconvenience this may have caused to any of our customers. As always, our primary concern is protecting the best interests of the bidders, consignors and spectators of our auction events. We will provide additional information as it becomes available.

UPDATE: It turns out the auction will include all the cars as every issue has been resolved According to BJ:

"The Acting Administrator of NHTSA, Ron Medford, has communicated to Barrett-Jackson that previous issues concerning the sales of the GM Collection have been resolved and all sales can go forward."

The idea behind the auction was to free up some cash for GM by auctioning some near-classic cars like the 1-millionth Saturn. Among these vehicles were a few concept cars and other vehicles which had to be sold with salvage titles so no one would try to drive them on the street. This is a fairly normal practice and, according to Barrett-Jackson and GM, the companies were up front about this.

So why did G-Men stop the auction? The NHTSA were concerned people would try to register these vehicles for the street, though haven't given any indication why they think this. The relevant NHTSA offices are closed for Easter, so for now we'll have to wait and see if this is a case of overreaction or if the feds were onto something. It seems GM can't even sell cars to people lining up to buy them at auction. [Edmunds: Straightline

The Obama administration's 2011 model year standard will require the nation's cars and trucks to meet a fleet average Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) of 27.3 MPG — that's 8 percent above the 2010 model year requirement of 25.3 MPG, an administration official confirmed Thursday night. The regulations for the 2011 model year are final.

But wait, there's more.

The Obama administration opted to finalize only the 2011 model year standards partly due to a requirement under a 2007 energy law to wrap up those regulations by Tuesday. Administration officials will spend the next year reviewing the 2012-15 model years as they seek a comprehensive emissions policy.

So what does this mean — can automakers reach those targets? In a word, yes. We'll let David Shepardson from The Detroit News explain:

The increase in fuel economy requirements for passenger cars is the first since Congress created the CAFE program in 1975. In the wake of the Arab oil embargo, it ordered automakers to boost fuel efficiency from 13 mpg to 27.5 mpg over a decade

Automakers have outstripped the federal requirements, making it easier in the short run for them to meet the new requirements. In the 2007 model year, automakers averaged 31.3 mpg for passenger cars, and 23.1 mpg for light trucks, above the 22.2 mpg mandate.

But the next two model years are not where this story ends — the Obama administration's expected to decide before May whether to give California and 13 other states permission from the EPA to impose a requirement of a 30% decrease in tailpipe emissions by 2016. If that regulation goes through, it would have the effect of a fleetwide fuel economy of 34.5 MPG by 2015. Yay! We all get to drive econoboxes! [Detroit News]

Photo Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images News

Jalopnik Snap Judgment: We've been over this a hundred times. Europeans get cool cars that we cannot get because they don't meet our emissions standards or our crash test standards. Making Euro NCAP an acceptable standard for American vehicles would remove one of the huge challenges domestic manufacturers face in supplying a market hungry for stylish small vehicles. And it's not like Euro NCAP is the Sichuan Province Regional Crash Academy — some vehicles that pass NHTSA do very poorly on NCAP, and even NHTSA has admitted that its testing standards are out of date, requiring an overhaul. So let's look at the score: This proposal would make it easier for manufacturers to provide us with more choice at less cost to them, all without endangering our safety. We have a winner; now let's make it happen. Just don't cheat and try to sneak some tin-can-crumpling third-world garbage onto the market, ruining it for everyone else.
[Wards Automotive, Sub. Req.]

Given the stories some of you have told about your current and former rides, it's clear safety isn't the primary concern, but it's up there somewhere. Some of you have families. Some of you have dreams. Some of you still haven't seen Paris. What's the tipping point? How much straw before the camel's back is broken and you're afraid you're going to follow its example?

NHTSA will introduce a new side-impact pole test designed to simulate wrapping a vehicle around a tree, which should be both useful for safety comparison shopping as well as extremely entertaining to watch. Front crash tests will also now score knee, hip and thigh injuries and add a crash test dummy representing a small woman sitting in the front passenger seat.

The fun part? Rather than providing individual frontal and side-impact ratings, NHTSA's made themselves up a formula to combine everything into a single rating of up to five stars, much like the scoring system found in Europe and Japan.

Automakers have until 2010 to get everything up to par, so if you're a laid-off structural engineer in Dee-troit expect your phone to start ringing in about five minutes. [Detroit News]

The simple answer is "because the IIHS is a consortium of insurance agencies." When massive damage occurs in something like an underride accident (where the car goes under the truck), they have to pay for fixing things. The remarkable part of the article in Automotive News was the complete lack of the term "survivability" in any of the IIHC's arguments. Our favorite part?

The insurance institute contends that its new request is backed up with fresh research showing that vehicle damage could be dramatically reduced with better alignment of bumpers between cars and trucks.

Photo credit DieselPowerMag.com