Eideard

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

GM CEO Fritz Henderson announced today that the Chevrolet Volt extended range electric car has been given an official EPA rating of more than 230 MPG city and a combined city/highway average fuel economy of more than 100 MPG.

He said the EPA has developed a new federal fuel economy methodology draft for PHEVs.

Using this technique, the Volt will become the first mass produced vehicle to obtain a triple digit MPG rating. He also noted using this system the Volt is determined to have an efficiency of 25 kwh/100 miles. Considering the cost of electricity this amounts to 3 cents per mile.

“From the data we’ve seen, many Chevy Volt drivers may be able to be in pure electric mode on a daily basis without having to use any gas,” said GM Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson. “EPA labels are a yardstick for customers to compare the fuel efficiency of vehicles. So, a vehicle like the Volt that achieves a composite triple-digit fuel economy is a game-changer.”

The methodology assumes in city driving the car will mostly operate on electricity but some degree of gas operation is taken into account. The petroleum equivalence of electricity and a utility factor weighing in the population’s driving behavior are also included in the calculation.

Well, rock my socks! Should be an interesting exercise to run the imminent Toyota Prius PHEV or Volkswagen’s plug-in diesel-hybrid through the same equations and see what comes up?

That’s right. Ain’t anything different on the outside.

The U.S. government has imposed the first increase in mileage standards for passenger cars and boosted the floor for sport utilities and pickups beginning with model year 2011 vehicles.

The modest increase of less than 1 mile per gallon for the fleet over current targets for the fleet represents an abbreviated approach by the Obama administration as it confronts industry distress and pressure from California and other states to set their own goals.

The standard, which is expected to cost industry $1.4 billion in vehicle design and other changes, would require compacts, sedans and other passenger cars to average 30.2 miles per gallon in combined city/highway driving, up from the 27.5 mpg standard that was established in the late 1970s under the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program.

Many passenger cars made by overseas manufacturers already meet or exceed the standard.

Just in case you never noticed.

Toyota Motor Corp expects its 2010 Prius hybrid to get 46 mpg while estimates for the Insight hybrid made by Honda Motor Co is 41 mpg.

Detroit’s efforts to revamp its fleet include the Ford Fusion hybrid sedan, due in showrooms this spring, that gets 41 mpg/city.

I’ll just take a line or two to whine about the lack of a smallish-diesel-powered pickup available in the U.S.. Ford makes ‘em. So does Toyota. Just not for the United States.