New Rules for Autos: 54.5 MPG by 2025

The Obama administration today finalized a major upgrade to America's fuel economy standards that will force new cars and trucks to average 54.5 miles a gallon by 2025. The final rules rolled out today are essentially the same ones proposed last year, the Detroit News reports, but they are no less impressive for all that, representing a doubling of the standards in place when Obama took office. What's more, automakers are largely on board with the deal.

The administration negotiated the deal with automakers, and 13 of them, including Detroit's "big three" support it. Only two, Germany's Daimler and Volkswagen, have come out against it. "We've come a long way in five years," a Pew Clean Energy researcher tells the Washington Post, noting that in 2007, lawmakers hotly debated whether to mandate a 30 mpg by 2025. "We expect the rules to be tough," a GM exec said, "but we have a strong history of innovation." (More fuel economy stories.)