A Look at the Cars of 1985

Long before President Carter proposed taxes on gasoline and the sales price of big cars, Detroit's auto designers knew they were in trouble. A law passed 17 months ago required automakers by 1985 to turn out cars that average 27.5 m.p.g., v. 17.7 m.p.g. for the average 1977 auto. As recently as February, General Motors Chairman Thomas Aquinas Murphy protested that GM could do so only by making nearly all its cars as small as the boxy-looking subcompact Chevette. But that may not happen after all. In a "hypothetical scenario" submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Washington.* GM engineers spell out in some detail how they intend to meet the mileage standards while still producing about as wide a range of models as GM makes now. The principal methods: making engines less powerful and using a variety of technological tricks to reduce car weight. Presumably, the other automakers will pursue similar goals.

Diesels In. By 1985, the V-8 engine, which today goes into 77% of all GM cars, will be dead; the last ones will go into 1983 Corvettes. Only one-third of GM's 1985 cars will even have six-cylinder engines; two-thirds will have four-cylinder power plants. Diesel engines will drive 25% of the company's fleet, at least if the regulations on how much nitrogen oxide they can pour into the air are not tightened further. Diesels are noisy, smoky and heavier than gasoline engines, but they burn less fuel.

The cars will, on average, shed half a ton of weight or more. The typical GM car today weighs 4,200 Ibs.; by 1985 the average will be down to 3,100 Ibs.--320 Ibs. lighter than the company's average 1977 subcompact. Obviously the "large" car of 1985 will be a lot smaller than the behemoth of today. But GM hopes to accomplish much of the weight reduction by such methods as paring down the thickness of cylinder walls and engine blocks, using more lightweight aluminum and alloys, and expanding the use of front-wheel drive systems, which are more efficient than conventional rear-axle drives. Additionally, GM last week began construction of a plant to make a new generation of lightweight and more efficient small-car automatic transmissions.

GM's car of the future will not be able to vroom away from a stop light with today's panache. Most GM cars now accelerate from a dead stop to 60 m.p.h. in 11 to 14 seconds; the report implies that by 1985 most will take 15 seconds or more. GM fears that the loss in performance, small though it may seem, will discourage buyers.

What will the transformation cost? GM notes that it spent $1.1 billion to shrink the length and weight of its 1977 models (TIME, Sept. 13) and figures that retooling for the more drastic changes needed by 1985 will cost several times that. The expense, no doubt, will be passed on to buyers, raising another question: will they accept higher prices for shorter, lighter, less powerful, slower-starting cars? One possible clue is the renewed popularity of imported cars, which took 20% of the U.S. market in April. Foreign car makers are far ahead of Detroit in the technology of fuel saving and weight reduction. For example, front-wheel-drive systems already are standard equipment on many Volkswagen, Audi, Fiat and Honda subcompacts. Thus, if the nation's consumers do not like the new cars that Detroit produces, they will have somewhere to go.

In any case, one much talked of method of saving fuel, the development of the electric car, is not even mentioned in the GM study. Its deficiencies are familiar to Detroit, but they were sarcastically highlighted last week by Kansas Republican Senator Robert Dole, who jokingly claims to have got a look at one of Energy Chief James Schlesinger's secret projects. Said Dole: "It's an electric car that will take you from Washington to Los Angeles on $4.12 worth of electricity--but the extension cord costs $12,000."

* The agency requested and has received such reports from all the automakers, but GM is the only company to have made its report public.

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