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Exactly. I couldn't have said it better myself. ;-)
That is why the only effective way to accomplish the goal we are supposedly trying to attain here is by increasing gas taxes. CAFE is a worthless set of regs designed to make politicians look like they are doing something, when in fact the last 20 years of backsliding (in fleet average fleet economy AND gasoline consumed) have proven that they aren't.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
EPA and CARB do not agree on emissions. In fact the EPA has sued CARB from time to time for overstepping the bounds of their authority. The people at CARB cannot even clean up the massive pollution spewed by the cargo ships in the port at San Pedro. They along with CAFE are long overdue for retirement.
Well if we all agree that it is ineffective why is anyone supporting it?
The car we purchase and the number of miles we drive are individual decisions. The consumption of fuel takes place on the individual level. Any effective approach to reducing fuel consumption will have to involve the individual. I don't see that with CAFE. In fact, I see just the opposite, which is consistent with the mentality that this nation has adopted. Avoid accountability at all costs and place the blame/responsibility elsewhere. I believe our politicians are largely responsible for teaching this philosophy because it is a very seductive message for the voters to hear.
Our growing consumption of fuel is comparable to our growing waistlines in this country. Rather than get off our fat asses and exercise a little and maybe eat less we spend 100's of millions on magic diet pills. Some have even sued fast food restaurants for making us fat. It's pathetic and I don't remember it being this way 30 years ago.
Could a politician get elected that preached individual accountability? I doubt it.
BTW, I've always agreed with a gas fee as being the most effective way to actually achieve the objective of reduced consumption. Unfortunately it will never be politically popular. Fortunately it soon won't matter because we will have consumed our way to the same price level that this fee would have established. Unfortunately there will be no funds to expand mass transit or mitigate any other negative economic impacts.
But that's like complaining that the the A/C in the house is ineffective at reaching 72 degrees when you have it set to 80.
If you set the mpg for CAFE to X (the presumed goal) then you will probably reach it. Just like the current CAFE reached its goals back in the late 70s and early 80s.
Avoid accountability at all costs and place the blame/responsibility elsewhere. I believe our politicians are largely responsible for teaching this philosophy because it is a very seductive message for the voters to hear.
I agree with you there.
There are 3 basic ways that I see to lower gas consumption in the US. Voluntary measures (folks buy higher mpg vehicles and/or drive less), higher gas tax and CAFE.
Volutary measures are unlikely for the reason you just gave....we seem to lack the national will and/or the national understanding of the problem.
Higher gas taxes are probably the best way, even though the burden will largely fall on those least able to afford it. But another part of the American ethos is lowertaxeslowertaxeslowertaxes no matter what, even if idiotically applied. Therefore, this is political suicide for any politician to support. Unless we get one with real guts and incredible leadership skills. Anyone applying?
That leaves CAFE, which has worked before and would likely work again.
One of the reasons why CAFE is more acceptable to the American public is that is forces us to ALL play by the same rules (assuming the LTV 'exemption' is lifted) and this is more palatable than voluntary action....IMO.
This is why I support CAFE.
Well what if your AC was set at 72 and the outside temperature is 69. How could you draw a conclusion as to how effective your AC is?
When CAFE was first implemented in 1975 the automakers not only met the goals but exceeded them by a sizeable amount for the first 7-8 years. Why would you exceed an efficiency mandate if the only reason you were increasing your fleets efficiency was because you were being forced to? Is it possible that market conditions made fuel efficient vehicles very attractive to the buying public during this period? This is also the same time where Toyota, Datsun, and Honda started gaining market share. All they sold were small, efficient vehicles. The domestics needed to come up with something comparable simply to maintain a presence in what was becoming the starter vehicle segment where brand loyalty is established. People that cite CAFE as the reason behind increased fuel efficiency during the 75-83 period are wrong. They are simply pointing out two things that happened at the same time. The AFC dominated the Super Bowl during this same period. Maybe that had something to do with efficiency standards going up.
It is probably true that CAFE provided a floor that manufacturers couldn't drop below during the peak of the SUV/truck craze when gas was $1/gallon. However even this had negative consequences. It resulted in the polarization of the fleet where a manufacturer had to sell a 40 mpg vehicle for every 15 mpg vehicle. While that might produce better CAFE numbers the result is more gas will have been burned than had two 25 mpg vehicles been sold.
You couldn't, but I don't get your point. The presumed analogy would be if the actual fleet was much higher than CAFE now and it certainly isn't.
In any case, my point was simply that if the complaint is that CAFE "no longer is being effective", then we can make it effective in a very obvious way. Raise the numbers.
When CAFE was first implemented in 1975 the automakers not only met the goals but exceeded them by a sizeable amount for the first 7-8 years.
No, not at all. I posted this chart here a while back, but I'll post it again:
Is it possible that market conditions made fuel efficient vehicles very attractive to the buying public during this period?
Well, that certainly was the case, yes...in fact the movement to higher efficiency pre-dated CAFE at that point. But that was because a) the "green" folks led the way and b) the '73 gas crisis was still fresh.
This is also the same time where Toyota, Datsun, and Honda started gaining market share.
True. And in the 90's, US automakers went large, and bet very wrong on future gas prices, increasing that market share.
People that cite CAFE as the reason behind increased fuel efficiency during the 75-83 period are wrong. They are simply pointing out two things that happened at the same time.
No, they are right, while 2 things happened at the same time. Look at the chart. Do you seriously contend that the fact that the CAFE and fleet numbers are so close is mere coincidence?
It is probably true that CAFE provided a floor that manufacturers couldn't drop below during the peak of the SUV/truck craze when gas was $1/gallon.
LOL, like the "craze" was not created by their own marketing. This was my earlier point about marketing.
While that might produce better CAFE numbers the result is more gas will have been burned than had two 25 mpg vehicles been sold.
There's no doubt that 2 tier CAFE was a really bad thing.
Actually it was the Japanese carmakers that decided to join the party and first started to produce larger vehicles during this period. The domestics have always offered large vehicles. If it wasn't for the Japanese now offering competing SUVs and trucks the domestic automakers would probably be in decent financial shape. So where they bet wrong was not so much the price of gas but that the Japanese would continue to let them have an almost monopoly on this segment. If gas prices were to plummet I suspect that more large vehicles would be sold but more and more of them would be Japanese.
LOL, like the "craze" was not created by their own marketing. This was my earlier point about marketing.
While I agree that marketing has some affect on the public I don't think it is as significant as you seem to think it is.
Most SUV/truck commercials I see aren't aimed at trying to get you to buy this type of vehicle over another type. They are typically trying to convince a potential buyer to choose one company's SUV over another company's.
If advertising was this powerful why not simply use it to create some huge demand for subcompacts and also convince buyers to pay a lot of money for them?
You seem to view the individual as powerless over the influence of these big, bad, evil corporation's marketing schemes. I tend to believe we are capable of more free will. But then again I frequently give the American public more credit than they deserve.
No, I meant moved their marketing to shift their emphasis. After that point, they were almost totally dependant on SUVs and PUs for profits.
So where they bet wrong was not so much the price of gas but that the Japanese would continue to let them have an almost monopoly on this segment.
They bet wrong that they could still sell enough of them to carry them. Japanese makers are not similarly vulnerable.
Most SUV/truck commercials I see aren't aimed at trying to get you to buy this type of vehicle over another type.
We're not at the peak of the SUV craze. Hardly. But they are still hawking them big time, they have to.
If advertising was this powerful why not simply use it to create some huge demand for subcompacts and also convince buyers to pay a lot of money for them?
LOL, marketing is powerful, but can't do the impossible.
You seem to view the individual as powerless over the influence of these big, bad, evil corporation's marketing schemes.
Not at all. It's not as if there were only 2 possibilities: marketing is 100% or marketing is 0% of demand. Marketing is very powerful. And the marketing of SUVs was a major reason for the LTV surge in market share in the US over the last 10 years or so.
And coming back to the point, marketing (including pricing, of course) is how an automaker deals with CAFE constraints. After all, they have to sell a certain mix, so they have to shape demand as best they can to match it. Profitability is another matter.
At the same time, there are thousands of general press articles and non peer reviewed amateur science articles about about climate change and about 50% of them dispute this same dynamic. The experts say no and the mainstream press (bought and paid for by GE, Westinghouse, Disney and Murdoch/Ailes) say yes. Well, you can believe Roger Ailes and GE, but I tend to believe qualified scientists who publish on the issue (and who don't work for the API or Exxon). You can inform yourself about their findings here: http://www.ipcc.ch/about/faq.htm
Regarding EPA and CARB, I said they agree on the "science" of emissions. Of course they disagree on legal jurisdiction: the state legislature and Arnold have said to regulate and George through his Department of Crony protection, er, Justice, has said no, don't regulate.
As for Al Gore being an enemy. I just believe him to be one of the elitist that would take away my freedom to have what he has attained. Why should he live in a mansion and burn $30,000 worth of energy a year, and try to deny me the same? He is out to take personal transportation from the average individual. His book lays out his dislike of the internal combustion engine, that many on this forum are big fans of. He is a typical "Do as I say, Not as I DO" politician.
Ok, so let's not believe any scientists and just believe what we read on Edmunds. Sounds like a plan!
As for Al Gore being an enemy. I just believe him to be one of the elitist...... .....bla, bla, bla.
Shouldn't we focus on the merits of ideas and evidence and not on individuals? After all, it's not like Al is espousing some personal POV that no one else is espousing.
I agree. It is just that the likes of RFK jr and AG make statements that have no scientific basis. Such as hurricane Katrina was the result of GWB not signing onto the flawed Kyoto protocol. To me that and their high carbon usage lifestyles shoot the credibility full of holes. You say it is OK for them to use more energy than I do. I say that is an elitist view.
Hard to imagine that that is an accurate quote from either. In fact, I can't, try as I might.
Now we are all learning what it’s like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and--now--Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children.
RFK jr on Katrina
I wonder if he drives a Prius and lives in a moderate home?
What they say is that GW will result in more hurricanes (true) and that Kyoto would help alleviate GW (true) and that Dubya was against Kytoto (true).
Details, details.
I wonder if he drives a Prius and lives in a moderate home?
Personally, I think anyone that does not drive a Prius and does not live in a moderate home should never be listened to. There go all the politicians.
I look at it like a preacher giving a sermon on adultery, then going out and having an affair. I know some that were booted out of the ministry for doing just that.
I believe in accountability from the top down, not the bottom up.
I'm waiting.........
:surprise:
Our country is run by rich people, and rich people use their wealth to cushion themselves from reality, and often to lead their lives in irresponsible ways.
Don't judge the message by the messenger, is all I'm saying.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Hmmm, his ride does get 25 mpg, and there's only one car in the family.
I get the impression many people do not care how wasteful their representatives and leaders are.
No offense, but that's nonsense, of course. You may choose to ignore the message, but that's no excuse, really. There's a difference between babies and bath water.
You will not get me to defend any politician.
I didn't think anyone was trying
I still prefer it to a kingdom.
What was the topic again?
If he drives a Prius and goes to Detroit he will lose the vote.
Hopefully he won't need the votes of any idiots that would base their vote on that.
I get the impression many people do not care how wasteful their representatives and leaders are.
Impressions can be deceiving. If we only paid attention to leaders that were perfect we'd have a lot of extra time. And "use" and "waste" are not synonymous.
By the way, what do you think of CAFE?
As I said in a previous post, the current system encourages a polarization of the fleet. That is not only bad from a fuel consumption perspective but from a safety perspective.
I think CAFE is ineffective. Latest example was giving big MPG credit for flex fuel vehicles. A real joke I would say.
Hopefully he won't need the votes of any idiots that would base their vote on that.
The Blue party would be sunk without those voters. I can still remember elections won over which candidate looked best on camera. The loser had a 5 O'clock shadow. When he did win the presidency 8 years later he put the EPA into place. Yes we have a lot of idiot voters in this nation.
For me I like Suburbans. I did not vote for the candidate that has the most of them :shades:
I agree. I read recently that the feds are considering taking this away in 2009. Ford and GM are lobbying hard against this. I wonder why? Is it because they are passionate about ethanol or are they passionate about a loophole that let's them sell bigger vehicles.
All modern cars can run on E10. That would have been a wiser goal, to produce this mixture, nothing higher. You could have accomplished this without being too disruptive to the market, mileage would only suffer by maybe 2-3% and you now have ethanol as your oxygenation agent.
There are NO respected climate scientists that disagree with 90% of the most important IPCC findings. There are only hack scientists - who DON'T have peer reviewed articles published - that question them. And virtually all of those hacks are employed by the oil industry. Are you actually saying with a straight face that a couple of Exxon paid scientists who have no peer reviewed publications are more trustworthy than 1000s of tenured scientists from 50 countries who have published scientifically vetted articles?
Now, this argument would be rather silly, unless ... one was a plant from the oil industry trying to persuade people that Rush Limbaugh and Exxon PR employees should be believed instead of 1000s of real scientists. Indeed, I have looked back on your posts and there are HUNDREDS here on the subject. Who else but a person employed by the industry would spend so much time and be so focused on defending the American oil and automotive industries?
But to further examine your claim that the oil industry is a source of true, unbiased information about air quality in the public interest, let's recall the record of the oil industry. It started out with massacres in Colorado and has morphed into spending billions on paying off politicians and bribing 3rd world military oligarchs to maintain profit. Let's recall the death squads that Shell and Chevron have paid for in Nigeria to crush protests about the massive pollution in the Niger Delta. And the Standard Oil/CIA overthrow of Mossadeq, which led directly to the extremist islamist takeover of Iran and its funding of terrorists. And the political cover of the Taliban that the oil industry provided so that they could get a pipeline through Afghanistan. And the bribes that Exxon has been giving Generals and Sheiks in Indonesia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and the entire middle east and all other oil producing suppliers to crush dissent about their pollution and low pricing. And let's not forget those hard working guys in Detroit at Firestone and GM whose bribes resulted in the secret purchase and warehousing of the L.A. trolley system?
Really, what could a private citizen find so redeeming about the 70 years of lies and violation of civil rights and the massive pollution that he would spend his entire waking life defending them on Carspace?
I'm sure Tidester could come in here and give a more coherent explanation (hey Steve, tell Tides we have a math question here!), but you cannot average gpm and expect an average of efficiency. So, the answer to your question is, gpm would never be used.
With the current system the automanufacturer gets more CAFE benefit from increasing the efficiency of his most efficient vehicle.
It depends on where you are on the curve. Gpm is not linear whereas mpg is. Which also means that any analysis yields different results at different points.
As I said in a previous post, the current system encourages a polarization of the fleet.
The 2 tier nature of the current CAFE regs does that. I agree that that should be abolished. Unfortunately, when CAFE was enacted, LTVs were primarily PUs which were work vehicles which were intended to be exempted, which was reasonable. But then US automakers took advantage of it with aggresive SUV marketing and that made a shambles of it.
I've seen K/L, not the inverse, and given that that is not efficiency, that doesn't make sense. Do you have some refererence for such use?
Not any more, my freind. You can thank Dubya for that.
Yes, Nixon looked bad. But he was not a crook. Yet
Anyway, enough politics already! (I don't mind but our hosts will, er, object).
Tides has been paged - be careful what you wish for, LOL.
Oh, another CAFE quote for y'all - courtesy of the WSJ.
"[CAFE is] like trying to combat obesity by forcing clothing manufacturers to manufacture only small sizes. It's doomed to failure because the market mechanism isn't at work."
-- Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman, Global Product Development, General Motors
What the heck, it's the weekend - here's another quote from that same WSJ article (paid registration req'd).
"Efforts to address global warming and oil addiction should not turn into a bunch of kids pointing at each other saying, 'Not me, he did it.' "
--David Friedman, research director, Union of Concerned Scientists
Sort of sounds like some forum discussions eh? :shades:
--David Friedman, research director, Union of Concerned Scientists
I think that Friedman probably shares the view of many others. They do not like to be used as a political sword. Scientists are not like lawyers. We expect a lawyer to stretch the truth and sometimes tell out right lies. That is what they are sworn to do. A scientist is searching for the truth more than just trying to win an argument.
The two methods you and TPE are talking about are, in fact, different though they are both valid. What was missing in the discussion is the condition that the average be weighted according to fleet composition which has practical consequences.
Using miles per gallon averaging generally requires a relatively smaller change in the makeup of the fleet when CAFE requirements are adjusted. The gallons per mile averaging generally requires relatively larger changes in the makeup of the fleet.
In other words, a manufacturer can more easily adapt to increasingly stringent CAFE regulations using the miles per gallon averaging.
tidester, host
SUVs and Smart Shopper
Sure, they're 'valid', but surely, they're not the same thing. Efficiency and the inverse of efficiency are very different. Though what they are kinda beats me
What was missing in the discussion is the condition that the average be weighted according to fleet composition which has practical consequences.
Again, sure....how many vehicles sold at each mpg point matter very much. But....the question here is the factor "efficiency" which is part of the product combining number of vehicles and "rate of efficiency" which makes up the CAFE formula.
Here are my real questions:
1) what is the inverse of efficiency? What does that mean, in terms of "rates"
2) The averages of the two are different, sure....after all,
X + Y
______
2
does not equal
1/X + 1/Y
__________
2
but.....what does that mean??
To take another example, we measure velocity (another 'rate') by distance divided by time. Time divided by distance is something, but it surely ain't velocity. And it behaves the same way as the mpg/gpm example....average of the 2 are not equivalent.
For example, 60 mph is .017 hpm and 120 mph is .008 hpm. Averaging .017 and .008 is .0125 which is equal to 80 mph, but that ain't the average of 60 and 120 (90 is), so what is it?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Hey, what good is coming to TH if I can't weasel a free math lesson?
(yeah, yeah, answers.com says it an ok alternate spelling, but what do they know?)
"I can't help you with the math but it's inquiring."
No. NO. It's from the National Enquirer ads. If you used Inquiring you'd be with the Philadelphia Inquirer, which wouldn't be right because they actually publish facts once in a while...
http://www.teaching-english-in-japan.net/conversion/mpg
The problem with using mpg to determine CAFE is that it really doesn't do a good job of indicating how much gas the fleet is burning. If I sold two cars and told you that they were both driven 1000 miles and their average fuel efficiency was 25 mpg you could not tell me how much total gas these cars burned. Now if I told you that they averaged .04 gallons per mile you could answer that question.
As the host pointed out, using gallons per mile would be far more difficult for the automakers to adhere to. I'll use an extreme example. Let's say CAFE is 25 mpg. An automaker sells a 10 mpg vehicle. He now needs to sell a 40 mpg vehicle to be in compliance. If instead CAFE was .04 gallons per mile then if an auto manufacturer sold a 10 mpg vehicle he would now have to sell 4 40 mpg vehicles to be in compliance. This system would force the auto manufacturers to focus their attention on their least efficient vehicles. Our current system does the opposite.
Why not? Your example where you used speed was a good one. If you told me that you had 100 miles to drive and asked how long it would take I could care less about your average miles per hour. I would be interested in your average hours per mile. If you drove the first 50 miles at 90 mph and the next 50 miles at 10 mph then your average speed was 50 mph. But you sure didn't make this 100 mile trip in 2 hours.
That's the whole point that I'm trying to make. For CAFE to be anywhere near accurate it needs to use a weighted average, which is accomplished by the inverse method. The way it stands right now people believe that if you doubled CAFE you would cut your fuel consumption in half. That's just not true. You could theoretically double CAFE and actually increase your fuel consumption if you did this by creating some ultra-high efficiency vehicles, say 70+ mpg. You'd now have a lot of leeway to sell some very inefficient vehicles. This is the polarization of the fleet that I am referring to.
??
time=distance/velocity
time=(50 miles)/(90 mph) + (50 miles)/(10 mph)
time=5.556 hours
Average velocity = distance/time
= (100 miles)/(5.556 hours) = 18 mph
I bought a new Suburban in June of 1998. It had a 1999 VIN. The dealer told me that Chevy had reached their quota on 1998 Suburbans and had to start selling them as 1999 models. This was to avoid paying CAFE fines.
I think the market can best regulate the mileage of vehicles. As the gas prices slowly escalate people will look for higher mileage cars. There is no way I will ever own a 35 MPG gasoline car as my main transportation. None of them are what I want in comfort or safety. The only way to significantly cut our consumption is with diesel engines and to a lesser extent hybrids & EVs. The latter two require new battery advancements to be really practical.
No, the efficiency (as measured by the rate of gals used per mile) in your example is the same.
For me I would rather have a car that gets 50 MPG at 75 MPH than one that only gets 50 MPG at 55 MPH. Where I live the highway traffic runs 75 MPH + most of the time.