GLE400CoupeSUV在S+模式下，底盘可以降低多少（）

沃尔沃的S90是SUV车型。()

It's __________ in Suva.

A. 哈弗H8

B. 比亚迪S6

C. 现代新胜达

D. 传祺GS5

E. 广丰汉兰达

The cars, SUVs and pickups people will buy in the years ahead are likely to use less fuel, and many will rely on ethanol or household electricity instead of gasoline.

The energy legislation pushed through the Senate this week provides a roadmap to the future, demanding higher automobile fuel economy, mandating huge increases in ethanol as a motor fuel and supporting more research into building "plug-in" hybrid-electric vehicles. While Senate Republicans complained that the bill does nothing to increase domestic oil production, Democrats said that's because the nation must move energy policy away from its heavy reliance on oil. The House is preparing its own version. The Senate bill requires automakers to increase fuel economy to 35 miles per gallon, about a 40 percent increase over what cars, SUVs and small trucks are required to achieve now. It would lump all the vehicles under a single regulation, but also give manufacturers flexibility so large SUVs wouldn't have to meet the same requirements as smaller cars. It requires a yearly increase of ethanol production to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, a sevenfold increase from today. By 2015 half of the new vehicles offered to buyers—as many as 10 million—will have to be capable of running on 85 percent ethanol, biodiesel or some other alternative energy source.

And for the first time, the president must find ways to cut oil demand by 20 percent of what it is expected to be in 2017—a target President Bush has embraced—and attain further reductions after that. Gasoline demand is expected to grow 13 percent to 261 billion gallons a year by 2017 without some fuel saving measures.

But will auto showrooms provide the same selection of vehicles? Will they be as big, as powerful, as safe? "I would expect them to look a lot like they do today, the same size, the same acceleration and the same or even better safety," says David Friedman, director of the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

He maintains they will have better technology, better engines, more efficient transmissions and stronger aluminum bodies. They'll cost a little more but use much less gasoline. "The goal is to replace fossil fuels with alternative fuels and use conservation," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. , who was involved in the discussions on many of the auto fuel economy and motor fuel issues that ended up in the bill.

What has changed from a few years ago, she said, is there no longer is "a fear factor that you're going to be in itty bitty cars" if the government requires automakers to make more fuel efficient vehicles. In addition to making conventional cars more fuel efficient, the bill seeks to boost research into use of lithium-ion batteries—like those used in laptop computers and cameras—in vehicles.

Should ways be found to make them more durable in a vehicle environment, cars could be plugged into an electric socket at home, relying only rarely on gasoline, says Friedman. Some studies have estimated the fuel cost—mostly the cost of electricity and a small amount of gasoline— would be equivalent to about $1 a gallon, said Cantwell.

Automakers, lobbying hard against the fuel economy provision in the Senate bill, expressed continued concern Friday about their ability to meet the new requirements without changing the mix of cars they will be able to provide in the showrooms of 2020. "There's no way you can get those numbers without a dramatic shift in consumer choice," insisted Mark LaNeve, General Motors' vice president of North America sales, service and marketing. "We don't know how it's attainable. "

Eric Ridenour, chief operating officer at Chrysler Group, where three of every four vehicles are built on truck frames, said the company will have to decide whether to keep selling some of its larger vehicles. "Clearly the larger family-size

A．news

B．editorial

C．illustration

D．feature

A.1

B.2

C.3

D.4

"Lost Kingdom" Discovered on Volcanic Island in Indonesia

Scientists announced today the discovery of a small "kingdom" on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa thought to have been destroyed completely by the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history.

The eruption of the volcano Tambora in 1815 killed 117,000 people in Southeast Asia, including those believed buried under ten feet(three meters)of pumice(浮石)and ash in the recently discovered village.

The team, led by University of Rhode Island volcanologist Haraldur Sigurdsson, hailed the discovery as the "Pompeii of the East."

Pompeii is an Italian village buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A. D. 79. Excavations(挖掘)there have yielded delicately preserved artifacts(手工艺品)and insight to ancient Roman culture.

"The Tambora discovery gives us a window of the culture at that time that we couldn't get any other way," Sigurdsson said.

Tips Lead to Find

Scientists discovered the village in 2004 in a valley that cut through the thick layer of pumice and ash. Local guides had told the team about artifacts found in the area. Ground-penetrating radar later confirmed the first evidence of the village: a small house.

The researchers excavated the house, where they found the remains of two adults and their belongings: bronze bowls, ceramic(陶器的)pots, iron tools, pieces of furniture, and other artifacts.

The design and decoration of the artifacts suggest that the Tamboran culture was linked through trade to Vietnam and Cambodia, Sigurdsson said.

Records from a historian who visited the village prior to the eruption further suggest that the Tamborans spoke a language unlike others in Indonesia but similar to the languages of Cambodia and Laos, Sigurdsson added.

Peter Lape, an anthropologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said the discovery should add insight into a part of the East Indies before it came under the influence of Western colonists.

"The Dutch were trying to regulate shipping in the East Indies, but they hadn't made much impact on the local political structure," he said. "So for places like Sumbawa, there's not much historical record."

Devastating Eruption

The 1815 eruption of Tambora ejected up to 24 cubic miles(100 cubic kilometers)of molten and crushed rock and sent out 400 million tons of sulfurous(硫磺的)gases 27 miles(43 kilometers)into the atmosphere. By contrast the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State ejected 0.1 cubic mile(0.5 cubic kilometer)of lava; the 1883 eruption of Krakatau(Krakatoa)in Indonesia ejected 3.5 miles(15 cubic kilometers)of molten rock; Vesuvius ejected 1.4 cubic miles(6 cubic kilometers)of lava. "Tambora is way beyond any of these," Sigurdsson said. "It's truly the largest on Earth in recent history."

Before the eruption the volcano stood at about 13,800 feet(4,200 meters). Today it stands at about 9,200 feet(2,800 meters)and has a 4,100-foot-deep(1,250-meter-deep)caldera(喷火山口), or crater(弹坑).

The sulfurous gases spewed into the atmosphere by Tambora formed aerosol droplets that reflected the sun's rays before they reached the ground. This caused a year of global cooling in 1816 now known as the year without a summer.

The cooler temperatures triggered widespread crop failures, food shortages, and disease outbreaks, perhaps killing an additional 200,000 people worldwide, Sigurdsson said. "There were tremendous problems in central Europe and all over the world, including the U. S. ," he said. The growing season in New England shrunk by a hundred days, which historians say prompted many farmers to abandon their fields and head west.

City Discovery

Wanting to know more about this devastating eruption, Sigurdsson traveled to the remote Indonesian island in 1986 with University of

A．Y

B．N

C．NG