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As long as the US has access to, or can produce its own rivers of cheap oil, who cares about good fuel economy? That's more a outside-of-the-USA sort of thing, where auto-fuel prices are 2x, 3x or more at the pump.
It's only when pump prices jump that Americans switch to more fuel efficient vehicles... and American auto-manufacturers cry that Americans are buying foreign (more fuel efficient vehicles).
If we look back at US history, we can recall the "Energy Crisis" of the 1970s, when masses of Americans were rushing to Japanese car showrooms because all the American cars were either gas-guzzlers, or amenic sh*t-boxes like the Mustang of the era. They blamed the Asians, of course, rather than themselves for being caught with their pants down.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, a mere few months ago, the USA saw crazy-low (relatively speaking) fuel prices at the pump. It had been that way for well over a year. Large SUV sales boomed while EV and hybrid sales tanked.
Clearly, both US automakers and many US auto-buyers of of similar mind: they have forgotten the past, with its "energy crisis", forever climbing fuel costs, and people crying at the pumps as recently as the summer of 2014, demanding that the government do something about it. They're just looking at the moment, with cheap pump prices and ready access to rivers of cheap oil, not thinking that today might not be be forever.
The EPA's decision to "force" American auto manufacturers into building vehicles with better fuel economy may well prove to be the US automakers saving' grace, should anything interrupt that river of cheap oil into the US. If that fails, then hey... we can always throw another mountain of (borrowed) money at the failed US automakers, like the Feds did last time, and send the bill to the taxpayers.
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