One word explanation: Dingell.

So that's it. We like cars because "Detroit" has manipulated us. Sounds like that defrocked professor, Michael Belesiles, telling us that we like guns because of Sam Colt's marketing schemes.

Face it. Cars are sexual, in a Freudian sense. As expressions of Wille zu Macht, cars transport people more than physically. Is this a spiritual danger? Sure it is.

If one would fight the car culture, a fool's errand, I suggest, one may do well to understand its power. Avoid the trivial Marxist commonplace that we favor these things because we are manipulated by the capitalists.

It's because cars are like sex that the ride ought to last longer.

CAFE is administered as an average across each automaker's fleet. European automakers tend to sell only larger, luxury cars in the US market (though they sell smaller ones at home), and never make the CAFE regulations-- instead they pay a fine, which is unaffected by a mere CAFE raise in the target. Japanese makers in the US sell a lot of smaller cars, and generally are not in danger. US automakers tend to toe the line, and are affected most by target changes.

I've never understood, thus, why legislators don't propose upping the violation fines, which would hurt the European marques, rather than raising the limits, which hurts the US automakers.

One synonym for "Dingell": UAW.

Follow the fear, follow the money.