Finance and Economic

Some soccer moms will have to give up hulking SUVs. Carpenters will still haul materials around in pickups, but they will cost more. Nearly everybody else will drive smaller cars, and more of them will run on electricity.

The higher mileage and emissions standards set Tuesday by the administration of President Barack Obama, which begin to take effect in 2012 and are to be achieved by 2016, will transform the American car and truck fleet.

The new rules would bring new cars and trucks sold in the United States to an average of 35.5 miles per gallon, about 10 mpg more than today’s standards. Passenger cars will be required to get 39 mpg, light trucks 30 mpg.

That means cars and trucks on American roads will have to become smaller, lighter and more efficient.

Eric Fedewa, vice president of global powertrain forecasting for the auto consulting firm CSM Worldwide in Northville, Mich., said the changes would make pickups so much more expensive that they would be used almost exclusively for work.

And instead of a minivan or SUV, more parents will haul their families in much smaller vehicles with three rows of seats — something more like the Mazda 5 small van, he said.

"I think what you’ll see is a lot more creativity in interior packaging," Fedewa said. "You’ll get more rows of seats where you traditionally had cargo space."

Already on Tuesday, some drivers were skeptical. Dixie Bishop, who runs a plumbing business in San Antonio, Texas, that uses vans, worries that the new requirements will drive up her costs at a time when customers are cutting back on repairs.

"Are they going to take my horsepower down?" she asked. "I have to be able to carry old water heaters and toilets."

The new standards mean the end of full-size vans such as the GMC Savana and Chevy Express "as we know them," auto industry analyst Erich Merkle said. GM builds the Savana and Express at its Wentzville plant.

Vans, Merkle said, will probably become more like Ford’s Transit Connect, which uses a four-cylinder engine. Ford expects the Transit Connect, not yet available in the United States, to get 22 mpg in the city. In contrast, a 2009 GMC Savana 1500 two-wheel drive, six-cylinder cargo van, and a similar Express, both get 15 mpg in the city.

The changes will start with smaller cars and trucks, and improvements to the internal combustion engine, Fedewa said free business cards. Automakers are already working on new technology, including direct fuel injection and high compression of the air-fuel mixture.

Car companies are rewiring vehicles so components such as air conditioners and power steering pumps are powered by electricity rather than by the engine.

And they’re developing computer-controlled transmissions with six or more gears, adding efficiency, and rolling out more gas-electric hybrids — among the few cars sold today that meet the 2016 standards.

Of course, developing the technology will cost money — billions of dollars — and automakers will pass that on to customers.

Consumers were already going to pay an extra $700 for mileage standards that had been approved previously, according to administration officials. The Obama plan adds another $600 to the price of a vehicle, bringing the total extra cost to $1,300 by 2016, although some private analysts say the increase will be much heftier.

The administration says gas savings will make up the difference in about three years and would, over the life of a vehicle, save consumers about $2,800 through better gas mileage.

Under the new rules, vehicle carbon dioxide emissions also must be reduced by about one-third by 2016.

"The fact is, everyone wins," Obama said Tuesday at a Rose Garden ceremony attended by representatives of the auto industry and environmental groups as well as state and federal lawmakers.

"Consumers pay less for fuel, which means less money going overseas and more money to save or spend here at home. The economy as a whole runs more efficiently by using less oil and producing less pollution," he said. "And companies like those here today have new incentives to create the technologies and the jobs that will provide smarter ways to power our vehicles."

The new rules will cause manufacturers "to accelerate their technology plans, probably a little more aggressively than they originally thought," said Tony Posawatz, who heads development of the technology used in the Chevrolet Volt electric car that GM plans to build. "For us, we feel comfortable that we’ve got choices."

Angela Tablac of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

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