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White House Issues New Gas Mileage Standards
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that the Obama administration has signed off on the nation's first rules on greenhouse gas emissions and set new fuel standards to meet a fleet-wide average of 35.5 mpg that will raise current standards by nearly 10 mpg by the 2016 model year. Although the new requirements would add an estimated $434 per vehicle in the 2012 model year and $926 per vehicle by 2016, drivers could save as much as $3,000 over the life of a vehicle through better gas mileage, according to a government statement. 'We will be helping American motorists save money at the pump, while putting less pollution in the air,' says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Dave McCurdy, leader of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing 11 automakers, says the industry supports a single national standard for future vehicles. 'Today, the federal government has laid out a course of action through 2016, and now we need to work on 2017 and beyond.' As the auto industry seeks to emerge from ashes, many manufacturers already are trying for the right mix of approaches, experts say. Some will try to sell more hybrids. Others are introducing not-so-gas-guzzling SUVs. They may also push slightly downsized and small cars, such as the Ford Fiesta."
Won't this just make people buy new cars less often?
CAFE was already set to go to 35 in 2020, the only major thing (ignoring .5mpg) is that it was moved forward 4 years.
> Won't this just make people buy new cars less often?
and this is a bad thing... how?
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
A lot of the total carbon emissions from a vehicles lifetime are incurred in construction (extensive high-energy metalworking)
Keeping a car a longer time might use more fuel but less manufacturing carbon emissions result.
Personally I worry that the result of this will be leaden, electronics/batteries-loaded vehicles that lurch and rumble along on their hard suspension due to the extra weight of systems to reduce emissions...
I live in hope of someone designing a mid-sized car with ultralightweight materials and putting a slow-running non-turbo diesel in it with high gear ratios and the maximum possible low-rev torque setup - economy and long life without complications. And while I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Learn what an average means. Other vehicles in the fleet will have to get higher MPG to balance it out.
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But more deaths means there are less people driving and using resources. Population control, its green!!!
They may also push slightly downsized and small cars, such as the Ford Fiesta.
I've been to America several times and there are a few things that prevent this happening. First of all the Fiesta is far too small for your average American consumeer. These cars sell massively here in Ireland but they just won't work in America because you'll hear all of the horror stories about how they're not safe because they're small. Realistically the average weight and size of your average American citizen is a lot more too.
The problem is that I saw the VW Golf (you call it Rabbit now) all over the place in San Francisco, LA and Vegas. That sounds great except I only saw them in two sizes: 1.8l and 2.5l engines. You look at that same car in Europe and they sell better at the 1.4-1.8l range. What's the point in going to a smaller car if the engine is still big? I can only imagine if the Fiesta was to be pushed it'd have a 1.6l engine anyway.
Much in the same way that I think the Hybrid market was mostly lip service I think this isn't enough either. If you need a powerful car get one, if you don't then just get an economical one. Even with hybrids, it'd have made just as much sense for your averager American to switch to a 1.5l car to begin with because all of the cars out there are already overpowered or desperately inefficient - they're all automatic for a start! Just imagine the savings if every American switched down 30% in their engine size, more if your average Joe forget about his oversized petrol powered SUV and drove a modest saloon.
Let me put this another way; I look forward to electric or decent hybrid cars at a minimum. In the meantime I drive a SEAT Leon which is a badge-engineered VW Golf. I drive the 1.9TDI variant and on one 55l tank of diesel I drive 900-1050Km (550-650 miles roughly). I know that's diesel rather than petrol but the point is efficiency and it puts out the same horsepower as a 1.6l engine which would get you a good 450 miles plus per tank.
Forget the massive forced changes which will be rejected by the public - just start by reducing engine displacement and increasing efficiency. And hey, would it kill you to write the engine size on the back of your car like we do in Europe...awareness is half the battle!
I never get used to these constant resurrections
For survivability you don't want "sturdyness", you want the car to be crumply. The crumpling absorbs the crash energy so the occupants don't. Lighter cars also means lower crash energies. Lighter cars are less likely to crash in the first place owing to better handling and manuverablilty.
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An average fuel economy across a fleet of vehicles sold by a manufacturer. Just work out the mean of all the models available for sale that year, per manufacturer.
So if Ford sells a 10mpg truck, it needs to sell a 50mpg compact to offset it, with the goal being many more fuel efficient models available for those who want them, while still keeping things like big trucks around.
...with the goal being many more fuel efficient models available for those who want them, while still keeping things like big trucks around.
And with the reality being that fuel efficient cars get sold with little to no profit which is a disincentive for manufacturers to build them. Face it, when people want a truck they buy American, when they want a fuel efficient car they buy Japanese, when consumers segment their purchases like this Cafe standards just bankrupt car manufacturers who consumers don't associate with fuel efficiency.
We need to make manufacturers calculate mileage averages from the total vehicles they sell, not the total vehicles in their lineup. This is just going to result in more abominations like the PT Cruiser, which was designed to lower the average mileage of Dodge's truck line rather than to be a useful (or even safe) passenger vehicle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pt_cruiser#Overview
If you read through it, you'll notice they allow all-electric cars to count as zero-emission vehicles, when in actual practice, the emissions depend on where you get the energy from.
So, each manufacturer gets an allotment with a cap for any electric cars they churn out.
But someone in a state which makes electricity from coal - like Wisconsin - creates more emissions pollution using the same all-electric Chevy Volt car than someone in a state using hydroelectric, nuclear fission, solar, wind, and tidal like Washington State.
In Seattle, our utility is carbon-neutral - no emissions. In Madison it's carbon-heavy - coal.
Another thing to notice is that the mpg requirements vary based on the footprint of the vehicle.
So if you made a very thin batmobile you could get sucky mileage and be "better" than a car with twice the mpg that has a small footprint like a Smart Car.
Of course, none of this will prevent somebody installing an industrial electric turbine in their batmobile to go 0 to 60 in 0.9 seconds - cause all-electric dragsters outrace even the best gasoline or diesel vehicle. Unless you use jet fuel.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Spending the majority of the effort on a fraction of the problem won't solve anything.
Fuel economy standards are actually a stupid way to reduce petroleum usage. A far more effective way to do this would be to put a hefty tax on gasoline, and then the market can decide what the optimum trade is for fuel efficiency. Unfortunately, tax is such an incredibly dirty word in politics that this is just flat out impossible; anybody trying to do such a thing would not merely be voted out of office, they'd very likely be lynched.
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Until those who are driving around overweight behemoths are made to pay for their huge negative externalities. E.g. with mandatory sentences for manslaughter every time they bump into a smaller car and kill someone, increased taxes, etc. It's hardly fair that those who do the responsible thing are penalized.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Ford makes class leading cars in the UK. Not just "average cars" - they make genuinely desirable, high quality, class-leading cars in several size/usage classes with some of the best handling and best engines available.
There is no reason for them to be selling shit in the US, which is essentially what they are doing with all but their trucks. They make some amazing vehicles, and do so profitably in Europe.
The engines they sell *right now* in the UK are way, way above what these CAFE proposals are mandating. They don;t even need to do any reseach so there;s no "bankrupting" going on - they just need to bolt those engines into the US models, or just tweak the UK models slightly so that US licence plates fit onto the back (ours are thinner but wider) and Bob's your uncle.
Maybe also tweak the screen slightly - I remember a story somewhere about the US safety requirement for airbags is to assume the occupant is not wearing a seatbelt, so the screen has to be more upright to account for this in some models. Just lobby to have that common sense thing changed and we're done.
The big automakers in the US like to hide behind that "oh woe is us, it will cost too much and we don;t have the time to do the R&D, and the margins are too low" wailing, but they are really just dragging their feet. Ford is *very* competitive in the European market, and has innovated and picked its game up to get itself there, in the commercial and the consumer market. Hell, the light commercial it sells is the word for van in the uk: Transit Van, and you can't turn left without seeing a Focus, Fiesta, Mondeo, Ka and occasionally the odd Galaxy (I'm afraid the French have pretty much sewn up the soccer mom van market - it's the only segment Ford doesn't have a class leader in).
With some minor tweaks here and there (nowhere ear enough to bankrupt them), Ford could sell its Euro models in the US and be right on top of those regulations. Even if they skipped out all of their diesels (which are outstanding) and only sold the petrol ones, the lowest mpg petrol Focus they sell is 35.3mpg - for the automatic one. The worst diesel automatic does 48.6mpg (best does 74mpg, but you need the manual gearbox).
So long as you don't mind sacrificing safety.
A motorcycle, for example, can easily get 45 to 55 mpg. With rider, even a large bike won't top 500 kg.
About 20 years ago, MADD put up a billboard with a crushed Toyota Corolla - a man and his 4 children were killed when the distance between the dashboard and the trunk was reduced to a mere 6 inches by a drunk driver. They were trying to demonstrate the evils of drunk driving, but the impression it left on me was that we've been trading mpg for safety for quite some time in this country. It shouldn't come as any surprise that teens who grew up seeing the smashed cars caused by drunk driving are now buying behemoth SUVs with full frames.
Long story short - unit body construction saved hundreds of pounds of structural steel from car designs. It raised gas mileage. But the whole car - crumple zones and all - simply folds up like a tin can in an accident. Accidents which used to be survivable are now deadly, thanks to the weakening of car frames designed primarily to boost fuel economy.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Overall, the U.S. transportation sector accounts for 33 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions and highway fuel consumption for 20 percent.13 Other greenhouse gases from the transportation sector such as methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons contribute an estimated 23 million metric tons of carbon equivalent,14 which is equal to about 5 percent of transportation carbon dioxide emissions.15 The remaining two thirds of U.S. emissions are attributable mainly to the industry and to industrial and commercial buildings and the energyusing devices they contain; this includes emissions from the generation of electricity, nearly all of which goes to the industrial and buildings sectors. The numbers show that U.S. greenhousegas emissions cannot be sufficiently reduced by focusing on motor vehicles alone, but neither can they be sufficiently reduced without a significant effort in the transport sector.
b-but the founding fathers!
50mpg on ICE is ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC.
I drive a large turbo-diesel saloon (sedan, for americans), a Ford Mondeo 1.8TD. I frequently get overall fuel economy in excess of 55mpg over an entire tank of fuel. and thats in an 11 year old car built using 1980s diesel technology.. but even after 180,000 miles it still does the distance, and can sprint to 3-figure speeds (yes, miles not kilometres/hour) given a lot of time for acceleration (and preferably a tailwind)
Show me one of your electro-gasoline abominations after 180K. Be lucky if it even moves let alone gets 40mpg
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
The rumors of our death have been greatly exaggerated.
The United States still makes many things, and is still one of the worlds largest exporters, with over $1 Trillion in exports in 2009.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports
http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres10_e/pr598_e.htm
It appears that cars accounted for 11% of those exports:
http://www.trademap.org/tradestaz/Country_SelProductCountry_TS.aspx
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I got them from Ford's UK site, so presumably UK gallons - divide by 1.2 for US values, which makes the worst petrol automatic Focus 29.4mpg.
I've been saying for years that there's no reason that American car companies can't sell the same cars they sell in Europe in the US - in the last couple of years, they've finally started listening (at least Ford has). Starting later this year, there will be one Focus for the entire world again!
Also, I'm pretty sure you're looking at imperial gallons, not US gallons - imperial gallons are bigger, so they skew mpg numbers when trying to compare cars.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
1.It gives exemptions for flex-fuel cars. This is WRONG. The correct step is to mandate flex-fuel in all cars (with limited exemptions for cars where flex-fuel is not possible). By changing this, car companies cant simply make their gas guzzling SUVs flex-fuel and avoid the need to make them more efficient. (or simply to make and sell less of them)
2.It does nothing to address the fuel efficiency of big rigs, garbage trucks, utility trucks, buses, construction equipment and other heavy vehicles.
3.It gives companies like Jeep that make large amounts of SUVs higher targets than companies that make more fuel efficient cars. Numbers need to be lower to force a shift of the aggregate fleet (i.e. all new cars available for sale and sold in the US) towards more fuel efficient cars (which would hopefully mean smaller cars too)
Also, the rules for what counts as a "truck" should be revised and properly enforced so that things like the PT Cruiser do not count as "trucks". To be counted as a "truck", a vehicle must either be able to take more than 10 passengers or it must have at least 50% of the floorspace of the vehicle permanently dedicated to cargo. Anything else would be considered a "car".
FWIW Ford is becoming quite competitive once again in the US as well. The 2010 Fusion has won numerous awards and is favorably reviewed against its peers. Quality ratings are consistently rising and are now as good as or better than their Japanese competitors. The new line of "ecoboost" turbo engines, finally replacing the trash version of the Focus with the superb model available in Europe, the introduction of the new Fiesta - all of these things are conspiring to resurrect Ford's passenger car line and sales are rising to match.
Alan Mulaly has done great things for that company and I hope he continues.
So long as we're just making up numbers, smaller, more maneuverable cars will lead to perhaps one trillion fewer deaths per year.
It's been argued that the ability of small, maneuverable small vehicles to avoid accidents outweighs the increased risk of dying upon a major collision. Gladwell provides numbers to back up his claim--deaths per driver are much more relevant than deaths per accident. Per driver hour or driver mile would be better, of course, and he doesn't normalize against different populations of drivers* (Do bad drivers simply prefer SUVs?), but so long as you note the caveats, actual data beats the mental random number generator any day.
*Disclaimer: I haven't read the article in years.
They've changed them. In 2006, my Civic had 30 city and 40 highway on the sticker. I get a little over 30 in mixed conditions. The car hasn't changed, but the news rules put 26/34 on the window, right in line with what I get.
Tell that to VW, who use the same engines in their US models - the Euro engines exceed the US emission requirements and have for some time.
The other safety differences tend to be about things like the screen issue I mentioned - a US requirement being to assume the passengers are not wearing a seatbelt, affecting the angle of the windscreen.
They do. They crumpled. Now what? That truck is still moving into the passenger compartment at 75 miles per hour.
Incorrect. The crumple zones absorb the energy from the truck so that the passengers don't have to... the truck is not still going 75 mph. The chance of surviving a high speed head on collision is still pretty low... it's not magic. But there's no question today's crumpling designs are far safer than old cars with separate frames.
Extra stiffness from something like a roll cage only works well if you are securely fastened down with a 5 or 6 point harness and are wearing a helmet... that's the safest way to go and how it's done in race cars, but we don't really wish to sacrifice so much convinence for that level of safety on the street.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Ford's UK Focus petrol cars exceed that 35mpg figure (in US gallons) for all but the 2 litre automatic, which has a US gallon figure of 30mpg.
Even leaving the diesels aside (which in Europe are often a collaboration between major manufacturers - (Ford's diesels were developed in partnership with PSA, for example).
We already have several low particulate diesels here in Europe and have for some time, that exceed the US requirements.
All of the petrol engines are more efficient for equivalent power.
When 16 ships can emit as much pollution as every car on the planet
The story you're pointed to is about SULFUR.
Sulfur is is component of pollution, and talking about it in reference to gasoline makes about as much sense as talking about it in reference to urine. (Gasoline generally has very little sulfur in it).
Your statement about the 16 ships producing more "pollution" than all cars has to be about the most misleading statement I've ever seen modded up on slashdot.
AccountKiller
You've been taken by the oldest ploy in politics. They are telling you "these regulations aren't for you, but are for someone else". All government regulations are for you. The government is only capable of passing regulations on people and the burden of any government action will ultimately fall on your shoulders.
Think about it this way, will these new regulations affect your ability to buy the car of your choosing? Yes, it will because manufacturers will need to balance the number of low mileage vehicles they sell with the number of high mileage vehicles to maintain an average that meets the regulations. That means they will change their line-up and may charge higher prices to dissuade customers from buying the lower mileage vehicles. Ultimately, that means that low mileage vehicles will either not be offered, or will be offered at a price that some will not be able to afford.
Does this bother manufacturers? You bet, because the resulting line-up will be less appealing, and that means fewer sales. Should you be bothered as well? Most certainly absolutely yes! You may no longer be able to buy/afford a vehicle that meets your needs once these regulations take effect.
Ideally hard and you go right through the obstacle, feeling nothing
Only if the obstacle is made of marshmallow fluff. If it is made of a similar material, the collision energy is dissipated by the squishiest object involved in the collision - the human.
Lighter = less momentum, sure, but it also means less control.
Clearly the Lotus Elise is the apotheosis of the ungainly clunker, unable to turn any corner at more than 20 mph.
Better handling is subjective, and I vastly prefer the feel of a heavier vehicle.
You clearly have never driven a light car, or suffer from terminal confirmation bias. Better handling can be defined by at least one absolute number (lateral g-force it can hold) and one relative number (exit speed from a corner).
Finally, stability is related to where the center of gravity is located, not with absolute weight. And most heavy cars on the road today are SUVs, which are terminally top-heavy.
Sheesh. I expect that any moment now you're going to tell me that 4-wheel drive helps in stopping distance.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I agree strongly with the parent. Light weight carbon fiber cars can have extremely high crash safety if they are engineered intelligently. Indeed, my suspicion is that they can be more safe than steel cars. It is all a matter of engineering structures that will efficiently absorb shocks. I can imagine structures that would have carbon fiber parts that would come under tension in impact situations, and would fail in a cascading fashion throughout an impact event, thus absorbing and perhaps isolating the shock from a crash. I suspect that the crash behavior of carbon fiber cars could be "fine tuned" far more than steel structures. We can see the potential safety of carbon fiber structures carried out in Formula 1 race cars, that absorb crash impacts that are at least an order of magnitude more severe than anything a regular driver would ever experience.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
For survivability you don't want "sturdyness", you want the car to be crumply.
All that liberal science claptrap is just a bunch of nonsense. I always judge things with my gut, and my gut says that sturdy stuff don't break. Them liberals believe in hippy crap like "inertia" and that hippy Newton and his "Laws of motion". I believe in the strength of American Steel.
AccountKiller
The problem is that the Ford Focus sells for (starting at) nearly $30,000 USD in Europe. That's why Ford can afford to put in extra quality into the European Focus - I've driven one before and they're very nice.
No American would buy one at that price. They'd expect almost an entry-level luxury car (i.e. BMW 3-series) at that price range. In America, the Ford Focus sells for around $15,000. The barebones model with manual, roll-up windows, no power locks, etc. will be under $12,000.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
I really hate the push for mandatory reduction in fuel consumption. One of the primary ways they do this is by reducing the drag coefficient, which means lowering the roof. I am 6'5" and I cannot find a car that fits me anymore. It used to be that trucks and SUVs had much more headroom, but even now when I try the newer models, the roof is so low I cannot sit up. Besides serious discomfort, it also adds severe safety hazards. Most people don't think about the roofline, but because they keep on lowing the roof, my vision gets cut off at the top of the window. The consequence is that I cannot see strait out, but I have to look down. When I come to a stoplight, I cannot see the lights unless I lean into the passenger seat. I once ran a red light and my wife screamed... I didn't even see there was a light because it was above my vision. I don't have a problem with reducing emissions, and, protecting our environment is important, but please don't push a 'one size fits all' car on me that was made for someone 8 inches shorter than I am!
"Hi, I heard you got cancer. Here, have a car that doesn't work."
Frictional force exerted at the road is given by weight * coefficient of friction [u]. Since weight = mg that all boils down to mgu.
Lateral acceleration at a velocity v on a curve of radius r = v^2 / r. Since F = ma, The
lateral force = mv^2 / r.
As long as the first force is greater, the car is gripping. When it ceases to be, you skid. The limiting case is where mgu = mv^2 / r. The m cancels out, and you, sir, fail @ science.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
...the US is still behind the rest of half the world. 35.5 mpg == 6.6 liter / 100 km
Europe: 5 l/100 km by 2012
Japan: 6.7 l/100 km by 2010
Australia: 6.7 l/100 km by 2010
China: 5.7 l/100 km since 2008
Better late than never, though.