The Toronto Star reported an alarming factoid earlier this month:

No gasoline-powered car assembled in North America would meet China’s current fuel-efficiency standard.

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That’s mainly because:

  1. Currently, their standard is much higher than ours.
  2. Their standard is a minimum-allowable efficiency standard rather than a “fleet-average” standard like ours.
  3. Our lame car companies don’t make their (relatively few) most efficient vehicles in this country.

As for our much-hyped new 35-mpg (average) standard — in 2020, it will take us to where the Chinese are now (but not even to where Japan and Europe were six years ago). If we don’t rescind it, that is.

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So whether you believe in human-caused global warming or peak oil, America remains unprepared to capture the huge explosion in jobs this century for clean, fuel-efficient cars.

Oh, and by 2010, China will be the world leader in wind turbine manufacturing and solar photovoltaics manufacturing. No worries, though: our TV and movie sales overseas still kick butt. For now.