Page 3

rations. The reduction in fuel consumption will range from 10 to 30 percent, twice the amount that would be saved if the same percentage reduction were obtained by applying hybrid technology to a mid-size car that initially had two times the fuel economy (mpg) of these trucks. The committee commends the automobile companies for this commitment to produce vehicles that will significantly reduce the total fuel consumption of the light-duty vehicle fleet even with an increase in sales.

Goal 3

Goal 3 has provided an extremely challenging focus for the program: to develop within 10 years (by 2004) vehicles that will achieve up to three times the fuel efficiency of comparable 1994 family sedans while retaining the features that make them marketable and affordable. The year 2000 concept-vehicle milestone was met when the three manufacturers each introduced concept cars: the DaimlerChrysler ESX3, the Ford Prodigy, and the General Motors Precept, as detailed in the last committee report. All three concept vehicles incorporate hybrid-electric power trains designed around small, turbocharged, compression-ignition direct-injection (CIDI) engines, using diesel fuel, which shut down when the vehicles come to rest. All employed the significant technical advances developed in the PNGV program to reduce the energy requirements for propelling the vehicle (e.g., reduced mass, aerodynamic drag) and for supplying auxiliary loads (e.g., heating, air conditioning). Each company took a different approach to the design of these cars, which resulted in different remaining challenges to meet the fuel economy and affordability targets, but all of the cars operate on diesel fuel. These cars provide a valuable measure of how challenging it will be to meet all the components of Goal 3 simultaneously.

The next major Goal 3 milestone of the PNGV program as currently structured is the development of production-prototype cars by 2004. Each car company is in the planning stage for this activity, and the approach that each may take is not clear. Validation of production readiness for a new car requires immense resources compared to the preceding R&D activities. For these resources to be justified, the car must be one that is included in the production plans of each manufacturer, plans that are, of course, proprietary. In order for the committee to evaluate the PNGV program in context, each year the car companies have shared proprietary information with the committee. As work progresses toward production prototypes, more of it becomes proprietary and this limits the detail about Goal 3 activity that can be reported by the committee in this and future reports.

Vehicle Engineering, Structural Materials, and Safety

The PNGV concept vehicles made public last year all made extensive use of lightweight materials and new body construction techniques to achieve major