Diddlbiker has psychic visions

...well, not really. But today's headlines did give me a vision of what is going to await us: government to set mileage rates for big suv's. What's the deal? Car manufacturers are forced by law to produce on average cars that have a certain mileage. The cars have been split up in categories, and basically, for every 10mpg guzzler you'll have to produce two or three 30mpg economy cars.
There is a catch however, utility vehicles - since they are used for business - are excempt from this rule. And yes, that's the same Utility as in 'S.U.V.'. This means that in practice manufacturers are forced to build fuel efficient cars, except for their biggest and heaviest vehicles. Guess where the real bad milages are?
This is going to change with a new law, effective in 2007, and going into full effect at 2010. It will impose milage rates for 'big' SUV's as well. How big? Up to 10,000 pound. And this is where Diddlbiker gets psychic. The Hummer, Ford Excursion and the Chevy Suburban already weigh close to 9,000 pound. So, what would you do as a car manufacturer? Increase the space in the car, push more electronic crap in the car, and give it a bigger engine, basically that what your customers want, and push the weight over 10,000 pounds, or being faced all of a sudden with the need to replace those 6.5L engines with smaller and more efficient engines?
It's not really hard to guess what the answer is.