#EPA

The federal agencies reviewing the country’s corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) targets are pleasantly surprised by the amount of fuel-saving technology in modern vehicles, and hint that the target they decided on back in 2011 is still doable.

Those agencies just released a technical assessment report (TAR) to guide the review process. In it, they figured that vehicles will average between 50 and 52.6 miles per gallon by the target year of 2025 — if gas stays stable and consumers continue buying SUVs and trucks.

That’s not too far off the original target, and judging by the optimistic tone of the report, it’s likely the 54.5 mpg mandate will stay intact.

It’s like the Rapture, but for polluting German vehicles.

Starting this fall, owners of the 466,000 defeat device-equipped Volkswagen and Audi 2.0-liter TDI models still left on the road will head to their dealer, hand over their keys, sign a mountain of paperwork, and walk away with a fat check issued by the bean counters in Wolfburg.

So, what happens to your once-trustworthy diesel-powered steed after the buyback?

Serendipitously, Sajeev Mehta’s post about the possible damage to older cars from gasoline-ethanol blends went up just a few days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new mandate to mix another 700 million gallons of biofuels — including 300 million gallons of corn-based ethanol — into the country’s fuel supply.

The objective of the new mandate: hit a 18.8 billion gallon 2017 target for biofuels.

The move has both critics and supporters of ethanol unhappy.

Owners of full-size 2016 General Motors crossovers will get a welcome present in the mail to make up for the automaker’s window sticker snafu.

About 135,000 retail customers will receive debit cards worth between $450 and $1,500, Automotive News reports, making GM square with owners of affected Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia models.

Two weeks ago, we told you of a potent four-cylinder engine under development by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Now there’s physical proof of the so-called “Hurricane” mill.

Spy photos obtained by TTAC show a cloaked Jeep Wrangler test mule with the hood up and a pile of evidence underneath. The positioning of the oil fill cap points to an inline engine, and air intake ducting routed over the cam cover points to a turbocharger — in this case, a high-mounted one.

Now, will the Hurricane make the nearly 300 horsepower as has been claimed? That’s a wait-and-see thing.

The strange case of General Motors’ incorrect fuel economy numbers is getting stranger, if it wasn’t odd enough already.

GM announced late last week that it would reprint EPA labels for its 2016 full-size crossovers after the wrong mileage made its way onto window stickers, but Consumer Reports now says there’s something fishy about that.

General Motors is in damage control mode following the discovery of incorrect fuel economy ratings on the window stickers of its 2016 full-size crossovers.

A “stop sale” order was issued to GM dealers on Wednesday after EPA labels on GMC Acadia, Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave vehicles were shown to overstate mileage by one to two miles per gallon, Automotive News reports.

The particles are one-fifth the diameter of a human hair. They lodge deep in the lungs and never come back out. Children and the elderly are particularly affected. They cause lung cancer, lower resistance to disease, and make it difficult to breathe. It’s impossible to accurately estimate the deaths that occur as a result of exposure, but the EPA has suggested that it could be between 500 and 8,000 per million people.

Toxic exhaust from diesel engines, in both the form of gases and particulate matter, is a major contributor to health problems. It is also a leading cause of smog, which has led Paris to ban diesel cars on alternate days during high-smog periods and to plan for a comprehensive ban on diesel passenger vehicles in the city by 2020.

For Europe, this is a case of chickens coming home to roost.

After agonizing over a fix for its 2.0-liter diesel models, Volkswagen is close to finalizing a plan for vehicles powered by the 3.0-liter TDI V6.

The first fix forced Volkswagen into a wildly expensive buyback-and-fix program for the nearly half million 2.0-liter TDIs sidelined by the diesel emissions scandal, but that won’t be needed for the bigger engines, sources close to the issue tell Bloomberg.

It’s not the engine you’d want for rock crawling, but it’s just the ticket to please commuters and the Environmental Protection Agency.

A source tells Automotive News that a high-output 2.0-liter four-cylinder under development by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will first appear as an option on the next-generation Jeep Wrangler.

After admitting it fudged fuel economy data for the past 25 years in Japan, Mitsubishi Motors wants the Environmental Protection Agency to know that its U.S. vehicles are A-OK.

The automaker claims it conducted an internal audit on vehicles from model year 2013 to present and contrasted that data with figures it had previously submitted to the EPA. The conclusion? The information’s fine.

Embattled automaker Volkswagen reached a long-awaited settlement deal in principle with regulators this morning in a California courtroom.

Before presiding judge Charles Breyer, Volkswagen agreed to buy back afflicted diesel models from U.S. buyers, while compensating their owners from a newly created fund. The automaker would accept early termination on leased models, and fix some vehicles if requested by owners.

On the eve of a key U.S. deadline for a diesel emissions fix, Volkswagen has reportedly agreed to pay all American owners of afflicted TDI models $5,000 each.

The deal, reported by Germany’s Die Welt newspaper, would allow the automaker to avoid going to trial this summer, according to Automotive News.

Volkswagen was facing an April 21 deadline to outline a comprehensive fix for the 580,000 U.S. diesel models equipped with “ defeat devices” designed to sidestep emissions regulations. The deadline was set in March by a U.S. District Court judge.

Nope. Nuh-uh. Not gonna do it.

That was Volkswagen’s reaction to the idea of publishing its first-quarter results on time, according to Automotive News Europe, meaning the automaker’s current financial standing will be unknown until May 31.

The beleaguered company has bigger things to deal with in the near term — mainly, meeting the U.S. government’s April 21 deadline for a fix for vehicles caught up in the diesel emissions scandal. An April 21 deadline was issued last month by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, extending a missed deadline on a one-time-only basis.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is dropping proposed policy language that would have done, well, nothing.

That’s right, and it would have made a great Seinfeld story line: faceless bumbling government agency seeks to reframe public debate with a redundant, unenforceable, and unnecessary policy revision only to meet unanticipated wrath from industry and enthusiasts, forcing it to ultimately retract its proposal.