From the Daily Caller.

Excerpt:

Obama’s astonishing takeover of the automobile industry, unlike his health care takeover, occurred without even a vote of Congress. Yesterday, to much fanfare, the administration announced its astonishing ratcheting up of vehicle fuel economy standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. These regulations — I call them “ObamaCar” — were accomplished not through open debate in Congress, but through corrupt backroom deals in which our elected officials had no voice.

ObamaCar will, according to the administration’s own estimates, add over $2,900 to the price of a new car. This low-ball estimate was created by using a brand-new cost-estimating methodology that uses arbitrary factors to produce a cost estimate for a vehicle considerably lower than the total cost of its individual parts.

An analysis by the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), which followed the government’s usual methodology, found the cost impact would be $4,800 per vehicle. But NADA also found that even the usual methodology has historically underestimated the actual cost impact by an enormous factor. NADA suggests a worst-case scenario of a $12,349-per-vehicle price jump.

Even using the EPA’s official low-ball estimate, NADA’s analysis found that “6.8 million licensed drivers will no longer qualify for a loan on that least expensive new vehicle.” So people will buy used cars, or drive their old cars longer. There will be less efficient, dirtier vehicles on the road, and reliable, affordable transportation will be much less accessible.

And if you can afford a car under ObamaCar, will it actually be a car you want to drive? Even the vaunted hybrids only get around 35 to 40 miles per gallon — if you’re light on the gas. Cato scholar Pat Michaels has observed that the third-generation Prius maxes out at 50 miles per gallon, but its vehicle weight is too heavy to get much more than that. At 54.5 miles per gallon, cars will be smaller, lighter, less crash-worthy, less powerful, and less comfortable than you can even imagine. A nice-sized family vehicle? Good luck.

Obama is trying to save the environment. So what if your cars cost more? So what if lighter cars don’t protect you as well as a heavier car? You peasants shouldn’t be driving a car at all – cars are only for your betters in government! It’s Obamanomics.