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Why Fuel Efficiency Advances Haven't Translated To Better Gas Mileage
greenrainbow tips an article about a research paper from an MIT economist that attempts to explain why technological advances in fuel efficiency haven't led to substantially better gas mileage for the average driver. Quoting:
"Thus if Americans today were driving cars of the same size and power that were typical in 1980, the country’s fleet of autos would have jumped from an average of about 23 miles per gallon (mpg) to roughly 37 mpg, well above the current average of around 27 mpg. Instead, Knittel says, 'Most of that technological progress has gone into [compensating for] weight and horsepower.' ... Indeed, Knittel asserts, given consumer preferences in autos, larger changes in fleet-wide gas mileage will occur only when policies change, too. 'It’s the policymakers’ responsibility to create a structure that leads to these technologies being put toward fuel economy,' he says. Among environmental policy analysts, the notion of a surcharge on fuel is widely supported. 'I think 98 percent of economists would say that we need higher gas taxes,' Knittel says."
If we save fuel all across the board...
The oil companys might not make more money next year than they did this year. Repeated forever into the future.
And we can't have that now can we?
I think 98 percent of economists would say that we need higher gas taxes Knittel says.
93% of all statistics are made up. 99% of economists know that.
The increase in gas prices hasn't drastically changed what vehicles we buy. Many of those that really would rather buy more efficient vehicles can't afford them, and are stuck with older ones, so the economists would just be hurting the poor.
As consumers shouldn't we choose what vehicle economies we use? Where I live, SUVs are all over. But, it makes more sense. Adverse conditions favor SUVs. An economist, you would think, would say people buy what they want.
Flamebait, I know. But if they payload is you (and I'll generously give you 300 lbs for yourself and your laptop) and the vessel weighs 15 times that much. A total waste.
People obviously value things like car power, size, etc over fuel efficiency. They can already buy more efficient cars, and they choose not to do so. When scarcity drives the price up, people may shift their priorities, but why force them to do artificially through taxes?
"'It’s the policymakers’ responsibility to create a structure that leads to these technologies being put toward fuel economy,' " No, it's the market's responsibility.
The article links to the peer-reviewed, pay-walled version of the paper.
http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/knittel/papers/steroids_latest.pdf the following is the version author put up on his website
I live in Ontario Canada. Gas here is anywhere between $4.30-4.75 a US GALLON, in CANADIAN DOLLARS (worth less than US Dollars).
Meanwhile, when I'm in the USA, I can get gas for anywhere in the $3.xx a gallon range.
It physically hurts to see people line up here for $4.10/US GAL gasoline. It hasn't increased public transit usage - after all, this IS North America, not Europe.
Raising prices (via tax) to give to the people (politicians) who can't spend the money properly is a BAD IDEA anyway.
It's like giving drugs to a drug addict. They'll just abuse it.
Why don't you give incentives to the private sector -- Tax breaks on new cars where MPG meets a certain requirement? Gas guzzling cars would soon be off the market entirely as car makers would opt to make more efficient cars, as a profit margin on them would be greater due to lower taxes.
Not CAFE regulations, which are terrible. But yet that's what we wind up with because people are too small minded to see how much better a gas tax is. They either think they spend lots of money on gas (the don't), or that global warming is fake so we don't need a gas tax, but they don't realize a gas tax has almost nothing to do with global warming (the breakdown is about 50% congestion, 25% accidents, 20% smog, 5% carbon emissions).
If you want to reduce gas consumption (reduce oil imports, reduce green house gasses, etc.,) levy a carbon tax, don't increase gas mileage. Do it directly – not indirectly.
Forcing me to pay extra to buy a fuel efficient car is going have little impact on the above issues – I don’t drive that many miles (yeah bike, mass transit).
When the first MPG requirements were put in place, a lot of people switched from big gas guzzling station wagons to big gas guzzling light trucks – the minivan.
Each year Americans drove more miles until gas hit $4.00 a gallon. Only at that point did they start switching their behavior. Smaller cars and shorter commutes.
Wouldn't drive a minivan if I didn't have to have every kid in a car seat until they were eight years old.
I remember the days when kids fought over who got to ride in the front seat.
The reason people hate taxes is because they are commonly used as punitive measures to modify behavior. This is NOT what they should be used for. Thanks to federal and state government not having the discipline to operate within a budget, we pay too much as it is, and coupled with the rise in inflation every time washington prints more money, the people at the bottom are the ones who get burned at both ends, in savings and expenditures. Raising fuel taxes hurts these people even more because they are not able to afford a new car every few years and thus are most likely the ones driving 10+ year old models, nor can they afford to pay even more at the pump than they already are. If money needs diversion to research new technologies then it should come out of the pockets of the oil companies, not consumers. They shoulder enough of the yoke as it is while large corporations are the ones who benefit the most from government economic management.
Is that code for "we let the SUV situation get out of hand, and now to pass any safety standards, cars have to bulk up and drop gas mileage in order to not kill their occupants due to cars we should have de-incentivized people from driving?"
One of the US crash safety standards required by the NHTSA that adds weight and expense to new vehicles is for "unrestrained drivers", despite the fact that under 10% of US drivers go un-belted these days. The punch line is that the IIHS found the NHTSA test not very useful, because un-bented passengers often aren't held in place in front of the intended safety devices.
Because higher fuel efficiency leads to lower oil profits? DUH. Hell, I'm not even some fancy economist with a fancy ivy league degree and even I can see that.
My 1995 Honda Civic VX just got 52 miles per gallon while I was doing holiday traveling. There should be riots in the street because this car isn't manufactured anymore.
Honda seems to have lost its way. The 2010 Civic has a terrible reputation for poor mechanical quality, the Civic Hybrid has well documented battery reliability problems and Honda sales have tanked 20% in the last year.
I say that there are too many economists and not enough car enthusiast engineers.
. . . that they should pay less taxes, and that somebody else should pay more.
Politicians this season should be touting the "Tax Foreigners Living Abroad" plan. That one never upsets any voters at home.
Applying this principle to cars, I think that the car of someone else should be taxed.
Now, if you tax gas (including diesel), you can manage to upset everyone in one fell swoop.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
While the SUV revolution is more than a little bit to blame for today's lackluster fuel numbers, the article fails to point out collision safety as a factor in the modern design of cars. It's not just the trucks and SUV's that are bringing the average down -- compact cars these days are still way heavier than they used to be, with much worse visibility, largely as a result of increasingly stringent crash standards.
Cars these days have to be able to protect you in a 60 mph (30 + 30) corner collision, with rollover, even if you aren't wearing a seatbelt. The result is bigger, heavier frames, and thick pillars that prevent you from seeing pedestrians. As a result, cars are heavier, and their engines have to be more powerful to compensate.
The 2012 Impreza gets 30% better gas mileage than the 2011.
Read the article, but CVT, lighter body, electric steering - 36MPG for an AWD vehicle is nicely impressive.
Technology, it does good things.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Doesn't the oil industry and others have a history of buying up patents and stifling new technologies that would become a source of competition to the current fossil fuel system? Tesla comes to mind..
"The worst... was a 1990 Lamborghini Countach..."
Except, of course, there's no such thing. The Countach line ended with the 1989 model and was replaced by the Diablo in 1990. Yes, some 1989 cars (and 1988 25th anniversary editions) were still being sold in 1990, but that's not how we refer to car models.
Generally, this whole article is about how we need to tell the evil Americans to stop buying what they want and dictate what they can have. He ignores several other factors, like the fact that reducing the curb weight by 25% will result in a vast increase in fatalities as lighter cars are less safe. A large part of the reason to own an SUV is the fact they are, statistically as much as 5 times safer than a small "efficient" car.
After my wife and kids were nearly killed by an unlicensed, illegal alien driving a pickup truck, I went out and got her a great big Toyota Highlander to replace her Geo Prism. After seeing that she escaped death by inches only by flat-spotting all four tires hitting the brakes, I wasn't about to put her in that position again.
The cost is going from 25 mpg to 17 mpg. Let's see, which will I choose? A little more money, or a living family. Tough one.
This guy wants to take that choice away from me, and then tax me for the privilege of endangering my family.
He can go to the same place as the other dictators of history can go. Anyone who agrees with him can go right along with him.
Given all the electronic junk such as ABS, TCS, TPS, multiple airbags, electric seats, motorized windows, mirrors, rear-seat DVD players etc etc that they shovel into cars as standard these days, All the efficiency gained is probably mostly lost in extra weight and power consumption to drive that stuff.
I for one would welcome the opportunity to buy a simple car without all that junk, except there isn't really the option any more. Apart from the fuel savings, think of the production cost savings the car companies could pass on to the consumer.
Perhaps part of the problem is the current environmental variables. We've told the car companies, in so many words, that they need only care about designing an engine with a top speed slightly over 80 MPH (I believe 80 MPH is the top speed limit in the United States, perhaps 100 MPH). Then we told them to design an engine that is fuel efficient given that top speed.
A greater efficiency might be gained with a more radical redesign of the combustion engine (just speculating here), but that would require a larger investment in R&D, and with a larger investment comes a greater risk, which also requires a greater reward in compensation. Before this can happen, there must a an untapped market for investors to care about. Lifting the speed limit might do wonders here. New market -> higher performance engine, capable of higher speeds, and since the average customer (rich or otherwise) does not like the idea of their net wealth dropping a percentage point every time they fill up at the gas station, arguably something efficient.
Or we could just pop a RTG into the back of a Chevy Volt. A Mr. Fission in the back would be oddly amusing.
Though I think a greater gain may be had with better coatings for cars. Reducing friction with better coatings for cars might improve things fuel efficiency. But I am not an engineer, only a scientist, so it's best to ask them what they've tried before looking for a new solution.
I am John Hurt.
After all, obesity is responsible for decrease in fuel economy[1], and reduced fleet efficiency by forcing lower passenger counts[2]. The research paper also used the flawed Honda Accord analogy, since European/Japan Accord has smaller chassis than North American version. Either way, if it weren't for the plus sized ass-engers, car makers wouldn't need those oversized bodies to sit overweight riders to begin with, nor overpowering engines to haul them all.
[1] http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2010/08/-us-obesity-problem-impacts-automobile-safety-and-fuel-economy-.html
[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2076438/Not-ship-shape-Wider-waistlines-mean-trimming-seats-commercial-water-transit.html
Opponents of consumption taxes (or really, Pigovian taxes in this case) will come up with a number of reasons why they aren't good to use. These include:
- Government moral hazard - if the government considers tax revenue a good in itself, then you have an incentive to take as negative a view of the externality as possible.
- An increase in the size of government - more revenue equals automatically more expenditure, by some considered a bad thing in itself.
- High uncertainty of measuring externalities - the heavy tax on smokers, for example, may not look justified if you consider that smokers die earlier.
Many of these objections would be overcome if the default whenever a 'tax on doing something bad' was implemented, the revenues had to be apportioned, in full (minus monitoring costs) to the opposite. For example, every 6 months the entire sum of petrol tax revenue should be rebated to bicycle manufacturers or purchasers. 'Who should benefit' should be as important a question as 'who should pay'. That way no unwarranted eagerness to tax undesirable activities, and a lot less objections.
Because they're so simple. They would also allow our highway fund to be self-sustaining, which would mean that we could stop subsidizing it with income taxes from people who don't drive. Things like tax credits and CAFE Standards can be gamed.
In the long-term taxes also have the advantage of getting people used to $6 Gas. Oil production isn't rising. Indian and Chinese guys are finally getting rich enough to drive home for the holidays, which means it's inevitable that gas will go up. Period.
But since everybody pays the gas tax all the time nobody wants to be responsible for raising it, therefore we get a mess.
Like say a compact pickup. I'd buy one if I could. (preferably turbo diesel, while I am dreaming) But the Ranger was discontinued, the Colorado is big enough to be a full size pickup of 10 years ago, and the Durango is big enough to be a semi truck, much less the "full sized" trucks. And it's not just the "merican" companies. The last time the Tacoma was mid sized was in 2004, now it's ginormous (same thing with the Frontier).
They keep talking about "average." Average is the result of society's self-destructive love of SUVs and Minivans. While some people have a legitimate need for such vehicles, most buy them DESPITE their bad mileage.
There are many perfectly comfortable cars that do much better. Myself, I like the Ford Focus line.
I think the Chevy Volt is a great design concept because it would suit me needs perfectly, but I can buy two Focus' for the price of one Volt in Canada, and the Focus gets MUCH better highway mileage than the Volt. I WANT to be environmentally responsible and go electric, but it's just not gonna happen until prices come WAY down.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
There were many advancements in fuel efficiency, but very few of them are actually used in American cars. American engines still have the simple design they had 40 years ago. With fuel prices kept low, there is just no incentive.
I'm not necessarily against taxing gasoline. However, before we start using a gasoline tax as a tool to force people to behave a certain way, maybe we should consider eliminating the billions of dollars of subsidies given to the oil industry so that we can see the *true* price of gasoline?
(NY Times on oil subsidies: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04bptax.html)
All the posters here keep crying about how "the open market" has failed, but we aren't in an open market, so that is nonsense.
What a load of tripe.
The average weight of cars has been increasing because crash survival standards have been becoming stricter, and that requires that more material be used in the car to protect the passenger compartment. This adds weight and bulk; with bulk (thicker doors, etc.) comes an overall increase in vehicle sizes, which itself adds weight AND frontal area. The frontal area increase comes with an increase in drag. Exotic materials like carbon fiber are still very expensive, so it's still aluminum and steel. And despite what legislators seem to think, you can't pass a law that increases the number of joules of energy in a gram of fuel.
It's not just American cars (so lose the anti-American screeching please). The average vehicle weight in ALL markets has been increasing. Go look up the dimensions and weights of just about any vehicle model and manufacturer regardless of market or whether the vehicle in question is sold in North America, and see how it's changed over time.
Safety costs weight and size. Weight and size cost fuel. At a given price point, you can have increased safety XOR increased fuel economy.
Choose.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
'It’s the policymakers’ responsibility to create a structure that leads to these technologies being put toward fuel economy,' he says.
NO, IT'S NOT! It's the stupid consumers responsibility to START BUYING UP ALL THE FUEL EFFICIENT CARS! Supply and demand, when people demand it, companies will supply it!
For alot of people a car with good city miles is needed other good hiway miles.
Indeed, Knittel asserts, given consumer preferences in autos, larger changes in fleet-wide gas mileage will occur only when policies change, too. 'It’s the policymakers’ responsibility to create a structure that leads to these technologies being put toward fuel economy,'
Indeed, I assert, given Mr. Knittel's preference for having his priorities enshrined in (presumably) government policies and imposed on people explicitly against their will, it is the responsibility of voters to create election results that lead politicians who agree with Mr. Knittel as far away from power as possible.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
A 100-pound reduction in the average weight of all passenger vehicles (both passenger cars and light trucks and vans) would result in an estimated increase of 10,543 incapacitating injuries each year.
http://www.usroads.com/journals/aruj/9712/ru971203.htm
They don't want a mere 100 lbs. They want a thousand or more. And they want it to cost $40k+.
Enjoy.
Part of the reason why fuel economy hasn't risen is because the U.S. government raised the national speed limit from 55 mph to 65 in 1987/88 and then repealed them entirely in 1995. It now takes a bigger engine to accelerate to the speed limit in a timely manner, and that reduces fuel economy. Also, it takes more safety equipment and better structural support to protect the occupants at those speeds.
Ducati 1098.
0-60mph in 2.9 sec.
35 - 40mpg while being ham-fisted on the throttle.
My other bike is a Triumph Thruxton and it gets 50mpg.
I ride ~ 7 months out of the year here in CO.
How does higher gas taxes actually help us? So we use less of the stuff. And we want that because? If you bother to reply, please bother to explain why such and such is really a bad thing and just not"Oh noes, we're giving money to people who for some reason or another hate us" or "Oh noes if we don't tax it we're going to run out of the stuff". We'll find other fuels, and how much of a brick wall are we going to hit come what may? Pollution presents an interesting problem, but how big a factor is it really. Has anybody taken a honest look at the issue instead of hitting shallow paydirt and then running around screaming the sky is falling?
Car companies make money on big cars and inefficient features. It's hard to buy a car w/out electric windows and air conditioning. Go shop for one. The are hard to find.. Electric motors in windows are heavy. AC is heavy. Costs milage.
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"-B.Franklin
Because your giant vehicle pollutes our air, tears up our roads (that we must pay to repair), kills us in our smaller cars or on our bikes, and guzzles gasoline, driving up the cost for the rest of us and sending gazillions of dollars to fascist states that breed terrorists who want to kill us.. Get your head out of your ass, man.
Chevy S10. I own a six cylinder model. Its good, gets over 20mpg with care and not driving like the accelerator has two settings. Only two wheel drive with no weight in the back and I still find it easy to drive in the Michigan winters.
Ok, take a deep breath. :) Relax. It's ok, really. Don't let your blood pressure go up like that. It's bad for your health!
As lots of other people have been saying, a gas tax is not to punish you, it's to compensate for externalities. Every time you drive your car, you put wear on the roads and produce pollution. Those are real costs that people other than you have to bear. And since they are bearing those costs, not you, you have no incentive to reduce them by driving less or buying a smaller vehicle. You, in turn, are bearing the cost of other people's driving, and they have no incentive to drive less either. So that's why a gas tax is a good idea. Every time you (or I, or anyone else) drive, you should pay as close as possible to the actual cost of the damage you are doing. Then you can make more rational (in the economic sense) decisions about how much to drive and what car to buy. Your decisions will reflect realistic tradeoffs between various harms and benefits.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
lets force people into poverty with higher gas prices with taxes, isn't gas overpriced already? There is only so much efficiency you can squeeze out of conventional engines, and that little more possible isn't going to have any dramatic impact on anything if we threw billions of dollars into it.
The way our government tries to control fuel efficiency is suboptimal. Fuel efficiency standards in the United States are based on miles per gallon and set a required average fuel efficiency rate for the fleet of vehicles produced. The standards are thus set up to encourage higher average MPG. The way we all approach fuel efficiency is to think of higher MPGs as being better. But once you get past a certain threshold, incremental increases in MPG do not save very much fuel. This post explains the reason:
"As MPG increases at a linear rate, the improvements in fuel efficiency decrease at a hyperbolic rate. This means that the greatest gains in fuel efficiency don’t come from building more cars with very high MPG, but by replacing the cars with very low MPG. . . . As you can see, the fuel savings from switching from a 10 MPG to a 15 MPG car is 33 gallons. The savings from going from a 20 MPG car to a 25 MPG car is 10 gallons. To save 10 gallons from a 50 MPG car, you’d have to switch to a 100 MPG car. There are rapidly diminishing returns for developing cars with ever-higher MPG."
If our goal is reduce national fuel consumption, CO2 emissions, and our dependence on foreign oil, then we are going about it all wrong. We shouldn't be focusing on getting more high MPG cars on the road. The big gains will come from eliminating low MPG cars. The government should be setting standards for allowable MPG minimums, and raise those minimums every year. We gain a lot more by getting Suburbans off the road than we do by putting Priuses on the road
(Of course, there are other factors to consider, the biggest one being whether the low-MPG car is carrying multiple passengers, thus creating lower per capita fuel use; but most of the time, most people drive their cars by themselves, so this isn't that big of a deal. Maybe certain classes of low-MPG cars could be allowed for families or only when there are a certain number of passengers inside).
ever let that happen. Bigger is better baby!
How is this for a stat? "Overseas, primarily in Europe, there are 113 vehicles for sale that get a combined 40 mpg, up from 86 in 2005. Combined gas mileage is the average of a vehicle’s city and highway mpg numbers.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that nearly two-thirds of the 113 highly fuel-efficient models that are unavailable to American consumers are either made by U.S.-based automobile manufacturers or by foreign manufacturers with substantial U.S. sales operations, such as Nissan and Toyota."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17344368/ns/business-autos/t/us-stuck-reverse-fuel-economy/#.TwePWPnJfZA
Why do you think those cars aren't for sale in the US? The oil lobby of course. Never doubt their power, they have put 2 Bushes in the White House in the last 20 years. If they can do that, they can do anything.
It's not a judgement, it's just rebalancing the invisible hand of the market.
Fuel has costs that are not reflected at the pump - environmental damage, oil subsidy, military costs.
In a true free market system, the price of a product should reflect the cost of a product, such that an informed choice about purchase can be made. If the value of your need exceeds the price of fueling an SUV, that's how you know you really need to drive one.
I wonder if this is related at all to the big tax break/write off/whatever that bush gave to businesses if they bought a car over, what was it, like 5000 lbs? All I know is the lady who owns the little nail salon is now driving an escalade. that had to hurt a bit, eh?
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
Fuel taxes do make a big difference. I've been abroad and never saw a single huge SUV in the entire time I was there. The truth is when you FEEL the money you're spending and literally can't afford more, it does force you to make changes.
Another issue is health and comfort -- I know it sounds unrelated but it's not. When I was abroad, I saw very few overweight people as compared to here (in the U.S.). Yes, it's sad, (all actual conditions aside) throw away any sense of self-responsibility and call it an "epidemic" -- as if you 'caught' your fat when someone sneezed on you -- if you want, call it your "genes"...whatever...it doesn't really matter what name you ascribe to it. The bottom line is when your rear end warrants buying an extra plane ticket, you're not going to fit, let alone be very comfortable in a Chevrolet Cavalier, VW Beetle, Toyota Corolla or other fuel-efficient, compact vehicle. Yes, there are other larger and still somewhat efficient vehicles but the larger you go, the less fuel-efficient they get and seat size doesn't go up very quickly. This is a real factor these days especially when so many people are overweight.
All that aside, we are SPOILED here in the U.S. Perhaps I'm one of the few who will happily admit this but what we call a 'family-size sedan' here is what they'd call a 'luxury-size sedan' in Europe. I can't tell you how many times I see some tiny woman in designer shades speeding down the highway in a Cadillac Escalade...with NO passengers in the car. --and how many mpg is she getting? What sort of efficiency is that to be hauling so many tons of metal in a not-very-aerodynamic vehicle just to transport some tiny woman that probably weighs 125lbs or so. I understand the need for more space if you have 3+ kids (though I don't understand the notion of ever wanting that many kids...). But why do you need so many extra seats just to transport the average family of two partners and 2.5 children? That fits nicely in a sedan -- even a Corolla!
We need to go on the "put the f-ing fork down" diet, chill out a bit and not need to compensate for with a huge monster of a vehicle and just pick something sensible. Hey, if extra taxes on gas do that for us, so be it. I'd be HAPPY to pay my share if it stopped this rampant abuse of natural resources...especially when clearing the road of those huge trucks makes the roads inherently safer for smaller vehicles!
But it is wrong. There are cars from the 1980s that get great gas mileage. The difference is the mandated changes for safety, which has made cars heavier. It takes more steel to make a car crumple the right way. I am not saying this is a bad thing - I am a fan of living through car crashes, but that is where the major mileage decrease happened.
If the govt would get out of the petroleum regulating business and stop putting additives into gasoline we would get better fuel mileage, it all started with MTBE, now its Ethanol. When MTB came out in the US, my 82 VW Scirocco went from 42mpg to 32mpg on the first fill up of that shit gas.
Stop fucking with the fuel!
Make one grade of gasoline that gets the best fuel economy possible for most cars.
Engineers...
Gas prices are too low...so let's raise taxes? That's our knee-jerk response?
How about instead of raising taxes which will fall disproportionately on the middle class (the lower classes tend to use public transit), instead let's STOP subsidizing gas and oil exploration, remove massive subsidies, rebates, and all the frosting for our oil-lobby friends?
Raising taxes on the masses while simultaneously handing $billion$ to oil means that the primary beneficiaries are the oil companies, nobody else.
-Styopa
I drive an old Jeep that on good days might get me 15 mpg around town. (Fortunately, I live close to work, so I don't put many miles on it.) New ones get about 33% better mileage, despite weighing a few hundred pounds more and having about 50% more horsepower, I'd guess.
Granted, that's mileage improving to merely Shitty from Really Really Shitty.
A major factor not mentioned (disclaimer: DNRTFA) is the change in EPA testing. My car was rated 20/16 back when it was new. Under the new, strict system, it's 18/13. 23 mpg today on the window sticker is much closer to reality than it was just a few years ago.
Whatever you think..taxes should not be used for behavioral manipulations.
Taxes are for funding the govt services we all need...that should be it...period.
Almost all taxes manipulate behavior, it is just that we are more used to some type of taxes than to others. Intrinsically it is no more manipulative to tax a scarce polutant vs taxing work, investment and real estate like we do today.
I would rather say that since we need some taxation to support certain government function, let's tax the things with the least negative (or even positive) manipulative effects. Taxing gas would come well ahead of taxing work in that argument.
We need to not tax the fuel, but the vehicles.... An algorithm that factors weight and fuel economy with a higher tax on heavier, lower efficiency vehicles and a tax break on smaller, more efficient ones. One of the problems with vehicle safety is the arms race between the cars for weight. All other factors being equal when heavier cars collide with lighter ones, the heavier cars tend to have lower fatality rates. However, the "impulse" to use the physics term is actually greater for two heavier vehicles colliding, thus harming both occupants more. Two light-weight vehicles would be the safest to collide (again, all other factors being equal.
If you set up this tax structure, the poor still can drive their old clunkers until they wear out and they have to buy a new car, and then they can buy a cheaper high efficiency vehicle. Some of that tax revenue could subsidize research in to making more fuel efficient vehicles, some of it could go to making the lighter/efficient vehicles cheaper. I drive a Honda Fit that gets high 30s on MPG with my wife and two kids. It is a great car that gets good marks for crash testing, however, I cringe to think about how it would do against a Hummer or Escalade. And yes it is very light (only 100 pounds heavier than the Fiat 500), but it seats 4-5 plus cargo.
Oh and if we are going to talk about taxing gas, why not just take away all of the subsidies for the oil industry. The conservatives never seem to bring THAT up.
This nonsense doe not even pass the straight face test. Perhaps the authors didn't experience the 80s. I did. In the 70s and 80s, a large fraction of vehicles were large sedans and station wagons with large V-8s. It's true that cars today are heavier than they might otherwise be. That's because of our big brother government mandating safety systems.
This is true; however, I think the question is whether or not legislating efficiency goals is a wise thing to do. If someone is willing to pay the economic price plus tax, shouldn't they get to decide on their preferences?
I believe sqeezing out more efficiency out of combustion engines is well across the deminishing returns line. Specially if it already relies much on electronics.
If vehicle manufactors want to increase efficient, weight reduction is key. Im puzzled how the common car external body, and internal seat frames for example haven't had a complete material update based on carbon fiber.
The engine itself then could also get lighter and be made with 3 cilinders (some city cars already have'em but could still benefit allot more from a carbon fiber bodywork than spending resources on designing another slightly tweeked engine with +or1% engine efficiency and polution output.
1. Economist words out > /dev/null
What the hell are we listening to an economist for? They have predicted everything so well in the past
2. The whole premice "Gas Mileage" is the problem. Solve the HHO problem. Make Stainless Steel Engine parts, Make Plasma Plugs. Lets run our vehicles on Water. This is a tooling problem as much as a physics problem. If all you make are ICE you will never reach HHO, since the physics are different.
What right do YOU have, to tell anyone what kind of vehicle they can purchase?
In the U. S. until the government comes along and says otherwise, it is no ones business
What they drive. I could care less! If the youth were not so brainwashed from
Government schools into believing capitalism is bad, & all good comes from government,
We could be energy independent. The hand wringers go all boo-hoo about how much energy
The USA uses. Well, let's see... WW1, WW2, the cold war, countless rescue missions,
Medical & scientific discoveries in the last 100+ years I think ENTITLES us to use whatever
Energy we want.
I am a Proud American, and not afraid to show it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8E5dUnLmh4/
The problem is when one car is bigger than the other, this is much worse for the smaller car than the smaller car hitting a wall. This is the problem with SUVs, even the people who don't necessarily want to drive a larger vehicle may buy a larger vehicle to protect their family in the event of an SUV hitting them. A sub-compact with a 5 star front impact rating can still get munched in a head on collision with an SUV.
I have an F350 diesel and a Jeep Wrangler, and an RV, and a boat. I figure I own more of the road than you due to the road taxes I pay, and I'll do damn well as I please to do, including driving MY CHOICE of vehicle, without bowing to your kind's socialistic tendencies to obliterate both the hobbies and endeavors I choose to participate in which drive my vehicle choices. I'll damn certain not let you or some other hippy loser dictate those choices. So you "get your head out of your ass," and while you're at it, best stay in your big city with all of the pretty little baubles that your kind loves so much. You keep your oppressive police presence, the continual erosion of privacy, the crime, and the multitude of other ills you city folks and their pundits love to spout off about. I will, on the other hand, actually go out into the world and enjoy it, along with the risks to personal safety and revel in the rewards of being free of morons like you. And when the shit hits the fan, us "ignorant folk" with our big vehicles and freedom loving tendencies will be there to bail you morons out, as has happened every other time in the past.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
Yes, many countries and locales have found that oppression is indeed effective at curtailing unwanted freedoms, like the freedom to travel or to choose one's own car. Yes, taxes are an effective way to do this. That doesn't mean I want it.
"we need higher gas taxes"
FU why don't you tax the mother &^**%$ across the street from me that has two Hummers and a Roush Mustang. I would agree with a gas guzzler tax but for those of us who drive a lot, but drive sensible cars that would be unfair! :|~
" A gasoline tax is not a punishment, it is a method of internalizing costs that are normally externalized"
What utter bullshit.
There are people who feel they need to help the "less informed" people by taxing, outlawing, basically leading by the nose to the promise land.
In your ideal world, we'd live in tiny little flats in cities with just enough space, eating healthy diets, travelling by train, making just enough to get by and having health care free until the government decides we're too old, then we're allowed to die for the good of society. Oh and we'll get a few weeks of vacation from our eco-friendly job to go to a safe place that isn't too violent, is sensitive to minorities and women, and we prattle all day on social networks.
Fuck you. I'm going to live in the burbs, having my 4 cars, my swimming pool, my 25 acres, practice mixed martial arts, go hunting, and do dangerous stuff, drive my BMW 85 MPH down 55 MPH highways on the way to work where I"ll make 4 times as much as you. I'll marry a woman more beautiful than you can imagine, and I'll have 6 kids. They'll grow up knowing the right way to live.
Get over it.
While obviously not as significant as increases in car weight(though may be somewhat related to car weight), increases in the weight of passengers is also putting a drag on fuel economy. As we get fatter and fatter, it obviously takes more energy to move us around. Not to mention that the bigger people are, the more they seem to need an SUV, further diminishing fuel efficiency. Like almost all other problems in fuel efficiency, bikes are the answer. Not only do they save fuel when riding, they reduce the size of people's asses so you save fuel in a car too.
BUt unfortunately something in American culture dictates that people must go out of their way to be assholes towards cyclists. So glad I got out of that shithole of a country, I've lost 25 kgs since I've left and am in better shape in my 30s than I was in my 20s largely because I don't have to drive everywhere.
Monstar L
Cars of any size have almost no impact on roads as you suggest.
Large heavy trucks almost universally do all the damage.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Fortunately we aren't governed by an elite group of economists who get to decide what we do and don't do.
"it's to compensate for externalities"
Everything has externalities. If you go to the bathroom, there are externalities. If you breathe in or out, there are externalities. If you watch television, there are externalities. Being on the internet has externalities.
Its basically used as an excuse to tax anything you want in any amount. Because nobody brings up externalities unless they're trying to control it, tax it, or make an argument towards a thing or behavior they don't like.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Any increased fuel efficiency will be lost on most drivers because of driving behavior. You would have to find a way to prevent people from accelerating as fast a they can from a dead stop at every stoplight. I think mandating the installation of acceleration governors would provide a more desirable effect without causing a recession. It would be nice if someone developed new technology that allows for cars to automatically draft one another, as this has the added benefit of easing congestion. It amazes me that this isn't available yet, we've had autopilot for airplanes for how long?
Starting in the 1970s emissions requirements resulted in drastic reductions in power, which got increasingly worse through the mid 1980s. A base Corvette in 1966 was 300 hp, in 1984 180 hp. By the mid 1990s advanced technology was able to provide ever-increasing horsepower without pollution penalty, reversing the 25 year trend caused by regulations. TFA using 1980 as a baseline makes it look like increasing power is a pud pulling competition rather than a recovery to a reasonable performance level.
A mid 1960s family car with automatic transmission got about 13 mph on the highway. Now the figure is close to 35 mpg. The new car is much lighter, somewhat smaller, much safer, is much better designed and better handling, and will last many more miles and years.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Why on earth would an economist say we needed higher gas taxes? If anything, higher taxes have a negative impact on the economy.
Of course an environmental policy analyst masquerading as an economist would say exactly that.
I think a lot of posters, like you, do not seem to understand the economics of externalities. If every dog in your neighborhood came to shit in your front yard, you probably wouldn't have liked it. However, for some reason, it's ok to drive around in a land barge that gets 14mpg in a city and pollutes the air that we all breathe. Realize that the price you pay for gas right now does not represent the full cost (to the society) of that gas. Of course, no one is saying that you should _have_ to stop driving an SUV. If can continue driving whatever you want, but you need to pay the full cost of making this decision.
According to BetterPlace.com's Shai Agassi, Denmark offers each of its car-buyers an Intelligence test, when they go to buy a car:
1. The tax on a NON-Zero-Emission (eg, petro-fueled) car is (he said: 60%). A $100,000 gas-powered car will cost you $160,000.
Those, who fail the test (presumably, buying a non-electric car) have to move to Norway! :-)
(I hope that tax applies also that to the purchase of used petroleum-powered cars!)
The rest of the motivation to move to a 100% Electric Car comes from BetterPlace, itself, eg, when it costs LESS to buy one than it costs to buy a petrol'-powered counterpart... very soon now. (Sell yours today; if he's right, it value will drop to next to nil soon!)
For all of you who think we get most of our oil from outside sources, you obviously have not checked the facts. The US produces a majority of the oil it consumes domestically and in fact in 2011 the US was a "NET EXPORTER" of oil. We are not as beholden to foreign sources of oil as our politicians would have you believe, quite the contrary. Since 1999 we have seen a rise in RBOB Spot price which is what US gasoline prices are based off of. This is primarily due to the fact that speculators lost interest in the tech industry as the bubble burst and moved to real estate, precious metals, and oil. The real estate bubble has since burst leaving oil and precious metals in a bubble state. Crude oil and gasoline are traded on the futures market which is rife with speculators out to make a buck at everyone else's expense. Our current administration has a play in it too. With a many Democrat lawmakers having huge financial interests in Green technologies they will do everything necessary to ensure that oil prices stay high, forcing the average persons hand into buying technologies in which the lawmakers will make a profit. If these lawmakers were in the Private Sector, this would be considered insider trading and they would be prosecuted as felons, but they maintain these undisclosed financial interests without abstaining from debate and votes on legislation that would directly benefit them. While it is currently not a crime, I for one think it should be and considering they are meddling with a crucial part of our economy, they should be tried and hanged for treason!
Sure the cars are heavier, since the safety Nazis have demanded that they crash safely at something just short of relativistic speeds. Improve the tech, and then sabotage it with extra weight. Succeed and fail, all at once.
The solution is: Don't crash.
The way to not crash is: Pay attention! Most of the accidents come from not paying attention.
Want to raise the tax on gas, and save the economy at the same time? Pass the Fair Tax. The Fair Tax dissolves the IRS, repeals all the income taxes, and just uses a tax on retail goods, combined with a "prebate" sent to all Americans to cover the costs of the necessities of life. The Fair Tax is 23% inclusive / 30% exclusive. So, your $4.00 / gallon of gas goes to $5.20, but you've got ALL the salary you made in your pocket, without having to pay income tax witholding, so you can afford the gas tax... unless you're driving excessively. Then you either get a car like the Chevy Volt that gets infinite mpg for 40 miles and then 40 mpg after that, or you car pool or ride the train, etc.
BTW, the Fair Tax proponents claim 3% unemployment within 2 years because of its business friendly nature, so it doesn't just help cars to do the right thing.
Want to save automotive transportation? Get SOMEBODY to invent the magic battery so's everyone can use electricity to get where they're going. Again, the Volt uses 8 KwH to go its 40 mile electric car range. That's 20 KwH per 100 miles. How much is 20 KwH in $$$? Around here it's $1.70. Now, compare that to a 20 mpg car paying $5.20 / gallon. It takes that car $26.00 to go 100 miles. So, quit spending $26 on gas, and spend $1.70 on electricity? Yeah, I like those numbers.
All is not lost, we just need the RIGHT tech and the RIGHT tax structure.
Itâ(TM)s the policymakersâ(TM) responsibility to create a structure that leads to these technologies being put toward fuel economy
What a meddling attitude. While I certainly want better gas mileage, it is not somebody else's business to "make policy" for me, my cars, and my car manufacturer. Perhaps I like the tradeoffs as they are and prefer the increases in weight and horsepower.
If somebody thinks they morally possess such responsibility, they are suffering from delusions of grandeur and really need to be denounced as the lunatics they are.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
If he asked economists, he probably would get that kind of response since taxes and their impact on things are part of ECON. Economics has a lot of problems, one of which is that it tends to have a bit of a bag over its head. Then again, many academic disciplines have this problem since interdisciplinary studies tend to be frowned upon for political reasons. Anyway, I digress...
Eliminate Euclidean zoning for the most part. In case you're not aware that name comes from Euclid, Ohio where it was pioneered. It's the kind of zoning where "all the houses are here, all the businesses are there". Get rid of it, and you eliminate a lot of trips.
Of course you'd still have to have some compartmentalization for "noxious trades" like rendering plants, sewage treatment, etc. OTOH, the reason why so many of us cannot walk to a store without passing miles and miles of bland cooki-cutter tract homes is this bad zoning. It looks neat on a map. It's polluting and making us fat in real life.
Unfortunately, it would take a long time to undo. You don't plop commercial establishments into neighborhoods without getting NIMBY reactions. This is a side effect of the way home ownership works. For any other product you're happy when the cost comes down. For homes the model is b0rked so that people are unhappy when the cost comes down.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry when politcians talk about the need for affordable housing. We got that, and they called it a "housing crisis". The obvious solution is that most people should not own their homes, and non-leveraged REITs should be made available. The biggest argument for ownership, "I want to pound a nail" can be resolved with clear cut procedures in the lease for... pounding nails! Even major improvements could go in the lease--appraise the improvement, discount the rent for a contractual period, problem solved.
Anyway, stop forcing people to become leveraged real estate speculators just to get better control of their environment. BTW, I don't really hate the banks as much as some people; but yes, this would kill a huge portion of the banking industry so if you hate banks the non-leveraged REIT plan should be your cause celebre.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
There are a few higher end electrics that are cool, but for some reason the lower end ones are just totally plain or awkward looking. Can't we get some nice car design going? Do all electrics have to look like expanded eastern european leftovers?
While we're at it why not fund a federal project to put light rail everywhere there is an interstate highway. A new New Deal.
-Xen
The salient element missing from TFA (and the abstract of the report, which I haven't read beyond) is that automakers find a higher profit in bigger, more powerful cars (because consumers are willing to pay more for them). Therefore, automakers have a disincentive to create smaller, less powerful, more efficient cars. Thus, under-serving and even removing that choice from the consumer.
It's not true that consumers only want larger, more powerful cars, it's that they are the only ones available to them.
The solution does not lie in what would be a regressive gas tax. The solution lies in forcing the automakers to give consumers a real choice in lighter, more efficient cars. And progressively taxing vehicles with poorer gas mileage.
Not enough people understand what "market externalities" actually are.
The 1967 Chevy Camaro SS, with its 5.7L 295 HP engine, is bested in a 0-60 drag with the 2010+ Ford Fusion Hybrid (7.9 seconds vs 7.8 seconds). The '67 Camaro got all of 9 MPG. The Fusion Hybrid? 39 MPG Combined. Virtually identical performance, but the modern vehicle gets more than 4x the MPG.
The problem is that folks no longer want 60's era muscle car performance. They now believe they "need" 1990's era Ferrari performance... in an SUV.
Somebody explain to me why my 1992 Honda CRX HF got 55 mpg and I can't find a car that does that now?
One answer, the gasoline is thinned with 10% ethanol for 15% less efficiency. How does ethanol save us fuel?
Why can't manufacturers like Honda produce a non-hybrid car capable of the same or better gas mileage than a 1990 CRX? This is bullshit. My Honda Fit is small and has a tiny engine and is a ULEV vehicle and couldn't get 35 mpg if it had to.
Actually, it did have an effect - when gas started to get to about $4 per gallon, there were several studies that determined that people responded by driving less.
While that's technically true it's not the whole story.
I remember reading those stories on driving habits and being amazed at how little driving habits actually changed. With gas prices more than doubling and everyone screaming that soon it would be either gas or food, the greatest change I ever saw reported was 11%. At double the cost, and with all that whining, people reduced their miles driven by a lousy 11%. It was pathetic.
I'd bet money that any American household could reduce their miles driven by a solid 35% with a little more planning and a willingness to use the most convenient public transit options they already possess - much less what we could do if people stopped viewing public transit as some sort of socialist pariah.
the poor aren't addicts; they're self medicating. The point of Nationalized Healthcare and other progressive reforms is to create a world where the poor don't do that.
As for taxes pushing people to quit; you're right. Tobacco sales in the US are half today what they were in 2005. The drop has been attributed to higher taxes and a bad economy. The only people left smoking in America are the poor, and they can't afford to anymore.
Oh, and for all the ninny's saying cigarette taxes are regressive; that's only true if you use the gains to extend tax cuts on the rich instead of investing in social programs. There's a phrase for it: Balancing the budget on the backs of the poor.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
How about some subsidies for fruits and veggies. Apples are $2/lb on sale in my neck 'o the woods;
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Tesla MSRP $100,000
Gas powered equivalent
Lotus Elise $30,000
*60%=$18,000
Total price. $48,000
So $100,000 is cheaper than $48,000 in Denmark?
... yeah... raise taxes on gas to save people money on gas... what a joke.
Per litre of fuel that is the case but that's the wrong way to look at it. There's not a lot of emissions per hour of running time so almost nobody cares. It' not much beyond the scale of lawnmowers even for the big bikes, so it's astonishing that you have the gall to criticise the bikes when a lot of the comments here are about large SUVs.
Also some pollution controls did end up on bikes.
In US the faith in God will make market stop doing bad things. Only atheists can do bad things without consequences. That's why, for example, the law says that the president has to be Christian. The law should of course say that any company leader also must be, then we wouldn't have had this mess.
This started off as a joke but maybe libertians faith in other people's faith is part of the problem?
In the United States, gasoline sells for $3 to $4 per gallon. In other countries, it's 3-4x that. Some people might think it's because the United States is the third largest producer, creating about half of what it consumes. The reality, however, compares to other countries differently in two key aspects, resource policy and trade.
In other countries which export petroleum, there is a major return on export product back to the country; in the United States, the sites from which companies extract petroleum are leased on negotiated, low flat rates; so, very little of that potential income is already shut down.
The other half of the problem came with negotiations that began under the Carter Administration, but finalized under the Reagan Administration. The first half of which is an Oil Cap -- the amount of exports that are proportionally discounted to make up for the trade loss in the need to import a significant percentage of oil. This cap is maintained by manipulating production, primarily in agriculture, to support major policy and trade changes that result in subsidies or limitation on domestic marketing of such goods. The second half is using trade far more extensively by defining all types of trade as economic, implementing policies that require counties that allow, for example, education or work abroad, to invest in the United States by way of purchasing some quantity of Treasury bonds, usually negotiated, though quota openings are often done by a slow bidding process. (NB: This accounts for a good portion of the 25% of foreign owed debt, or about 3.5 trillion USD)
When politician push a gas-tax holiday, they often ignore that the United States has been on one since the 70's. The politician have chosen to ignore that the United States government has been aware of the need of significant infrastructural changes in order to adapt to the real cost of energy since the late 60's. The greatest threat to both the United States and the world is this failing to adapt to the long term energy needs of the country. If a major program took over the United States to end petroleum imports alone, it would save nearly half of one trillion dollars every year. If a major program took over the United States to end petroleum imports alone, I sense politicians, like claiming the budget repair of the 90's was surplus, would likely not end the Oil Cap as a practice, merely change its focus.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
Fuel prices are high enough that the poor, middle class, and small business owners want more fuel efficient cars already. Problem is that they can't afford them, & it's going to be awhile until hybrids & other high efficiency cars will be affordable for the poor and lower middle class.
This is why we have scaled taxes- so that people who are poor or middle class aren't taxed into extreme destitution & homelessness. Property & staples should not be taxed without consideration of one's income.
A real solution would be to start a new Works Progress Association & build high speed commuter rail for every major city. Also, revitalizing locomotive freight should be a priority.
Make cars less important so that people don't need to use them as much. Locomotive transportation and freight is far more efficient, especially as we move towards electric power for locomotives, which can be brought from renewable resources.
Some are more rigorous than others.
The current mainstream are simply yes men there to justify whatever the "leaders" want to justify. That's who they fund in academia.
Deleted
Annual cost:
50MPG = $990
21MPG = $2,357
Here is info about this minivan that is banned in the USA:
http://www.car-emissions.com/cars/model/volkswagen/touran
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Touran
http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/new/touran-gp-ii/which-model/compare/interior?p=2
http://www.green.autoblog.com/2010/04/12/volkswagen-intros-updated-touran-minivan-51-1-mpg-with-bluemoti/
Moreover, CNG (compressed natural gas) vehicles are insanely expensive because thise politician-corporate chimera caused every CNG part insanely expensive! For example home refueling station (tiny box that allow to refuel CNG car at home) costs about $7000 (seven thousend). Now you understand how this bust#rds make american to be slave by poitician-corporate mafia.
Air-conditioners, heated seats, electronically adjustable seats, electric windows and sunroofs (best used with a big-arse air-conditioner), dvd players, game consoles, coffee cup heaters, car fridge, exterior strip lighting, bridge shaking sound systems, electric steering, CD radio, reversing and rear view camera, check, electric cigar lighter, check, gps, check... oh sorry, I was just thinking out loud. What was the subject again? Oh yeah increased fuel efficiency != decreased fuel consumption, was that it? Hmm - maybe it's because the alternators have gotten bigger and you use more fuel carrying those big, heavy alternators.
Bloody alternators. Now pass me the popcorn and fetch me a beer you big fat fucker - no I meant you honey. Now where's my remote? - I wanna change some channels and the see what's on When Hippos Attack, don't you beep your horn at me a-hole - you're just jealous of my 3000W roof mounted driving lights. You wait your turn or I'll back my monster truck over your pansy Prius! I was at the drive through window first.
Exotic materials like carbon fiber are still very expensive
And the makers of the product should be reinvesting profits to improve their product by working to produce those technological improvements. It doesn't happen by itself for free (noted exception for the case of bailouts).
you can't pass a law that increases the number of joules of energy in a gram of fuel
Specious. There's no serious legislation of that sort. Your hyperbole has gotten the best of you.
Safety costs weight and size.
Safety costs innovation. Size and weight are not the only ways to make transportation more safe. Though, I grant you a lazy lack of leadership among complacent executives might be baffled by and ignore the task: to focus on improving their product to meet necessary standards and customer desires while also educating their market audience on the benefits of the improvements, so they can begin justifying those unconscionably fat paychecks.
Lower cost of gas per mile = more miles travelled.
I don't see such abysmal fuel economy in Europe. Here it is significantly better. Many vehicles sold into the US market are just awful, particularly those of US design and production. They are actually bad in nearly every way. It is not just the inferior technology employed by the powertrain designers. The interiors are generally nasty, unrefined, and made with cheap plastics. The suspension design is often worse than that of an East German Trabant. I have driven a Trabant around corners, at speeds I wouldn't dare, in many US built SUVs. They also generally have automatic transmission, which hits fuel economy slightly, and makes them dull to drive. Due to the previously awful quality of US diesel fuel (now improving), and previous technical disasters by incompetent US designers (which damaged the reputation of diesel cars), diesel engines are not employed in a particularly large number of ordinary cars yet. The kind of vehicles preferred by Americans are ideal candidates for diesel engines, being big, heavy, and un-aerodynamic.
Add low fuel prices, a generally obese population (Visit america. There really are a notable number of people, so morbidly obese, that they actually wouldn't fit in many ordinary cars!), and there is little incentive for change.
It should be the responsibility of the government to set policy direction, through sensible taxation. This has worked in the rest of the world. Why does it take so long for America to catch up? Universal health care is another example. Most people from civilised countries are shocked disaster of a system in the United States, and the unethical profiteering from the sick.
I agree with the vast majority of comments made on this page so far but the problem is that you can't take a single dimensional view of a multi dimensional problem, and, by and large, that's what they each do. That said, of course I'm going to do it. The real issue is one of the mindset and what's locally important, in poorer areas it's important to have a big "bling" car, it puts you above the pack and makes you feel good. It's only the wealthy that are competing on different levels that don't have anything to prove with their cars and so can afford to have cheaper and stranger solutions. In Europe and Japan where we have no (very few) native sources of oil and twistier roads, smaller cars have been the norm and these naturally go round corners well. The mantra for many decades from advertising, TV programmes etc. has been that gas guzzlers are bad and so manufacturers have been competing on fuel efficiency and handling. This has led to the introduction of a lot of technology that hits both areas and people are happy with the outcome. We do have SUVs of course, but these are smaller and they go round corners. In Europe, fuel prices are equivalent to about $8 per U.S. gallon and this is largely due to the level of tax applied. The U.S. can't simply apply the same as it will disproportionately affect poorer people and will create general a outcry. And let's face it, which government is going to try to push that one through the system, even if it were easy to do so. A relaxation on import duties may help as this would allow for more technology to enter the U.S. market but this would bring about pressure from domestic car manufacturers. I suggest that the U.S. is in it for the long haul, pressure will need to be applied to domestic manufacturers to produce more efficient cars, this needs to be coupled with a new paradigm that says hauling 2 tons of steel to the shops is not a good way to go; only then will there be a climate that allows for greater fuel efficiency. It's not true to say "I know what I like" as we so often do, it's more realistic to say "I like what I know". And if I might add one more note, you'll also get cars that are more fun to drive, start every time, work well in the snow, are easier to park, go round corners without screeching...
The politicians will happily and literally go to war, kill hundreds of thousands of people rather than lose the bribes (directorships, consultancies etc) which the lobby groups hand out.
Deleted
lick my schweady ballz
To put some proportion to these talks about US gas prizes and taxes.. Gas here in Finland today is about 1.55 euros per liter which is 7.5$ per gallon after conversion. The tax proportion of that prize is almost 60% (!).
Back in the late 60's/early 70's I drove Renault 8 and 10 cars, which easily achieved 40+ MPG on the highway. That was with 1000cc and 1100cc engines, BTW. Back when you could get "gallons per dollar", not dollars per gallon.... Since then mileage has decreased due to: 1) Emission controls on the engines 2) Changes in gasoline formulation, particularly "winter blends" 3) Increased weight of vehicles due to crash safety requirements
http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/show/episodes/series10episode4.shtml concludes, via demonstration, that the unstoppable VW Beetle would be far more appropriate than your SUV.
Adverse conditions do not favor SUVs; status conscious *holes favor SUVs.
Over 70% of new cars/trucks sold in Europe are diesel powered and this is in an area with $8/gallon fuel costs. Why aren't diesels a larger part of the US fleet? The EPA will not allow small diesel engines into the US. Example: Ford is now offering their small Ranger PU with a diesel engine. Great! Only problem is it is for their European market, NOT the US. Toyota, Nissan and Isuzu sell LOTS of diesel trucks around the world, just NOT in the US.
I think 98 percent of economists would say that we need higher gas taxes
May i be the first to say 'screw you'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
In 1960 cars were getting 32 MPG. What does an average econobox, or rather a modern midsize (since they're comparable size to a 60s econobox) get these days? A new Ford Fusion is rated at 33 MPG. So 50 years later a similar size car gets 1 MPG more. Now take that 1960 econobox and up the compression, port the head, add a long tube header, jet the carb leaner and give it a bunch more timing at light highway cruise. Top it off with a 5 speed overdrive transmission and I guarantee you'll be getting over 40 MPG and have a lot more power.
Why can a 1960 Ford Falcon get such good MPG? It is not laden by draconian DOT safety mandates that add weight to the car, nor EPA mandates that destroy any chance of getting good MPG. A 1960 Falcon weighs ~2300 lbs a 2011 Fusion weighs ~3600 lbs... Nearly as much as my '68 full size with big block! These fascist and draconian mandates must be removed for fuel economy to increase significantly. Let the market decide and you will have an array of vehicles with various safety and emissions options and correspondingly decreasing MPG as those options are added. There will be a balance point most people will opt for that will be getting the safety and emissions options that aren't a significant detriment to MPG. The result will be cars and trucks that get better MPG across the board.
One more example of why these mandates are bad. Take CAFE mandates as an example. People didn't use to drive trucks (SUV) so much, they had station wagons for their family. A full size station wagon with a 300-350 cubic inch engine and overdrive transmission can easily get 25 MPG on the highway. After CAFE was forced on auto manufacturers they stopped making station wagons (real station wagons, full size) as it would mean a hefty tax for violating CAFE. At the time they had many emissions and safety mandates emerging that they had to meet, killing MPG, also overdrive transmissions were not common yet. They shifted to making SUVs into family friendly vehicles to replace station wagons.
Look at Ford for a prime example. What happened in 77-78? The Bronco was totally redesigned from a small bare bones utility truck for targeted to outdoorsy people to a huge plush vehicle targeted at families. This was the beginning of this shift from station wagon to SUV. Of course a '78 Bronco barely gets low teens for highway MPG in factory trim with the 351m smog (emissions complient, but terribly inefficient) engine and no overdrive. It's just insane!
Another example of the adverse affect of emissions mandates on MPG. I have an '86 F-250 which I lifted and run larger tires, and also swapped the front axle for a solid axle. The truck weighs 6000 lbs. I converted it from a 351 to a 460 and did a lot of performance modifications during the engine build, including using absolutley no emissions equipment on the engine. I can't find factory MPG for a big block truck, I doubt if they cared. Factory MPG for a 351 truck is 11/12 city/highway the small block was rated at an anemic 210 HP and 305 ft/lbs of torque. My truck gets similar MPG even with the lift, extra weight, larger tires, as well as a lot more power at 425 HP and 550 ft/lbs. My highway MPG is ~13 at 70-75 MPH. Put all the smog equipment back on and I'm certain it would be single digits.
On a side note... I never understood why people think it's better to put out fewer ppm of pollutants but burn a lot more fuel and thus put out more millions and more parts overall. If oil is running out, then why not get the most we can from it? A free market solution would of course result in better MPG as that's what people want. The cars would be cheaper too!
Ok. Fine. I will accept your argument or external costs, for the most part. But, here's why I have always taken issue with RAISING taxes. You do remember that oil, as with so many other things, is already HEAVILY taxed?
The taxes are a percentage. A percentage of the sale price of the item, in this case oil. Therefore, the more people use/buy, the more tax revenue generated to cover the increased external costs. Increasing population/usage equals increased revenue. Due to the fact that the tax is a percentage when prices go up, as they always do and have, the tax revenue also increases right along with it. This conveniently covers the increases in the cost of the road wear/expansion and other externalities.
Yet, we are continually faced with increasing tax percentages. Further, we are continually faced with people like you who advocate and excuse the further increase in the percentages, thinly veiled with excuses about paying for increased cost, while actually stating that it is indeed meant to be a penalty to dissuade the activity that is being taxed.
I won't even bother going into the aspects of government dependency and withdrawal on the tax revenue in the rare cases were usage and the associated tax revenue declines, if you can legitimately explain why the percentage that already exists and has been repeatedly increased must further increase despite the fact that the cost increases are covered as a matter of course.
Simple observation quickly shows many people are clueless to the effect of their driving styles on their fuel economy as well. Full throttle rush towards the next red light, slam on brakes, stop....repeat. Highway driving? Absolutely positive HAVE to achieve that 10 foot gain on the guy beside you, even if it means changing lanes and mashing on the accelerator only to inevitably end up following another car and having to slow down. Again, repeat....over and over and over again.
Simple driving style changes can yield the average driver a HUGE increase in fuel mileage, but until the "I'm more important than everybody else, I need to be in front of you and get there as fast as humanly possible, screw you all" attitude of many of todays drivers change, all the technology advances in the world won't help if the idiots behind the wheel just continue to operate the vehicles in a basically inefficient fashion.
In the past 30 years many cars have gotten heavier, small economy cars have gone from weighing a ton or not much more to weighing 1.5-2 tons! That's huge. Suddenly you need more displacement, and more power to maintain just what we already had. This weight is mostly comfort items. People won't drive a noisy car anymore, so they add tons of sound deadening, all those gizmos, they add weight, lots of it. Safety equipment has also added weight but not to the extent of passenger comfort has. Look at the old CRX or the geo metro, they could get 50 MPG, but that was mostly because they weighed nothing and there for could be pushed along by tiny engines.
brickspeed.net for your old Volvo performance addiction
In all situations, the most important part of finding the best solution is the part usually given the least thought--defining the problem to be solved.
The most fuel efficient car that can be built, is still a poor solution to the real problem, which is in transporting people and cargo quickly, efficiently and safely.
The single biggest factor affecting fuel efficiency in America is the dismantling of the railroad system in favor of automobiles and trucks.
Individually powered and guided, vehicles are, by nature, inefficient, dangerous and slow especially for long-distance travel. The infrastructure required is extremely expensive on a per ton of material transported.
This has happened because despite the name "Department of Transportation," the transportation system has never been treated as a system and has been semi-functional at the whim of various special interest groups.
It is now, outside of major urban areas, nearly impossible to use mass transportation to journey with any degree of convenience within the US.
Because transportation is a hodgepodge of methods of transport which have no designed interface to assist in moving between various forms.
While you CAN travel using mass transit, it is usually far from convenient either in placement of terminals or scheduling.
Most long distance travel occurs using aircraft--one of the least fuel-efficient means available, and due to inefficient and ineffective security requirements, time-wise it is not even faster than travel by automobile for flights less than 1 hour flight time..
Additionally, few airports are well-served with mass-transit access, and fewer still are accessible on foot or bicycle.
Thus, when traveling by air, travelers have to arrange transport through one of a number of means, of which only a very few may be available.
Automobile is the only choice available for vast number so people. Among the disadvantages of this are the fact that you must leave an expensive car stored with little security available for theft for the duration of your round trip.
Because few of these decisions which affect transportation are made based upon technically good solutions, but rather by the politics involved with special interests attempting to influence the design, placement and financing of all major transportation projects.
This leads to "freeways to nowhere" and routes which are under or over utilized, and over-priced, under-specified construction often using both inferior materials and workmanship--preparing the way for lucrative maintenance contracts.
The use of long-haul trucking is far less efficient than rail, and is subsidized because trucking companies do not pay for the damage that heavy trucks inflict upon highways--roads which might last decades w/o major maintenance if subjected only to automobiles, are badly damaged in less than 5 years.
This subsidization is a major factor in the demise of the rail system.
A large percentage of our rail system has been dismantled--although most of that mileage could be rebuild quite rapidly as the rail-beds are still extent. Required would be new ballast, ties, rails, bridges & road crossings. Thanks to modern rail equipment, this construction can be performed far faster than the original work.
After water travel, rail is the most efficient means of moving over moderate to long distances.
If we are to reduce energy use by increasing fuel efficiency, we need to stop treating individual means of transport as individuals and begin treating them as parts of an entire system.
As someone who works in Transportation Demand Management, I would happily welcome higher gas taxes... especially if they are used to directly pay for the Federal and State highways. About 50% of roads and highways are paid for by non-user fees (income taxes, sales tax, etc.) because gas taxes are notoriously difficult to raise without severe political ramifications.
But if gas prices stay low (they're at about $3.60 where I am in Southern California), people will not have sufficient incentive to make their next vehicle more fuel efficient nor, which would be preferable, switch to more sustainable forms of commuting and city travel (bus, train, carpool, vanpool, bike, and walk).
Federal/State monies that would otherwise go to building/expanding roads and freeways would go towards mass transit thus increasing the availability of transit. Increased convenience of transit triggers increased utilization and thus greater expense recovery by fare being transit more solvent.
People will save money in their transit travel, pollution falls, reliance on oil falls (especially with hybrid buses and electric trains), and with fewer people living building-to-building, people will have to walk a bit more and be a bit healthier. ... But it all starts with the cost of traveling by personal automobile.
In the early 1970's during the first major oil crisis the government put into place regulations to reduce U.S. energy use. The first to be implemented was in construction of homes. New regulation required builders use installation in new homes. It worked and greatly reduced energy consumption in the US. Next were CAFE standards which forced automotive manufacturers to build more efficient power trains. However, CAFE standards had loop holes and manufacturers quickly exploited them. SUVs and trucks were barely impacted. Manufacturers were building both efficient and inefficient vehicles and consumers bought SUVs instead of GEO Metros. You have to hit both the industry and consumers as the market is ignorant of all the consequences outside.
the cars of the 70's and 80's? They could barely accelerate up a hill. Newer technology gave us what we wanted, more power!
My second car was 1976 Firebird with a 350 cu inch (5.7 liter for those that don't think in cubic inches) V8 engine that made 160HP stock. It would be laughed at as sports car now. (maybe it was laughed at when it was new, I was 8yrs old).
Now my 2004 2.5 liter 4 cylinder Honda Accord makes exactly the same power, weighs less and is much more fun to drive. I only wish it looked as cool.
I could make a similar argument from my first car, a 1974 Datsun B-210 with a 1300cc engine that made 75hp. A 2012 Honda Fit has a 1.5L engine that makes 117hp. I'll bet it's a lot more fun that my old Datsun.
horses and pack animals are the most fuel efficient means of travel and transportation of goods. yes, they are short-range but that's good for local economies.
There are many reasons that the CAFE regulations are suboptimal but yours is not one of them. CAFE calculates the harmonic mean, ie the inverse, so it effectively is calculating the mean if every car was driven the same distance, not used the same amount of fuel, so just like thinking in the European manner unlike our MPG. Real reasons that CAFE is suboptimal is that there is still a domestic and other average (for cars), the car vs truck limits, the fleet penalty is very low, the arbitrary E85 benefit, the new 'footprint' requirements that will be the new loophole to allowing manufactures continue selling large fuel efficient but very profitable vehicles, and so on (there is more).
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why is it policy makers responsibility to make sure car manufactures create the most fuel efficient cars? Remember when business owners were in business because they made a quality product? Now they make cars just like inkjet printers ... the printers are there as a means to sell ink. If you really want a policy that makes sense, prevent anyone associated with the auto industry from investing in any type of fuel "futures". Once you take their money out of the product the car depends on, you will see the MPG skyrocket.
Wow, I thought the average Slashdotter was more intelligent than what I've been reading. ...'I think 98 percent of economists would say that we need higher gas taxes,' Knittel says." Since high tax rates directly equate to forced labor, why in the world would people want such a dystopic, Orwellian society???
The average American already has to work approximately four months before paying off their tax burden and only then are able to keep their hard earned money. Now economists, whose numbers are statistically are wrong much of the time, are brazenly stating we should embrace forced labor, oppression and overall dystopianism???
Seriously, wth is wrong with you people?!?
My first truck (in 1991)
1969 GMC 1500, 2wd, 5.7L engine, 4 barrel carburetor = 10.5 mpg average
My current truck (in 2012)
2006 Chevrolet 1500, 4wd crew cab, 6.0L engine, fuel injection = 16 mpg average
So my bigger truck, with a bigger engine that is capable of a LOT more horsepower, gets almost half again as good gas mileage. I would say that is fuel efficiency advances translating to better gas mileage.
YMMV (pun intended)
If raising taxes on gasoline would promote better fuel economy, why hasn't the doubling of gasoline prices in the past three years done the same thing? There certainly is a correlation, but it is not as drammatic as the MIT economist would have us believe. Being a professor at MIT makes him a liberal, and all liberals want higher taxes, so his or her conclusion was foregone as they say. Raising taxes is the solution for everything, and socialism is great until you run out of other people's money. Apolgies to Ms Thatcher... And I certainly agree with the Anonymous Coward who reported on his truck's mileage and power being much superior, improved from 1969 to 2006. Who hasn't seen that same kind of change except perhaps the MIT professor? I also get double the fuel mileage I used to get with the same horsepower, and also much lower maintenance costs; e.g., tune-ups every 100,000 miles instead of every 10,000 miles.
Synchronizing stop lights across the US = one less nuclear power plant
Because nobody brings up externalities unless they're trying to control it, tax it, or make an argument towards a thing or behavior they don't like.
Actually, people only talk about externalities when they're trying to correct a market failure. What do you think would be gained by a tax on breathing or going to the bathroom? It's not like you'd get people to breathe less. And it's not clear what externalities you'd even be trying to compensate for. You already pay for sewer and water service, and the only real harm you do by breathing is using energy, which you pay for when you buy food.
But there's a major market failure going on right now that could be corrected by a carbon tax. Excessive energy use is causing enormous real world damage right now: at least in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and trillions of dollars a year by some estimates. And that's happening because people have no direct incentive to do anything about it. This isn't some abstract, hypothetical problem. People are dying because of it.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
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They've got this all bass-ackwards. If they want to see consumers buy more efficient vehicles and use less gas then stop subsidizing power, particularly fossil fuels. Let the price of gasoline, electricity, etc all raise to their natural market highs. When consumers feel the punch in their pocket book they'll conserve more and consume less. It's really quite simple.
Another example of "Moral Hazard" in action? i.e., when we believe we are insulated against a risk we, change our behaviour with respect to that risk. e.g., there is no question that wearing a seatbelt lowers the risk of injury if you are involved in a crash. There is however reasonable evidence that the safety advantage is wholly or partially negated because drivers compensate by taking more risks (http://john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2006/SAE%20seatbelts.pdf). Does making more fuel efficient engines a) Cause motor industry to compensate by making higher power vehicles? b) Cause drivers to drive less efficiently because they believe motor is more fuel efficient?
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