Details on the New Fuel Efficiency Standards
Okay, the White House had a briefing on their vastly improved new fuel efficiency standards. Basically, what they’ve done is get everyone (the companies, the states that wanted higher standards, and the EPA) to agree to one nationwide standard that will be in effect through 2016. And in exchange, CA will drop its push for its own state standards and the standards will be slightly postponed (though the outcome by 2016 will be roughly the same).
That’s the overview. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to ask,
I can’t help but notice that GM plans to import Chevy Sparks according to the same schedule (2012 to 2016) that the Administration’s new fuel efficiency standards go into place. Did the Administration and GM ever talk about the efficacy of importing cars from China to bring up fuel efficiency?
Instead, a bunch of TradMed reporters (albeit smart ones who know about the auto industry) got the questions.
So here’s the big news.
This is not CAFE standards, as we know it. That is, the new standards (to be released tomorrow) are not one number across the entire fleet (something which forces companies to sell cheap efficient cars that their dealers don’t want). Rather, the standard has an overall fleet average (35.5 MPG by 2016), with segment MPG limits (as a guess, small cars like the Fiesta and the Fit will be expected to make 40 MPG or more), along with a specific target for each manufacturer. Which will, overall, get us to 35.5.
And no, I don’t know what happens if demand for different segments change over time (that would have been my second question).
That said, this is smart because it forces auto manufacturers to increase efficiency on all cars, not just small cars that no one wants.
The cost of this, btw, will be $600 per car over what CAFE standards already require (which will itself cost $700). So expect the price of cars, in an already devastated industry, to go up.
And, finally, the stats. This works out to:
- 5% per year increase in fuel efficiency
- An increase form 25 MPG fleet average to 35.5 MPR fleet average
- 1.8 billion barrels of oil saved
- A reduction of 900 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
- The equivalent of 177 million cars off the road–or 194 coal plants shut down
It sounds like CAFE got a clearly-needed makeover. Good news!
I still want to see all the gory details since I’ve got that same old disturbing feeling that trucks still continue to get a great big CAFE pass.
“By 2016, cars will be expected to average about 39 mpg and 30 mpg for trucks. Current fuel economy standards are 27.5 mpg for cars and 23.1 for trucks.” – More via cnn.com
Thanks Marcy, this is better than simply raising CAFE standards.
Thanks for the details! Just what I was looking for!
OK, now how we gonna get the public to fall in love with small cars? Because if they don’t, this duck won’t fly, will it?
Bob in HI
This duck can’t fly…it’s more like a flightless turkey….People still want larger safer cars…
I disagree. I never thought I would see Smart cars selling in the High Plains–but they are. Hybrids seem to be everywhere. After years of big Detroit V-8s, the Robspierres now have a pair of Priuses, big in all but their exterior dimensions, fuel consumption, and emissions.
People want SUVs because they are marketed the most aggressively and because of the perceived safety issue. The latter is significant among people that I know. Nobody wants to be riding in a Smart car when a Tank Nazi–er, SUV driver–plows into them while talking on mobile phone two or three feet above one’s head.
To encourage a market for small cars, we should impose size/weight limits on the behemoths, not just fuel economy rules. Restricting roof heights would improve situational awareness among tank drivers by bringing them down closer to the rest of us. Restricting bumper heights to the normal passenger car standard would reduce the incidence of the particularly destructive accidents where the large vehicle rides up over the smaller.
We should also make liability proportional to the damage that one’s vehicle can inflict, regardless of who is at fault for the accident. Higher insurance rates would increase the dollar cost of tanks to something closer to their real-world cost to society. An SUV is a dangerous nuisance, like a swimming pool, and the laws should recognize that.
We might also consider other, non-safety-related limits, such as imposing parking constraints and restricting the use of high-profile, high-drag SUVs on interstate highways.
Get rid of the safety issue and alter the marketing, and I see no reason why Americans will want to keep the SUVs. SUVs are trucks, with the same awful ride and bad handling as the pickups they are based on. Even the Porsche Cayenne a colleague bought was, at best, a nice riding, nice-handling truck. Trucks are simply nowhere near as comfortable and quiet as real cars. Only the Porsche came anywhere close to the comfort and practicality of our humble Prius.
Totally OT – am watching Rachel and she had Greg Sargent of Plumline on, so I thought to jump over to his site to see what’s new and found this little sliver of gold:
This buttresses the point I made the other day that Crazy Pete’s latest letter to the CIA last Thursday means that Crazy Pete hasn’t got the evidence against Speaker Pelosi via the CIA’s Memorandums For the Record (MFR) that he’s been bullshitting about all over the TradMed.
And the TradMed has been swallowing it all, hook, line and sinker!
Which means that he’s also confessing…not to merely establish what DID happen at that briefing…but to convict Pelosi (i.e. “to prove the point”).
Hoekstra wasn’t at that briefing. So how does he know what was said? His knowledge can only be second hand. Yet he’s presuming that she is lying. Even though there is nothing in the CIA summary, the statements of Goss, nor the recollections of Graham, and Rockefeller to suggest she was informed about the already occurring torture. In fact, if one accepts that she was surprised by the information from the Intelligence Committee’s Aide then it’s clear she didn’t receive a briefing from the CIA on the torture of Abu Zubaydah in September 2002.
Back to the future.
I have to think the role of diesel motors diesel/electric hybrids will play a large role in this 30% push in improved fuel efficiency.
In 2002, Congress passed legislation for all diesel in the US to meet a new ultra-low sulfur content by 2007 making it compatible with emissions standards for autos in all 50 states. We’re there now. The next step will be to have more ultra-low sulfur diesel available nationwide for all uses.
I caught this news last winter about Exxon’s diesel ambitions :
Light and heavy new cars sold with diesel engines alone could attain this new standard. With a blended expansion of gas and diesel hybrids it’s hard to imagine how it could fail.
.
I would’ve linked it earlier but my attention was on the Hockey game, upon which I believe rests the future of mankind …
Does this standard apply to every company selling cars in the U.S., or only to cars that are made in the U.S.?
So, for example, if Ford, GM and Chrysler all have to sell small energy efficent cars, will it leave, say, Toyota free to sell SUVs and hummers to the American buyers heart’s content, driving down the market share of U.S. companies?
Bob in HI
Every car sold.
What’s encouraging is the partnership aspect to it all, how industry and government suddenly are willing to work together to meet a hugely challenging goal. Of course nothing focuses the mind like eminent death.
Yeah, but they’re still not doing anything for demand. There’s nothing to get people into smaller cars, and the burden is still largely on the manufactuers to eat the costs.
Taxing gasoline as they do in Europe would do wonders for focusing the mind of consumers on what they want.
Re: “Taxing gasoline as they do in Europe would do wonders for focusing the mind of consumers on what they want.
reply”
Speaking of fuel tax, ultra-low sulfur diesel is a “greener” fuel than gasoline. The US federal tax on Diesel is 32.6% higher. Shouldn’t that balance shift ?
And therein lies the problem for about a decade I would say. You just can’t do this overnight as Obama seems to think is possible. There is going to be some uncomfortable years and a lot of people just willing to pay the excise of $600 or whatever. Unless there is that tax thingy…..
Sales (of everything) demands that you present a reason that is so compelling for the customer to buy your product that they will leave their preferred brand/vendor for yours.
To create demand you have to present a product that is
Attractive, even sexy. Your cars look as good or better than Lexis and BMW.
Efficient. Make your car higher MPG than Toyota.
Powerful. You don’t have to beat everyone else in horsepower, but you do have to perform well for the size of the engine. If your car gets higher mileage while still going fast, you win.
Quality overall. Here again, you have to design and make a car that’s so tight that it holds up against the premium German and Japanese vehicles.
Detail. It’s more than cup holders. It’s all the little tiny details that fit right, are richly presented, and make sense.
Price.
Warranty.
Costs to get there? We should be stepping in to provide assistance to all American manufactures to update their design and production to meet competition and secure domestic manufacturing operations. Every dollar spent revitalizing our manufacturing infrastructure means jobs for decades, and a revitalized domestic economy.
The good news is that GM and Ford are actually one heck of a lot further ahead in these criteria than most people realize. Seriously. They are both making really good, appealing vehicles. Chrysler, well, that’s a different matter, they have problems.
“The cost of this, btw, will be $600 per car over what CAFE standards already require”
Tell that to the europeans, who already have fleets of cars that exceed these standards.
Right. But they have gas that is much more expensive than we do. ANd lower safety standards. So it’s not apples to apples. And it’s easier to do there (and much easier to pay union wages) on account of the value assigned to efficient cars there, unlike here.
By the way EW, just to clarify the “SUVs are profitable, tiny cars are not” problem… SUVs are profitable because car companies have convinced the public that paying $30k for an SUV is a perfectly reasonable price. Why can’t the price of small cars be raised to make them sufficiently profitable?
Admittedly sales would decrease as consumers might wait an extra year or two to replace their car, but why isn’t it possible to come up with a profitable business model for small cars? If the industry is already going through a tectonic shift, then wouldn’t it behoove everyone to bite the bullet and sell fewer small cars in the short term to rebalance cost/profitability?
If it is simply a problem with overseas competition, then perhaps we need to revisit how “free trade” is established. Free trade ought to be equitable, if other countries have an unfair advantage on account of their labor costs, why can’t free trade agreements be restructured to make products sold more competitive?
SUVs were sold by the Boatload because they came under IRS ‘commercial vehicles’ and thus were 100% deductible. Driving a bigger/cooler Vee-Hickle without paying out of the pocket was a great incentive. In its heyday, Lincoln made $20K profit on every Navigator; GM prolly made more on each Escalade.
Rather than a gas tax (political suicide), BO and Congress will offer a ‘cash for clunker’ incentive, which is also linked to fuel efficiency. This has been a runaway success in Europe and ought to be, on this side of the Pond as well.
SUVs are more profitable bc people are willing to pay $10,000 for utility and safety. Thus far, only about 10% of the country has proven willing to pay $10,000 for efficiency, and then only if its new fancy efficiency (people don’t pay $10,000 more for diesel, even though it’s totally competitive with Prius mileage, for example).
So what you’re saying is that people have to be trained to pay $10,000 for efficiency.
The problem with that is you’ve still got less affluent people who need a car and really do need efficiency. So what are you going to do with them? Ultimately, we ought to be resigning ourselves to asking people to pay for their carbon imprint, even less wealthy people who have to drive. Which gets you back to a gas tax, which could be done in ways that blunt the impact for those who can’t afford this right away.
You’re right a good bit of what I’m saying has to do with training, aka advertising. IIRC (and as always, I may not) when SUVs first came on the market one of the things that made them so profitable was the fact that they were less safe than cars. They were classified as trucks, so the safety requirements were much less rigorous. Yet people believed that because they were big they were also safe. And that’s not even including the later studies that showed you were at much higher risk of rolling over in an SUV than a car.
So yes, I am saying that advertising works and if applied properly, I think people can be retrained. Smoking might be a good analogy for this.
However, I agree there are a lot of people who don’t own SUVs because they can’t afford the extra $10k. So is what you are saying that there is no middle ground here? An extra $5k is insufficient for an automaker to be viable? If so, how did the car companies make a profit in the pre-SUV era? (This is not snark, I am being quite sincere, I honestly don’t know — but somehow they were profitable prior to SUVs, so it seems to me it ought to be possible for them to be profitable without them again. Perhaps the problem is similar to the one in other sectors of the economy, where Wall Street started demanding unsustainable growth on a quarterly basis, perhaps that model needs to be revisited, too.)
There’s a lot of people who can’t afford the $5000 for that new car, either.
And those cars are already (as I suggested here) going to be $1300 more expensive, because those “cheap” cars are going to have to get over 40 MPG.
One option, of course, would be to take things like air bags out–which make cars a lot heavier. But that’s not going to fly either.
Right, but there is also the used car market. My family didn’t buy new cars, because they were too expensive. We bought used.
Still, I am left with the question of how did car companies make a profit before the introduction of SUVs?
And I am also left with the question of where the price point is that will result in a viable car manufacturer without SUVs in the line-up? Are the expectations by Wall Street unrealistic?
Also convincing them that they’re suitable for going really far off-road, and doing it in comfort too. (Especially Hummers, which I’m told are extremely uncomfortable to ride in.)
If they can sell people on leasing luxury cars for three years at a time, or replacing their existing cars every two or three years, or buying oversized high-fuel-usage vehicles, they certainly should be able to sell small efficient cars. (Maybe they can even figure out how to make them easily driveable by people under 5ft8. /s)
O/T, or back to torture–more to come?
Gen Stanley MacChrystal, America’s new army chief in Afghanistan, under fire over rough tactics and ‘prisoner abuse’
The general chosen by Barack Obama to run the war in Afghanistan permitted abusive treatment and interrogation of detainees in Iraq, according to human rights investigators.
By Leonard Doyle in Washington Last Updated: 9:12AM BST 17 May 2009
“Gen McChrystal is likely to be questioned over the findings of the report, compiled in 2006, during Senate hearings which are needed to confirm his appointment to his new post.
‘According to Mr Garlasco’s report, which was based on soldiers’ evidence, inmates at the camp were regularly stripped naked, subjected to sleep deprivation and extreme cold, placed in painful stress positions, and beaten. Gen McChrystal is lionised in the US as a warrior-scholar. “
[It gets worse.]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new…..abuse.html
OT to EW: If you liked BabyDick, you’ll love this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..inionsbox1
with milliions of people losing their jobs and homes, who is going to have the money to buy new cars?
Right. And pay for any gas tax hikes.
When gas goes over $3 a gallon as it inevitably will without more drilling, gas taxes will be the last choice of the Congress critters
Muzzy beat me, but diesel presumably has to be part of the transition. GM and Ford know how to build diesel engines. And I noticed that the latest VW ad — albeit with a sad, sad knock-off German accent for the Beetle — sets the TDi against the Prius.
(Quick out-the-arse question for EW: are diesels problematic in a Michigan winter? It just occurred to me that there could be a home-state wariness towards selling the buggers in the US because a February in Detroit might make cold starts a pain.)
The word ‘differentials’ comes to mind. It’s usually applied to wages, but I think it’s more meaningful in terms of price bands — in this case, for American cars. If the $15k mark for a supermini becomes $17-18k, then it bumps into the tier for the Standard American Compact, and if that goes up, then you hit the Standard American Sedan tier. There’s not much wiggle-room. In real terms: the Fit is already similarly priced to the Civic, but $18k gets you an Accord.
Easier said than done. To quote Daniel Davies from last December: “making money out of cars is difficult, it’s not as if Nissan, Renault, VW or basically anyone except Toyota and BMW manage to do it consistently.”
The more I think about it, the more diesel sounds like the way to go for the US market. It’s encouraging to know that Ford and GM know something about diesels. Two things stand out to me:
1) with diesels, you can still make big heavy cars that many buyers want, they just get better mpg with diesel. Bmw started selling a diesel x5 in the us this year that weighs 2.5 tons but gets 19/26mpg. 26mpg on the hwy in a 2.5 tonner?
2) Diesel is a versatile fuel that is easily blended with biodiesel which is far more carbon neutral. Algae may be the future: from Wired and fromScientific American
It makes sense to try to expand the sheer number of more efficient diesel engines on the roads now, and then backfill the diesel fuel with increasing percent blends of domestically grown biodiesel as production expands in coming years.
I learned to drive in a diesel Vauxhall (i.e. GM) Corsa. Ford’s ECOnetic Fiesta is the dog’s bollocks, but as EW said, the problem is a tax structure for diesel that’s based entirely around commercial vehicles and the general perception of diesel as old tech, whereas hybrids are new tech. It has become an odd niche in passenger vehicles: it’s somehow okay to have diesel Mercs and Beemers and VWs, because they’re German cars with an established premium, but not a low-end Chevy or Ford.
Aren’t you going to start today’s briefing with a Bible verse, EW?
lol.
excellent idea
Amos 5:24
“But let justice roll down like waters And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
Love it!
A fantastic diary on Nuremberg by occam’s hatchet.
Thanks, Loo Hoo. That deserves to be read as widely as possible.
I don’t see how EW’s 13 can avoid being tried for war crimes.
note: Cheney butt boy Ron Christie yesterday –
‘but are people gonna want to drive lighter, less safe cars ?’
I kid you not
I’ve been seeing more of those little smart cars around. Not so much on the freeways, but around town. I’m in the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles. Anyone else seeing them? And, where?
I’ve been seeing more of them too — in southeast PA Amish country of all places.
Oh, I just had an image in my mind of little tiny carriages with miniature ponies.
And, in response to Loo Hoo:
Blessed are the fuel economizers, for they shall reinherit the earth.
Ha! Should have known you have a great one. Is that straight from the Bible?
Gotta go. LAST day.
Seen some in the Denver area. I have seen some being offered as prizes in big promotions.
Well, if they’d stop putting costly stupid stuff on cars and pickups–like those chrome spoke tires or individual DVD screens–we could have fuel efficiency and even save money. Harruummmmmph.
Trucks. And they still do.
Really? Cars have always been subsidized by the sale of trucks?
Yes, let’s not rush into this fuel economy thing head-on. Let’s give it another couple decades.
This seems to be the hallmark of this new administration, viz., project safe distances beyond the next two terms.
A real can-do attitude, that.
As Spike Milligan said, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, which is long enough to be president.”
Looka here, America is a BIG country, full of BIG people, they ‘need’ BIG vehicles for a whole bunch of BIG reasons, mostly ‘psychological’, as well as emotional. Remember, your automobile (or SUV or truck) defines who you are, it evidences your dreams and social(!) sensibilities.
Are you some blah, gray-porridge type, some retiring wallflower?
No! You are vrooom! Or even vrooom, vrooom! You are Corvette! Or, perhaps a stretch SUV from, oh, say BMW or Cadillac … you are most definitely not a nimble handling, well-packaged, excellent mileage-per-gallon people-box.
(Of course you might be appalled to learn “what” those anti-social types who ride around on motorcycles think you are).
Okay, that was all, or mostly all, snark. But I do have to tell you that the discussion going on ‘today’ went on yesterday and the day before that … “We need big, heavy cars to stay on the road, they are safer and more comfortable, them furrin cars are death traps and a semi would reduce ‘em to rust-colored stains on the highway.” [This was a few years before the first ‘compact’ cars were introduced to Americans … and the image of Volkswagens, Volvo 544’s, and sports cars ranging from MGs to Jaguars (although their MkVII sedan was huge and heavy, it also handled very well) to Austin Healeys floating dangerously away into the sky with their hapless and silly victims struggling to extricate themselves from their effete and ungrounded ‘pretenses’ has remained with me,suggesting a ‘reversed’ shift of the ‘Rapture’, perhaps?] How ‘high’ is your center of ‘gravity’? Remember, the ‘higher’ it is, the more likely you are to ‘roll-over’ … (or be rolled-over).
I think phred’s comment @ 37 speaks BIG to the reality of ‘manipulated’ automotive desire, as opposed to a more-simple sense of essential utility. And, though this next ‘notion’ which I propose to share with you will, doubtless, be received with something less than enthusiasm, Aston Martin and (the far lesser known)Bristol automobile companies both endorse the idea of ‘lifetime’ cars. Question: Why are automobiles not engineered to be up-datable, with ‘modular’ drive-train elements and design concepts that are not simply ‘fashion’ statements? Who actually believes that the rate of automotive ‘development’ is such that yearly ‘updates’ are anything more than ‘gloss’ and matters of perceived ‘comfort’ rather than substantive advances in engineering or materials? At some point, it must be realized that the ‘cost’ of the ‘new’ and the ‘cost’ of dealing (or NOT dealing) with the ‘old’ of whatever technology we care to speak of, will become unsupportable either due to the cost of such things as lithium for batteries, or the simple inability of many to ‘afford’ to play the ‘game’. Not to mention the amount of traffic we would have to contend with should everyone, everywhere be ‘driven’ to drive. (Confession time: I love fine cars, I love to drive, I love the ‘freedom’, and that sense of the ‘open road’ stretching in sinuous curves or compelling straights before my ’steed’ … I am vrooom, vrooom, vrooom!)
Remember the ‘wedge’ shapes that were so ‘in’ for a time? Bloody awful, most of them. Aerodynamic consideration, if ‘done’ properly, often creates timeless beauty … (does my prejudice show?) Simply because something is bigger it is not necessarily ‘better’, this applies to autos, bombs, hairdos (and other … um anatomical bits and pieces) and lies (despite however ‘often’ such lies may be spouted).
Of late “BIG” is most famously to be found in the concept of, “Too Big to Fail.”
How is that working for us?
;~D
Mornin’. See my 40 on Attaturk’s post.
Small cars will be universal love objects when gas hits
$5 a gallon & stays there.
If any man were marooned on an island with Susan Boyle, she would become a love object within 6 months. Guaranteed.
Same principle.
By this logic, any woman marooned with Rush Limbaugh would be screwing him within 6 months.
NOT BUYING IT.
I wonder if Massacio will weigh in on this one? It seems the auto industry has convinced someone that has Obama’s ear that these miniscule improvements will be politically helpful now, but ingenuous to the reality of future auto use. Fiat will crush these imports by offering something that gets 60 MPG and doesn’t warble like a Yugo at 30 MPH and give you the impression of sky diving from location to location. The inexpensive cars imported from China (Turkey, Russia, et al) may be more than the average unemployed american will be able to afford.
Time is right for us merkuns to revisit the film “Americathon” It doesn’t have everything a great movie should, but it has a few absurd predictions that are looking more like home.
We (my eight-year-old daughter, Aja, and I as well as Feurae and Thelonius) like your purr-fectly wonderful new friends very much, SD.
Aja has discovered (just yesterday), doing her own research, that upwards of one hundred million animals are used for ‘testing’ each year. She is very unhappy about this fact.
Henceforth my ‘measure’ of speed shall be, “Fast as a speeding Ingraine!”.
Thanx for the pix (AND for who you are and what you do), SD.
DW
Sneakin’ in a couple lines at work. Igraine’s a trip. She was on the table when I pushed the button. Maybe she just teleports. Igraine was Arthur’s mother. Spoken with a Sean Connery rolling “r”.
Some cats are pookas. You know what I mean, I am certain.
(Connery is class, true class, by my lights, and his use of the mother tongue, is superb …)