The car industry is required to raise the average fuel efficiency of its vehicles to 54.5 miles a gallon by 2025. But consumers have been reluctant to adopt hybrid technology that'll get the industry there quicker.
That means the car companies have to find other ways to get fuel savings.
If you were to guess, how important would you say fuel economy is to the car business? How much of the research and development is going into making cars more efficient?
Margaret Wooldridge a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Michigan has a pretty good educated guess: "I think all the churn is on fuel economy and the rest is window dressing to make sure [automakers] maintain or expand market share."
That's what car manufactures say: Fuel economy is right up there with safety.
So, how hard is it to make cars more fuel efficient? A Honda Civic from 1984 got 47 miles a gallon. Achieving a few more miles per gallon can't be that hard, right?
"If your only condition was build me a vehicle for 55 miles a gallon ... two snaps we could have it done," Wooldridge says.
"But, now design me that vehicle that's attractive, that has all the safety features, that [has] all the creature comforts that we've come to love and expect — my navigation systems, plug in my phone, power heating ... of my steering wheel," Wooldridge says. "So all of those comforts add more and more constraints and more and more burdens that make this harder and harder."
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