But now that the standards have been proposed, nearly everyone involved in the process is on board with the results, as a public hearing held Tuesday in Detroit showed.
More than 90 people who spoke throughout the day asserted that the stricter fuel economy requirements would create jobs, reduce oil consumption, create cleaner air and save drivers money, all while helping automakers increase their profits.
“We’re celebrating something that has taken a long time to reach,” said Representative John D. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who helped quash previous efforts to impose higher mileage standards. “There appears to be no significant opposition amongst responsible persons.”
The National Automobile Dealers Association, however, did speak out against the idea of setting requirements for vehicles made more than a decade from now until more is known about the strength of consumer demand for more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Don Chalmers, a Ford dealer in New Mexico and the group’s government relations chairman, said he worried that vehicles would become too expensive for some consumers to afford. “Before rushing headlong into a set of new mandates aimed at doubling today’s fleet fuel economy, we need to understand better the potential ramifications,” Mr. Chalmers said. “If our customers do not purchase these products, we all lose.”
The proposed new standards call for automakers to increase the average, unadjusted fuel-economy rating of their vehicles to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, up from about 27 miles per gallon today. Because of the way testing is done, the 2025 requirement correlates to a window-sticker rating of about 36 miles per gallon, according to the automotive information Web site Edmunds.com, or roughly what Toyota’s tiny new Scion iQ car achieves today.
Additional hearings on the standards will take place Thursday in Philadelphia and Jan. 24 in San Francisco. The Obama administration this month extended the public comment period for the proposal by two weeks, to Feb. 13, and expects to finalize the regulations this summer.
The administration says the higher standards will cause vehicle prices to increase about $2,000 but that owners will save an average of $6,600 over the life of the vehicle by using less fuel. The rules also will create 484,000 jobs and cut oil consumption in the United States by 1.5 million barrels a day by 2030, according to the Go60mpg coalition, an association of environmental advocacy groups that support the proposal.
Mr. Chalmers said the government’s analysis greatly underestimates how much the rules will cause vehicle prices to rise. He said the actual increase could be up to $5,000, causing an average buyer’s monthly payments to go up by $60 or $70 and potentially locking out shoppers who would not be able to obtain financing for the higher price, regardless of their fuel savings later on.
Some individual dealers disagreed, though, and said they welcomed the new requirements.
“Our customers strongly desire more fuel-efficient vehicles,” said Doug Fox, who has five dealerships in Ann Arbor, Mich., selling Nissan, Hyundai and other brands. “Everyone seems to win on this deal.”
Michael Robinson, vice president for sustainability and regulatory affairs at General Motors, said the company probably would submit recommendations for some technical changes and clarifications to the rules, noting that the proposal is 1,000 pages long. But G.M. is “over all, very satisfied” with the standards, he told reporters.
“We are on a good path toward meeting the early requirements that this proposal will create,” Mr. Robinson said during the hearing. “But we will need further breakthroughs in technology and good customer acceptance of the additional vehicle changes, technologies and costs that will be associated with providing the vehicles needed in future years to allow us continued success in meeting the aggressive requirements down the road.”
G.M., the Ford Motor Company, Chrysler, and other automakers agreed last summer to support the framework of the higher standards.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group, said all of its members supported the standards through 2016, when they would be required to achieve 36 miles per gallon. The German carmakers Volkswagen and Daimler have not endorsed the requirements past that point.
The president of the United Automobile Workers union, Bob King, said he supported increasing the fuel economy of vehicles because it would create jobs and better protect the jobs of current workers by helping the industry thrive.
“The proposed rules are sensible, achievable and needed,” Mr. King said. “They are good for the auto industry and its workers, good for the broader economy, good for the environment and good for our national security.”
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