THE WHITE HOUSE
OFFICE OF THE PRESS SECRETARY
FOR RELEASE UPON DELIVERY 10 A-M Wednesday, September 29, 1993
HISTORIC PARTNERSHIP FORGED WITH AUTO MAKERS
AIMS FOR 3-FOLD INCREASE IN FUEL EFFICIENCY IN AS SOON AS TEN YEARS
New Technologies, New Economic Opportunities, New Types of Cars
WASHINGTON -- President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore
today joined with the Big Three American auto makers to announce
an historic new partnership aimed at strengthening U.S.
competitiveness by developing technologies for a new generation
of vehicles up to three times more fuel efficient than today's
-- a technological challenge comparable to or greater than that
involved in the Apollo project.
The agreement sets groundbreaking research and development
goals for industry and government engineering teams. A model for
the new partnership between government and industry, this
all-out effort will ensure that the U.S. auto industry leads the
world in technology, preserving and creating jobs and economic
growth. Research projects will be launched in three categories:
- Advanced manufacturing techniques to make it easier to get
new product ideas into the marketplace quickly, for example,
rapid, computer-based design and testing systems and new
automation and control systems that can lower production costs;
- Technologies that can lead to near-term improvements in
automobile efficiency, safety, and emissions, for example,
lightweight, recyclable materials and catalysts for reducing
exhaust pollution; and
- Research that could lead to production prototypes of vehicles
capable of up to three times greater fuel efficiency, for
example, radical new concepts such as fuel cells and advanced
energy storage systems such as ultracapacitors, to produce more
fuel-efficient cars that are affordable, meet or exceed current
safety standards and retain the performance and comfort
available today.
This new partnership represents a technological venture as
ambitious as any America has attempted, coordinating the efforts
of America's best scientists and engineers to develop vehicles
it would have been hard to imagine even a few years ago.
Technologies previously available only in the defense industries
will help redefine what's possible. America's national
laboratories and other research facilities will be able to apply
their expertise. But this is not a government project with
government goals. It allows American business to set a path to
meet ambitious objectives and define areas where government
support can be most helpful.
A NEW PARTNERSHIP FOR CARS OF THE FUTURE
Ensuring U.S. Leadership, Expanding Economic Opportunity,
Preserving Jobs, Protecting the Environment
Summary
This new partnership forged by President Clinton, Vice
President Gore and America's Big Three auto makers -- General
Motors, Ford, and Chrysler -- is aimed at strengthening U.S.
competitiveness by developing technologies for a new generation
of vehicles up to three times more fuel efficient than today's.
It is a technological venture as ambitious as any America has
ever attempted and a model for the new partnership between
government and industry envisioned by President Clinton. This
partnership is an all-out effort to ensure that the U.S. auto
industry leads the world in technology, expanding economic
opportunity, preserving jobs, protecting the environment, and
strengthening our economic competitiveness.
The Big Three Auto makers and the federal government have
agreed to ambitious research and development goals for
automobiles of the future. The long term goal is development of
affordable, safe, attractive, and dramatically more efficient
automobiles. It is a bold statement of America's commitment to
environmental stewardship and environmental protection -- not
only in the United States, but around the world. Groundbreaking
research and development goals for industry and government
engineering teams will be launched in three categories:
- Advanced manufacturing techniques to make it easier to get
new product ideas into the marketplace quickly, for example,
rapid, computer-based design and testing systems and new
automation and control systems that can lower production costs;
- Technologies that can lead to near-term improvements in
automobile efficiency, safety, and emissions, for example,
lightweight, recyclable materials and catalysts for reducing
exhaust pollution; and
- Research that could lead to production prototypes of
vehicles capable of up to three times greater fuel efficiency,
for example, radical new concepts such as fuel cells and
advanced energy storage systems such as ultracapacitors, to
produce more fuel-efficient cars that are affordable, meet or
exceed current safety standards and retain the performance and
comfort available today.
This new partnership will coordinate the efforts of America's
best scientists and engineers to develop vehicles hard to
imagine even a few years ago. It puts the principles of the Vice
President's National Performance Review to work, bringing
together agencies that had no organized way of coordinating
their research efforts to now work toward a common goal, sharing
information and avoiding duplication. Technologies previously
available only in the defense industries will help redefine
what's possible. America's national laboratories and other
research facilities will be able to apply their expertise,
re-directing the best talent in the U.S. defense research
agencies to attack a peacetime challenge.
But this is not a government project with government goals. It
allows American business to set a path to meet ambitious
objectives and define areas where government support can be most
helpful. It will provide a balanced set of performance goals
that can be used to set research priorities. The engineering
teams will be charged with determining which of the many
technical options should be pursued. Government and industry
research will be efficiently focused on the highest priorities
and practical products will move to the market expeditiously.
Highlights
- An unprecedented technology goal: This partnership commits
the federal government and the U.S. automobile industry to a
program aimed at developing a practical, affordable automobile
up to three times more fuel efficient that comparable vehicles
today and to do so in about ten years. Government and industry
engineers recognize that this ambitious goal will require
radical changes in the way automobiles operate and that the
results are risky and uncertain. Reaching this goal may be
dependent on the development of revolutionary new approaches,
such as fuel cells, to replace the internal combustion engine.
This partnership means that both government and industry have
accepted a technical challenge as ambitious as any America has
undertaken. Unlike the Apollo or Manhattan projects, however,
success in this venture means practical vehicles sold by U.S.
auto companies in competitive markets.
- Restores U.S. leadership, strengthens competitiveness,
preserves jobs: The projects developed under this agreement are
aimed at technologies that will help propel U.S. industry to the
forefront of world automobile production. It will help ensure
that U.S. jobs are not threatened by the need to meet
environmental and safety goals and that world pursuit of such
goals will translate into a demand for U.S. products, not
foreign products. This means preserving jobs in a critical
American industry. Given the rapid depletion of U.S. petroleum
supplies and mounting concern about urban air pollution and
gases that can contribute to global warming, this project sets
out to ensure that the freedom and convenience of personal
vehicles will continue to be available to all Americans and to
people around the world.
- A model for public/private partnerships in advanced
technology development: This partnership represents a unique
approach to government-industry cooperation in which public and
private research goals can be coordinated. It relies heavily on
the U.S. auto industry's clear understanding of the practical
problems involved in developing and producing an attractive,
marketable car. It ensures that neither the government nor the
industry wastes money on projects with no real future and that
federal resources are used to support research in areas where
risks are so high and rewards so delayed that the U.S. industry
could not afford the investment.
- An important peace dividend: This partnership represents a
critical opportunity to use the unique resources developed by
U.S. defense investments. It makes available to U.S. industry
the expertise of the Department of Energy's weapons laboratories
as well as research facilities throughout the Department of
Defense. This means that super-strong, light-weight materials
developed for advanced weapons systems, ultra-capacitors from
"Star Wars" projects, super -efficient motors and fuel cells
from the Advanced Research Projects Agency, virtual design and
prototyping from the Army Tank Command, and many other
technologies will be available for the project. These
government facilities have enormous expertise in technologies
but lack practical understanding of what it takes to create and
sell a vehicle. By working closely with the U.S. industry toward
shared objectives, experts in the defense labs will gain a much
clearer understanding of what is needed to design a practical
car and experts in the auto industry will gain a much clearer
understanding of what is technically possible and available in
the enormous U.S. defense technology base.
- Breaks wasteful gridlock over auto issues: This partnership
replaces controversy with cooperation, breaking decades of
gridlock between the industry and government about the best way
to ensure low automobile emissions and high safety standards.
Today, government shares with industry a vision of technology
that can produce competitively priced, high-performance,
low-pollution, safe vehicles. This partnership focuses
government and industry research efforts on the development of
technological improvements that could meet ambitious pollution
and safety standards in a vehicle that would preserve all the
features Americans expect from automobiles and light trucks.
The Partnership at Work
- Industry and government will immediately name teams of their
respective scientists to identify necessary research projects
and establish priorities. Each research project will be approved
individually through a streamlined process.
- The projects will involve government and industry funding,
the percentage of which will vary from project to project,
though it is likely that more industry money will be spent on
projects with near-term, marketplace applications and more
government money will be spent on riskier, longer-term projects.
- This project will not increase the government's total
spending on research but will guarantee that taxpayers get the
most for their money by ensuring that federal research projects,
such as the ones identified by the auto industry-government
team, are of greatest importance to the nation.
- The project will be managed by an interagency team,
consisting of the Departments of Energy, Defense, Commerce, and
Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, and
the National Science Foundation. It will be led by Dr. Mary
Good, Undersecretary of Commerce for Technology.