Good and Bad News Emerges From CAFE's Fine Print

Edmunds.com

Good and Bad News Emerges From CAFE's Fine Print

Proposed new 2017-'25 CAFE standards raise issues of safety and choice, and will make cars more expensive. But the fuel economy rules could save car buyers money in the long run.

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zanardi10

Excellent article, clears up much of the confusion around the new regs. Thanks very much. One question still open in my mind. Under the OLD rules, an OEM could just dodge CAFE by paying fines for being out of compliance (as Mercedes did for years, among others). Now, in this two-agency system, is this still possible? NHTSA in the past allowed persistent violations as long as fines were paid; but EPA I think has a stance that "No one gets to pay to pollute," and that therefore any fines levied would be high enough to be punitive and not, therefore, just rolled into the cost of doing business. Fine amounts are mentioned in the rules, and indeed the upper limits of what is allowed seems indeed punitive. But I can't see where it is clearly stated either a) "If you violate the rules here are the fines you will pay, and here is the formula for calculating them" or b) "If you break the rules we will either close you down (revoke your manufacturer's certificate e.g.) or fine you into submission." Any ideas?

yegor_

While I do strongly support reducing air pollution and oil dependency by increasing the fuel economy I am deeply concerned about new CAFE loopholes. In the past CAFE loopholes allowed manufactures to produce on average 20 MPG vehicles instead of CAFE mandated 27 MPG.

According to a new study from University of Michigan researchers Kate Whitefoot and Steven Skerlos, with new CAFE standard it would be more profitable for automakers to keep building larger and larger vehicles:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/cafe-loophole-could-lead-to-bigger-cars/2011/12/14/gIQA3bGLuO_blog.html

Here is my suggestions on CAFE to eliminate all loopholes:
1) CAFE should be measured in EPA real world test numbers otherwise manufactures would continue to learn tricks to show even higher CAFE numbers which do not translate to real world numbers. 30 years ago CAFE MPG were very close to real world MPG but right now, CAFE 54.5 MPG in real world means only 40 MPG. Otherwise in 2025 CAFE 54.5 MPG could become EPA 35 MPG only.
2) There should be one target for everyone (by 2025 it will be CAFE 54.5 MPG which is equal EPA 40 MPG). Every new car that does not meet the target should pay a penalty of $500 per every MPG under the standard. If one wants to buy a huge 20 MPG gas guzzler he will pay a $10,000 penalty for air pollution and oil dependency. This is the only way to eliminate all loopholes.
3) Introduce gas tax that will gradually grow to $2 per gallon by 2025 to reduce air pollution and oil dependence. Otherwise with high MPG cars will just drive more. With high MPG cars people will still pay less for car ownership than they do today.

yegor_

And yes, very nice, detailed article - the deepest one I have seen.

svtstangcobra

As long as there's car enthusiasts, there will be many of us that will keep our muscle cars, which by that time cars like mine (SVT Cobra), will be worth quite a bit of money and still a JOY to drive. My wife has a cross-over that gets excellent mileage and even mine gets great mileage in Over-Drive on the Hwy. considering what kind of power it has - at least by today's standards that is. My car has been paid off and as soon as my Wife's is, that will be it for us. No more new cars. Both of cars have a history of lasting quite some time as long as proper maintenance is performed which is where many people fail and then complain that the car isn't running as well or getting as good gas mileage. My Father had a shop when I was growing up and that's the first remark I recall him saying - Take care of it, It will take care of you !

jlmackenzie

Your conclusions about the cost of creating a fuel efficient vehicle are absurd and have nothing to do with science. Fuel efficiency can be divided into two classes of driving, they are a) driving at or below 45 mph and b) continuous driving at speeds above 45 mph. This is because at velocity around 45 mph, the air starts to compress around the vehicle frontal surface area. As this happens, wind drag starts to dwarf weight as an efficiency factor. Under 45 mph, drag isn’t so much a factor as weight.

So. If you have a vehicle you just want to drive around town, an all electric version is the perfect ticket. Cheap to make, and would cost approximately about 1 cent per mile to operate vs. conventional gasoline at $3.50 and 25 mpg at 14 cents per mile. Vehicle manufacturing cost could fall by $7,500 per unit. Otherwise, if you are bent on a gasoline engine, then hybrids help or better than anything lose pounds. Drop the vehicle weight from 5,000 to 7,500 pounds down to 1,500, and you save all the energy required to accelerate it. Weight equals material and a reduction in material should easily translate into reduced manufacturing cost.

For touring vehicles, surprisingly hybrids won’t help and weight doesn’t matter so much. Instead, you need a low coefficient of drag and a small square frontal surface area. So you are after a vehicle which looks like it was designed in a wind tunnel and sits low to the ground. Remember those high seats, if you lowered the roof of a BMW 5 series by 11 inches, you would save 8 mpg at 70 mph. That costs nothing ! The result is a sports car.

The two biggest problems with fuel efficiency are a) the USA went from the station wagon to SUV’s and F150’s (both heavy boxes with miserable drag coefficients) and b) we dropped from a 1970’s engine compression ratio of 11:1 to the present 6:1. Aside from the need to jettison heavy boxes for vehicles, we need to compress the cylinders with turbo or super charging, and we are seeing the later happen. This would be easier if the fuel companies would start making real gasoline again. When we went from 93-100 to 87 octane, Big Petrol saved 4 cents per gallon and destroyed engine efficiency. The higher the engine compression ratio, the higher the engine efficiency, but it also requires a fuel with a higher combustion pressure. Octane, a substance, not a measurement has a high combustion pressure.

While I have no doubt the industry will take the opportunity to charge for efficiency, it should actually cost less to produce.

printerman1

engines with better fuel efficiency..Boastful Statements. aka BS.
Its the driver that makes it better. The engineering boys could make any engine more fuel efficient, long ago. Like Air bags & seat belts..its the driver that makes the difference.

texigent

First of all, this government administration has proposed many new radical changes in our lives, including destroying the U.S. Constitution and our Bill of Rights, so we should write off the president's headline announcement. The guy is a leftist-radical and a fanatic. Anyway, he didn't come up with cafe standards or environmental regulations related to auto industry standards.

Now, should we continue to strive for practical, common-sense refinements to what we drive? Of course. But let's just back up to these radical numbers (54.5mpg) and re-establish realistic reasons for the degree of improvement in future standards and why/if they are really needed in the first place, other than to just go-along-with big oil haters and other radicals who simply hate the 'status quo' and make us think if we don't do something we will shorten the earth's existence in our lifetime.

In other words, let's never stop striving to improve all aspects of our freedom to drive and our obscession with automobiles, but let's just keep our heads about us and continue on with practical ideas and common-sense projections. We don't want to end our driving freedom and enjoyment of automobiles as the intelligencia, liberal thinkers would like.

Let's just look around at all the radicalism and fanaticism that this current government administration is causing to come out from under all the rocks, and remember,... this too shall pass.

webefast

Informative, well written piece. Regarding the statement about the number of retail E85 stations in California (item #6), your point is taken even if the numbers are a bit off. By my count at the time the article was written there were 67 stations statewide, and 6 in the LA area. These numbers are expected to grow considerably with the addition of another approx. 150 Propel Fuels stations by the 1st qtr of 2016.