Based on talks with actual engineers that work at Ford and GM. These two companies have actively discouraged any improvements in fuel efficiencies. Engineers would be threatened if they were caught tinkering with the computer systems or searching for ways to make the car engines run more efficiently. It is common knowledge among amateur car fanatics that the car computer systems are programmed to deliver 15% less fuel efficiency than is possible by enriching the gas mixture beyond what is actually needed.
Now the big three are about to go the way of the dinosaurs with huge pension fund obligations that will never be met from a failing U.S. economy.
GM\'s 40 MPG wonder car
M may bring the production version of the Chevrolet Beat to the U.S., people familiar with the plan said. The car, which would normally be reserved for markets such as Asia and Latin America, gets as much as 40 miles a gallon, a fuel efficiency topped in the U.S. only by hybrids.

The possible American introduction of the Beat would be one step in a fleet downsizing and shift away from fossil fuel-based vehicles that the people said is already under way at Detroit- based GM. Resigned to $4-a-gallon gasoline and stricter pollution rules, the largest U.S. automaker has recognized that its response must go beyond the mothballing of large truck plants, the people said.

“This is a very big change for GM,” said John Wolkonowicz, an analyst at Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts. “They have no choice. There’s never been as rapid a shift in consumer demand in the history of the auto industry.”

GM, turning 100 this year, has few options to re-inventing itself. The company reported its largest annual loss in 2007, $38.7 billion, after a tax accounting change, and hasn’t had a profitable year since 2004. The carmaker’s U.S. market share hovers at the lowest level since 1925, and last year GM was 3,000 cars away from being dethroned by Toyota Motor Corp. as the world’s largest automaker.

Smaller Than Mattel

The company’s current market value is smaller than that of Mattel Inc., maker of Matchbox cars, and a 10th of what it was in 2000. A Merrill Lynch analyst said yesterday that a GM “bankruptcy is not impossible if the market continues to deteriorate.”

GM rose 14 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $10.12 at 1:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading that was shortened by the July 4 U.S. holiday. Yesterday, GM fell 15 percent after Merrill downgraded the stock to “underperform” from “buy.” The price was the lowest since 1954 adjusted for splits, according to Global Financial Data in Los Angeles. source